Farewell Discovery Campers! (Saturday)

SATURDAY

Sabbath is my favorite day at camp and not just because I get to sleep until 8:00 am.

After a special breakfast tradition where the counselors have a picnic-style continental breakfast in the cabin, we all gather around the flagpoles at 10:30 am to start our day. For the morning we have a special program where campers get to go all over camp to accomplish different missions in a world that consists of Biblical characters.

Each cabin decorates their counselor to look like a Roman Soldier, Scribe, or Fisherman and then the characters from the Bible (scattered around camp) react to them in their different roles. It's a lot of fun and part of the challenge is that there is more to do in the activity than the children can do within the time limit. This means campers really need to prioritize, work together, and try to figure things out in short order.

I spent some time working with Nez Perce on the journey, and they were able to do about a dozen of the challenges in the assigned time. Considering that there are about 30 things they could choose from, I think they did pretty well. We dismissed for a bit of free time to clean-up for lunch, but soon mail call was upon us where the nurses did a short safety skit.

Lunch today was Special K Loaf, with mashed potatoes, gravy, bread, corn, salad bar, white or chocolate cake, fruit cocktail, jello, and there may have been whipped cream. I tried not to eat to much, but like so many other staff and campers I overdid it just a little.

Church is at 3:00 pm, and it went pretty well. It was a bit shorter than usual but these are our youngest group so it didn't feel wrong to make it last the entire hour. We dismissed to our PM activity a bit early and it really was the highlight of the day for some of the campers.

From 4:00 - 5:00 pm the campers get to test drive the 2017 theme year materials. It's really fun and we get to see if our stuff for next year is of the same quality as our 2016 program. I don't want to post to much about our testing, but I am very optimistic right now about how our future plans will be an interactive and positive influence on our campers.

Dinner tonight was build your own sandwich, salad bar, and watermelon. The soda machines have been off all week, but some of our visitors today were a bit surprised by this tradition. I am glad most of our parents are ok with the soda fast. Camp is about making decisions and practicing good choices, but I'm always worried about hydration and health with these children more than any other group we have at camp in the summer.

After dinner was vespers, and then we had skits and a "fireworks" display to celebrate the upcoming 4th of July. Don't worry, they're not real fireworks. The camp staff throw about 300 glowsticks in the air for about 8 minutes, and it's pretty neat.

After program it was time to pack and then get ready for bed. It's been such a great week of camp and it's my greatest hope that your campers will tell you all about their great week at PSR Camp tomorrow!

Blessings,

-Jeremy