the truth about camp or how awesome is cottage cheese?

I went to camp:

• My feet smelled BAD once released from the confines of the sneakers.  
• I ate cottage cheese. every. single. day. 
• I met a bunch of new people (80% of them were junior high age. Seeing as this was a junior high camp with 450+ junior high students, this is ok!)
• I waved my amazing YELLOW blow up 'foam' finger.... (and consequently lost it. Note to self: Do not lend foam fingers to junior high boys)
• I had a mohawk for 'mohawk day'. 
• I spent half a day on the ground waiting for someone to rescue me, because someone had the great idea to have 'attack day' where everybody shoots (pretend) blow darts at you and I just plain out suck at that game and got hit a lot.
• I got wet while kayaking, coz I didn't want to sit in the back. Instead I sat in the middle and almost SUNK the freaking boat. Not a boost for self esteem, but funny nevertheless. 
• I slept in a cabin and was surrounded by lots of dirt, rocks and trees. Some would call it beautiful. I call it nature. 
• I was part of the yellow team. We didn't win. 

It sounds ok, doesn't it? Not great (apart from the cottage cheese) but just ok...

But then you add the God factor. The God factor happens when you present these 450+ junior high students with truth.
The truth about self esteem and what they might see in the mirror (ugly, fat, etc) and how God sees them (beautiful, created with love).
The truth about not having to do everything on your own. Giving up the struggle and trusting God to take it. Surrendering things like drug use or addiction, family problems, peer pressure, alcoholism and more completely to God. (yes, those are all real problems junior high kids struggle with. I suggest you start talking with your kid!)
And the truth about community. The answer to the question of what comes after camp? What happens when I fall back? What happens when I get abused again? 

When you add the God factor to camp it takes camp from ok to mind blowingly great. It makes cottage cheese fade into the background and helps me see the students for who they are. And it gives me hope for this next generation. They can change the world. They will tell others about Jesus. As long as I will tell them! 

Rain Drops Junior High

The Junior High Ministry at church puts on this awesome event each year: Breakaway Serve. It's a mix of camp and serving. 
So this year I got to go with my Junior High Group (8th grade girls) and serve others.

Part of the panel,
 getting asked questions about serving

 So on Friday night we started with just a 'couple' of us hanging at church (read: over 300 Junior High Kids)

The panel

There was a slam poet, worship and a panel (I was part of that. Pretty rat!)
















And then there was a time to be quiet. To listen to God, give Him room to speak. Just 20 minutes. So the bare numbers are: 300+ Junior High Kids and 20 min quietness. You might be surprised to hear that it worked! Here's a photo of that time. 

Getting ready for quiet time

Then we camped out at church. Boys upstairs (and I still maintain that the room probably need to be chemically treated to get the boys smell out of there) and the girls downstairs (once everyone was in their sleeping bag there was no room to stand anywhere anymore)

Aspiring super models! 

The next morning we got up and drove over to Foster Connect...


Say whaaaat? That's right, we got to serve Foster Connect, which is a part of YWAM I got to hang with my friends! 


You didn't know that serving could be so much fun eh? We took HEAPS of pictures, especially since we were sorting clothes and there was one photo op after another. I have a group of super models after all! 


Don't worry, we totally got the job done in time! 

Having fun whilst sorting

So we sorted clothes and toys for the first half of the day... And let me tell ya, my girls RULE! 


They were just going for it the whole time. Sometimes when things got a little boring and they seemed ready to quit I just had to throw a ridiculous outfit into their direction and take a picture and all was well with the world again! 




The theme of Breakaway serve this year was raindrops. The idea behind it is that if we all do our part (be a rain drop), together we can create a Tsunami. 

Dropping some leftover stuff
at Good Will

So even though sometimes we feel very unimportant and can't imagine how our tiny little contribution can change anything, that's when God takes it and together with Him we become this Tsunami of servants that will change the world. 

Stuffing bags

 For the second half of the day we got to stuff bags for Central's North East Campus. I don't even know how many bags we got to stuff... Couple thousand I'd say. And man, these girls wanted to win some speed competition that I didn't know was happening. They were stuffing these bags like there was some prize money at the end of it. 

Stuffing Bags

The picture obviously doesn't do the speed justice. Let's just say they were fast! 

A 'couple' of kids came to Breakaway serve