Yesterday ended with
a few big sighs, a few 'wow, glad that's over!' and several 'I'm so tired!'
comments. Day 1 of camp went really
well, even though there are inevitably kinks to work out every year, no matter
how much you plan. Our newbies feel much
better with the first day of camp under their belts, and the whole team is a
little more relaxed as it's all coming back to them!
After the rather
lengthy day of Camp, several of our teens and adult leaders accompanied the
campers home, filing out of the driveway in a large red van, a large gray van,
and a giant white school bus. In the
morning we send out those 3 vehicles, one to the South, one to the East, and
another to the West, hitting different villages on the reservation, in order to
bus kids into the Camp for the day. The
farthest away route pulls out of the drive at 7:15-7:30am in order to pick up
all the kids and be back to the camp by 9:00am.
At the end of camp, everyone piles back in to the vehicles and heads
back home, some of our group doesn't return until 4:30-4:45pm.
Day 1 is always
difficult, adjusting to the new schedule, and by the end of the day our teens
are often pretty worn out. We gave them
just a moment or two of down time to collect themselves and rest….momentarily
being the key word. I find that the
phrase 'The work is never done' is very accurate on missions trips. Last nights task included fixing part of the
roof on the Activity Building that was torn off in a mini-tornado just last
week. Most of the team was still out
dropping off campers, but the 1-2 boys we still had at the camp enjoyed a
little roof action, but let me tell ya, we have some mighty strong women in our
group!! The ladies carried the bulk of
the metal sheeting up to the building.
Shortly after fixing
the roof, a storm was headed our way.
All around the camp in a large circle you could see the rain falling
from dark clouds, and could hear the thunder rumble and the lighting strike. It is interesting how different storms are
out in the wide open spaces verses back home in a neighborhood where very
little unblocked sky is seen. On the one
hand the storms are so intriguing to watch, yet on the other hand, the lack of
trees to stop the wind and the sand storms from blowing is a bit unnerving and
at times a bit scary. We camped together
in the activity building until the storm blew over.
The highlight of the
evening was a trip to the nearest Gas Station, Common Cents. Yep, you read that right! Out here the views are beautiful and
breathtaking, and the quiet is incredible…but there is NOTHING close by, save
for the gas station about 15 minutes away.
Our teens became used to running across the street to the gas station in
the past few years when we operated the day camp out of the local church, so
this year when everything has been moved out to the camp the one thing they
'really miss' is the quick trips across the street for a candy fix, or a
slushie fix!
All in all, we have
AWESOME teens in our youth group, don't we!?
They have all been SO great at jumping in where needed, and not
complaining about experiencing very little rest. The are great about realizing what needs to
be done, who needs extra help and spending quality time with our campers.
Team Member
Spotlight: Rachael Sherman, 1st year
Team Member
"The campers
have been wonderful, it's been a delight serving them and I'm glad that I've
gotten to know my teammates better! Lakota rocks!!"
1 comment:
Thanks for that excellent update, Debi. Our family is praying!
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