Lessons_Learned_at_Summer_Camp

Gazing up at the clouds, I thought of all the great times I had been a part of. The whole week had been full of excitement. Every day was a payoff of all of the work put into this experience. "Did it have to end so quickly'" I wondered to myself. "Just think of next year", I said to comfort my disbelief, "Its going to be ten times the fun. I'll make sure of that." After what seemed like years of waiting, the day of camp finally arrived. I hastily packed my bags and threw them in my car. My sister on the other hand, was late. She took forever putting her bags together and she walked out of the house as slow as a snail. "Hurry up!" I yelled at her. "I'm sorry." She replied. The only thing I could say was "Sure, whatever." But, I wasn't going to let this get in the way of my excitement. I was so charged with a "rush" as I pulled out of the driveway. I arrived at the guest ranch that we would be staying at around the same time as everyone else. It was later in the evening so the first item on our agenda was to eat supper. After we ate, the seventeen of us students and the six counselors all had a short chapel meeting. Following the meeting, we all played a game of capture the flag out in the trees by the ranch and then hit the sack. The next day I woke up and went through my usual morning strategy of preparing myself for the exciting day to come. I had breakfast with the rest of the group followed by an intense game of horseshoes. Then we had what is called "Quiet Time." It is a time that each of us went off somewhere by ourselves and read our bible or reflected on events that have happened. I went and sat in the shade of one of the trees. It was an incredible half-hour. I took a look at nature and realized how awesome God really is. I saw all kinds of insects and different pieces of life. It was a neat feeling that I had that morning. The rest of the day the group and I played games and had some time to go where we wanted to. During a game of horseshoes, Nathan carelessly threw a horseshoe out of control towards me. It nailed the ground several feet in front of me and then proceeded to whack my leg. A shot of pain rose up my leg. "I'm so sorry!" Were the first words out of Nathan's mouth. "Sure. Why did you throw it like that in the first place'" I said. "I don't know." Was all he could say. After the morning activities were over, I ate some lunch and had somewhat of a laid back rest of the day. Then that evening we all had supper. After supper everyone went out on the deck for our nightly chapel. That evening's chapel was one that I will keep with me forever. That night the speaker talked about forgiveness. I basically learned that forgiveness is extremely important and essential in having a relationship with Christ. His message gave me a good smack in the face. I realized how important it is to forgive others whether they ask for it or not. For the longest time I would just say "sure, whatever," or something to that effect whenever someone would apologize to me. I walked away from chapel that night changed in my own way. From then on I was determined to make sure everyone who apologized to me knew that I had forgiven him or her. I wanted others to notice the change by my "walk" not by my "talk." Later we played capture the flag in the dark. It was really hard to see anything so there were lots of bumps, bruises, and cactus incidents. The game lasted a long time due to each team's strategy of defending the flag with most of their people. Eventually my team lost, but that's all right because we had a blast. Everyone was very tired after the game so we went to bed. The next day was an unbelievably fun day. We even woke up with enthusiasm, because that day we were going to the Crawford Reservoir to have a barbecue, raft race and the long awaited "Mud Bowl." When we arrived at the reservoir we unloaded all of the material for the raft race. Then we got started on building the rafts. The three teams got 15 minutes to build their raft. My team had four people on it. We built our raft as best we could in the time we had. Then the race began. Each team had to float their raft across the reservoir and back. The reservoir, were we crossed, was about 75 yards. All of us were vigorously swimming and doing our best to be the first to get the raft across and back. Needless to say, it was a very exhausting race and my team ended up getting second. We didn't stay exhausted for long though, because there were lots of hungry teens and it was lunchtime. When lunch was over and we had all rested for a little while we had the "Mud Bowl." I found the muddiest spot by the reservoir that I could find and then we all covered ourselves from head to toe in mud. We all ran wild through the mud pit or at least tried too. The fifty pounds of mud that was caked all over our bodies made it incredibly hard to do anything much at all. We attacked each other with mud and made sure that no one had a clean spot on them. During one such attack, Alex accidentally through some mud in my face. "I'm so sorry about that." He said. Cleansing my eyes I replied, "That's ok. It was bound to happen." I immediately felt better about myself. The new change I had formed made others feel better and it also made me feel better too. When the day's activities where all done we went back to the ranch and got cleaned up. It took forever to get all of the mud off of our bodies, but when we finally did it felt nice to be clean again. Later that evening we gathered on the deck for chapel. Then after chapel I got in the hot tub for a while. Actually a long while, for approximately three and a half-hours. Three of the counselors joined me and we talked about lots of different things including college, and some of the theories that the professors have. I ended up getting out of the hot tub at about two in the morning. I looked like a "sharpei". The next day everyone pretty much did as they pleased. We played some Killer Uno for most of the day. That evening we had another chapel. After the chapel we had a talent show. The boys did one and the girls did one. Us boys put on a five- ten minute play. Only four of us were in it, but it turned out good. It was about recycling different kinds of lint. I played a young midget boy who recycled lint, Harton played a younger man who was curious about lint recycling, and Parker played the man's wife. Alex was our stage manager. It was really hilarious seeing and hearing all of us. The four girls then demonstrated how to put make-up on in the morning. The trick was one girl was behind the other girl. The girl in front couldn't use her hands, only the girl in back could, but the girls in back couldn't see what she was doing so it made into a comical show. There were two pairs of girls in all. The next morning was our last there at camp. I got to talk to one of the counselors about all of the preparations that had been made for this camp. It was the first time we had done something like this. I had worked really hard on this camp. I devoted a lot of time into it. "The hard work really did pay off didn't it'" he asked me. "Yes." I replied, "It did and I learned a lot too." After breakfast I went and stood out on the deck. It was going to be a beautiful day. It was just me and the gorgeous outdoors. Then my sister joined me. "Sorry for disturbing you, but-" was all she could say before I interrupted her with a chuckle. "Its all good." I said. " I could use some company." I had learned a very valuable lesson during that week of camp. A lesson that I will remember for all of my days. We stood there in the cool breeze that was drifting over our bodies listening to the sounds and gazing up at the clouds.