Summer Solstice

If you look closely in the background, you will see this cow's twins. 

Another week has come and gone....very quickly! I can't believe I've already been in Alaska for almost 4 months! Wow. 

This week was Faith Adventure camp for 4th-6th graders. These campers sure have a lot of energy. They were going all the time...breakfast, cabin cleaning, Morning Watch, TAG Time (Time Alone with God), Family Groups, group games, lunch, FOOFBOB (nap time){the counselors LOVE this part of the schedule}, swimming, Crafts, snack, more games or boating or swimming, supper, all camp game, Worship, snack, and finally bed time! Try saying all that in one breath! Even after all that these kids are still going 9-0. 

It was a lot of fun to see how excited this group was about God. They got pretty excited about TAG time and even more excited about the music at the nightly worship. We couldn't sing Happy Day enough! 

Music seems to be such a powerful tool to connect with God and learn some new things about His character. It is really amazing. I know that not all people connect with God through music, but for me it is very powerful. 

Quotes of the week: "What was that verse(Philippians 1:3-6) about?" "Well, it was about Paul Bunyan saying thank you. A lot." :)

"It's true. They only serve the best at Birchwood." This was while we were eating pizza for supper. I believe the night before Al, a volunteer aka Camp Grandpa, was telling the campers about the hot dogs we were about to cool over a camp fire. He said they only serve the best at Birchwood, and that's why they had kangaroo rat hot dogs from New Mexico, Gila Monster from down south, Rattle Snake from Texas, porcupine, and about 7 other varieties of hot dogs that the kids could choose from. He is an excellent story teller. 

A little off topic, but when I get home there are a few things I will be extra thankful for...fewer Mosquitos, a bathroom inside my house (the chance of running into a bear or moose in the middle of the night deter most people from making numerous mid-night bathroom trips...also I won't have to ward off the bugs on my way to brush my teeth), and being able to actually unpack my suitcase. The saying is true...it really is the little things that make all the difference.

Only One more week of camp left. MAD camp. That is because by this point in the summer all of the counselors have gone mad :) or it might be Music and Drama camp! The campers will be putting on a production of "Malice in the Palace" more commonly known as Esther. It will be a good way to end the summer!

  The new resident moose of Birchwood. He has been back several times this past week. 

Also, it was the summer solstice this weekend. We went to a Solstice festival in Anchorage for a bit and then to a Solstice  party. It was fun. Nothing too spectacular though. Now the days will only get shorter. 

Birchwood Camp Weeks 1&2---Alaska 2013

Well, another couple weeks have passed. We have had two camps so far. 1st-3rd grade and then 7th-12th grade. That was quite a difference in ages. 

The first camp was God Seekers. It was only 3 days which was perfect for that age group. They definitely had a lot of energy. I think there were about 40 campers. We did have a lot of fun...needless to say we spent most of our days herding kids from one place to the next. That had its pros and cons. It was exciting to see the kids learn new things about God. My favorite part was watching the campers sing some of the camp songs. For example, we sang one called "The Karate Song." As you might imagine, it had some actions and sound effects. Those little ones really got into it. Even of they didn't quite know all the words, they sang at the top of their lungs!

Another exciting part of God Seekers camp I didn't know about until Friday evening was we had an unexpected visitor on camp Thursday night to the dumpster. Earlier in the week, they had put up a trail cam on the dumpster to catch any action, and sure enough they caught a bear on camera. A large brown bear came to the dumpster, tipped it over, opened it, and ate a little of the food that was left in it. Now keep in mind that the dumpster was supposed to be bear proof.

The weekend was pretty relaxing. We went into Anchorage for lunch and a trip to the Saturday Market a.k.a. tourist trap. There were a bunch of little tents with food and trinkets for sale. Some of the stuff was pretty cool, but I could tell other stuff was just a rip off. It was a fun was to spend the afternoon. That evening, a family in Chugiak invited us to supper for a BBQ. The highlights of the meal were grilled salmon and homemade root beer! Yum!!! A story of the evening was that the family across the road was having a garage sale, and a momma moose and her twins decided to stop by the sale for a bit. We never got to see the moose, but it was still a good story. 

Youth camp was a whole other story. It was a real challenge changing my thought process from lower elementary mode to junior high and high school mode. I will say it was nice to not be herding kids from building to building.  It was interesting to see the dynamic of jh and sr. high together. 

My cabin was mostly upper high school girls. It was awesome to be able to connect with them. The evening worship services were amazing. It was great to see how open all the campers were to trying new things. For one of the worship activities, everyone took a handful of ash to represent the desert in their life, and then they went down to the lake to have their "desert" washes away by the water. It was super cool. There were a lot of other cool worship experiences as well. I get the opportunity to play with the Birchwood Band aka the Woodchucks for the music portion of worship. It was fun to play with a whole band. 

Throughout the week, the campers really opened up to the many opportunities to share how God was working in their lives. Some of the high school girls in my cabin mentioned how cool it was to see the junior high kids get up and share stories about how God was working in each of their lives. Since the campers were older, we were able to play games with them and really connect at another level with them. 

Playing on the worship team was unbelievable. It was like having a front row seat to see God working in the building. Awesome. God is so good. 

Another perk of the older group was that we had an opportunity to participate in a native sweat ceremony at a sweat lodge that was built at Birchwood. It was very interesting. Kelly, the gal who lead us through the process, said that a sweat is to help you really focus on God. Since your body is so hot, you can either choose to focus on the heat or God. 

There were 4 rounds of prayer....cleansing, prayers for others, thanksgiving, and blessings you are asking God for. When I first walked into the lodge, I didn't know if I would be able to handle being in there for an hour. Then I just made up my mind I would stay for a little while. I'm glad I did. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure my body was cleansed of all impurities. My clothes were completely soaked with sweat. Even my knee caps were sweating. I didn't know knee caps could sweat! 

Friday night we got a chance to simply relax for a while. That was really nice. I was also glad to be able to sleep without worrying about campers. It was a very restful sleep. 

Saturday afternoon we took a trip to town to pick up this and that, and then we went to supper at a Tex-Mex place called Jalapeños. The food was pretty delicious. 

After supper, we(all of the interns) decided it would be a nice evening for a kayak ride. So we took some inflatable kayaks and a couple of real kayaks out on the lake. We didn't intend on getting wet, but that soon changed. If you saw the inflatable kayaks, you would see that they look similar to surf boards. I thought it would be fun to run off the dock and slide onto the water like I was surfing or something. As you may have already guessed, it didn't turn out very well. When the kayak hit the water, it immediately flipped. I got a good laugh out of that. Maybe I will try it again someday. :) In the end, we all went swimming. It was a blast. 

That evening we started helping a couple people move out and old convection oven and put in a new one. It was quite the process. We started about 9pm and didn't finish til about 12. We ended up having to take out doors and move appliances to get the old oven out. Luckily we had about 8 people there to help. We were even able to have a designated mosquito killer when we were moving the oven outside the building. It was a good project to get done. We has decided we are now interns by day and construction workers by night. :)

I'm looking forward to another day of rest tomorrow. I think the campers this next week are going to be pretty energetic. They are 4th-6th graders. I can't wait to see what God has in store for us next week. I'm sure it is going to be amazing. 

Back to Alaska!

Back to Alaska!

Well, it's summer #2 in Alaska. I've been here about a week now, and it's been great :)  I got into Anchorage about 11pm (1am Mountain Time). Surprisingly enough, I was so worn out from traveling I slept til about 9:30 the next morning. 

During my layover in Seattle, a saw some pretty neat planes...maybe I will be able to fly on one of these bad boys one day. 

I toured around AK a little bit. We walked around a little path near Flat Top Mountain, went to the Zoo, and went to a small pullout near the ocean. 

I was also able to get in some good reading time. "Dreamers" by Angela Hunt...AMAZING! It is a three book series about Joseph and his journey from the bottom of a well pit to the 2nd most powerful man in Egypt. A great read. I'm on round 2. 

On Wednesday, I got to head out to camp in the evening. Thursday we started with a hearty breakfast of biscuits and gravy! Yum :) There are 6 interns at the camp from all over the country...Ohio, Idaho, Georgia, Texas, and Montana. There are two from Georgia...just incase you only counted five states. The girls are Helen, Meagan, Shannon, and me. The guys are Gabe and Ches. We will be here for at least the entire month of June and some are staying into August. 

It's really exciting to hear what each of us are excited to do this year at camp and how our personalities really do compliment each other. God knows what's going on :)

Continuing Thursday, we learned a little about each other and some of the camp rules. It is interesting to see a new style and new ideas of how camp can be organized. One thing that is obviously different is the fact that we have about a week of training before camp even starts. 

We spent most of the day with Stephen and Marie, the camp managers. They live at camp year round. They were telling us that they only have a couple free weekends during the year. Birchwood Camp hosts a variety groups year round. Stephen and Marie both seem very passionate about creating a positive and energizing camp environment and giving campers the ultimate camp experience. 

Friday, we did much of the same; however, we were also able to work with Brent and Liz, some other camp residents, on figuring out our personalities. 

Today we also learned much about animal safety. The camp is in a pretty woodsy area, so there is an occasional bear or moose. Also, the camp has a couple porcupines that like to wander around camp. Their names are Eddie and Edwina...it's anyone's guess which porcupine is which. The camp moose are Rufus and Rufina. I'm pretty sure the bears don't have names...they aren't really welcomed in camp. Now hopefully I will be able to remember all the bear safety tips when I need too :)

After supper, we went on a short hike toward Harp Mountain. We didn't make it very far up the mountain, but we did find some snow and were able to do a little sledding. Meagan, the girl from Texas, requested we find some snow. As you might imagine they don't get a lot of snow down there. 

I am really excited to see how God is going to use all of us to work together this summer. I'm sure he is going to so some awesome things this summer!

If you could keep us in you prayers, we would really appreciate it. One main prayer request would be that we would be able to take in and remember all the important information we are learning during this training. Also that we would be aware of what God is talking to each of us about, and that we would be obedient to what we hear. 

Thanks for tuning in. 

Over and out.