This summer Sugar Creek’s beauty and community found a deep spot in my heart and they will never be replaced.  And as hard as it is now being away from it, I thank my Father for leading me on to and through the summer.  Because the summer was from Him, I know that I will always have it in my heart and no matter where I go in life, it will be with me.  I had the privilege of working with 64 other Sugar Creek Staff this summer, all whom are amazing Brothers and Sisters in Christ and whom I will be praying for everyday.  Together we served over 2,500 campers this summer.  Forty of whom were my very own campers.  It’s the feeling of a lifetime to know that I touched so many lives, even if I don’t see it now and never do in the future.  God knows how what He worked through me into their hearts is taking root and will show me in time.  

The first two weeks at camp were set aside for Staff Training… And while at times it was dull and the sessions drug on forever, it was a great time.  We spent time bonding in our family groups (Go Blue Barracudas!) and rooms (Koi 4 all the way!), which was incredibly important.  I am so thankful for that time and sorry that I took it for granted.  Because once summer got moving there wasn’t time for much bonding with people who you weren’t working directly with.  

Week One I was on Wagons with ED, Phil and Kyle.  I only had five campers who were going into 5th and 6th grade, but I was scared out of my mind to cook over a fire, use an outhouse, and sleep in a wagon.  But I made it through the week and had a great time!  

Week Two I had a surprise and was put on River Boats.  Kathryn was my co-counselor and Jesse, Ace (Amanda), Kirsten and Matt were on the other two boats.  Our boat had ten girls (eight who were going into 9th grade and two who were going into 10th) and a blast!  It was the hottest summer of the week so we spent all of one afternoon in the river doing River Boat Olympics.  This week is tied with weeks three and seven as my favorite weeks!  

Week Three I was on Wagons again, this time with Laura, Amanda and Kyle.  My campers were AMAZING!  I had seven girls and although they were going into 6th grade, they had deep faith and thoughts.  And they taught me so much!  One thing I learned was to not say that something is a coincidence, but rather a God-incidence  

Week Four I was on wagons for the 3rd time in four weeks!  It was really nice though because I knew how to work with the busy schedule and became so good at making fires that I made a huge one in the rain.  I worked with Jordo, Nikki and Kim and again had seven girls going into 6th grade.  I had to deal with my first cases of homesickness this week, but it wasn’t too bad. 

Week Five I was on Day Camp in Onalaska with Beth, Nikki and Jeff.  We had approximately 30 kids from First Lutheran church at a park near the high school.  I personally had nine boys and girls going into 5th grade in my bible study.  I had some problem boys and my patience was tested with them and all the other kids, but overall it was a great week.  After being on camp for four weeks I definitely needed the extra relaxation and received it at the Antony’s (our host family).

Week Six I was on Sugar Creek’s first ever Horse Ranch.  We had 37 campers total and I personally had seven girls all going into 6th grade (and yep, you guessed it, we lived in the wagon village).  Ace (Amanda), Jesse, Elise, Ya-Ya (Sara) and I were all kind of frustrated with the lack of direction and communication, but overall it was still a good week.  We went on three trail rides and I rode Anders (a Norwegian Fiord) each time. 

Week Seven is tied with Weeks 2 and 3 as my favorite… I was on Settlers and had four girls going into 8th grade (we had a pretty small village with only 21 campers total).  They were fabulous and I was led my best bible study of the summer with them!  Working with Elise, Katie and Bryce also added to the fantabulousness of the week.  We spent half the week on camp and the other half camping at Black Hawk Campground and then canoeing down the Mississippi to Lansing, IA.   

Week Eight I was disappointed to be on Day Camp in Waunakee with Kelly, Heidi and Eric but it ended up to be a pretty good week.  We had 35ish campers and a bunch of high school helpers and camp was held at the church (Peace Lutheran).  I had the second oldest group of campers (so going into 3rd and 4th grade) and had about nine campers in all depending on the day.   

And then before I knew it, it was the last night at camp… We spent a few hours doing a deep cleaning of the whole camp, ate an awesome dinner, and then had Coffee House.  Coffee House is hard to explain… It’s kind of like little acts that you might see at a coffee house, like a talent show, but not quite.  Anyway, it was two or three hours of pure hilariousness (and a few tears).  Then we sat around the fire pretty late (or early depending on how you look at it) while people burned things like a staff shirt and policies and procedures.   Saturday morning we were woken up very early by Backstreet Boys blaring on the intercom and cleaned our rooms and common rooms in our buildings for a few hours.  Then we had our closing staff worship, which ended with the last singing of our staff song.  By hug-time a lot of people were crying and even I shed a few tears, but tried to soak in the happiness of moment instead of the sadness (the crying came latter once I was back in Winona).  I gave Johnna a ride to LaCrosse and we were walked down to my car by Danielle and Jo, who are both staying for Family Camp and wanted to stand in front of the car so we would stay too. 

So now here I am, back in Winona and missing Sugar Creek so much that I’ve randomly started crying a few times.  I know it’ll get better, but right now I’m just letting the love and change of this summer spread over me. Sugar Creek Bible Camp 2009 was the most blessed and best summer of my life because God was in every aspect of it, and I praise Him for that

Week 7 took me out to the Mighty Mississippi again, though this time with 8^th graders and canoes.  It was a blast was right up there as my favorite along with weeks 2 and 3.  I only had four campers (all incredible girls) and worked with Katie, Elise and Bryce (after Ross had to leave us due to ear infections in both his ears).  We spent Sunday-Tuesday afternoon on camp and then were at Blackhawk Campground from Tuesday until Thursday afternoon when we canoed down river to be picked up in Lansing.  It was a week full of laughter for many reasons…

Watching the campers practice swamping canoes was probably the highlight, so I’ll start there.  We had a few groups of campers who just couldn’t seem to tip their canoes.  One of them was a group of Nick’s (three of the seven boys were named Nick) who literally jumped out of their canoe.  Then we had a girl (Kami) who was turned facing the person paddling in the back of the canoe.  We were yelling out to her to turn around and they were screaming back, “We’re trying!” as they were attempting to turn their canoe around, not Kami herself.  When she finally got the message and turned around she started screaming, “Dead fish!”  We called back that it wouldn’t hurt her since it was dead to which she stood up and screamed, “IT’S ALIVE!”  I am proud to announce however that she rescued the fish by picking it up and dropping it back into the water, though none of us counselors saw it because we were all laughing hysterically on shore.  We also had several campers loose shoes in the foot of muck at the bottom and one of my campers was stuck for ten minutes as my other camper swam the canoe to shore all by herself.

Although we only had 21 campers total, they were horrible at listening and behaving.  The boys were especially bad about lights out at night so finally one night when we heard them goofing off near the outhouse we sent Bryce over to make them to do pushups.  Katie, Elise and I watched from a distance as they all got quiet and acted like they had done nothing wrong and then we laughed as they immediately all dropped to the ground. 

We did a lot of really ridiculous things throughout the course of the week including doing High School Musical style jumps into the pool at 7 am one morning, playing Ship to Shore in the water, duct taping the outside zippers of the tents shut so that we could tell if a camper went to a different tent during the night, eating lots of dry Happy Shapes because no one packed spoons, and singing The Song That Never Ends at talent show.

My four campers and I wore sequenced headbands all week and called ourselves the Fantabulous Five Sparkly Hippies.  They were amazing campers and I was able to have excellent bible studies and devotionals that related directly to them.  It felt great to know that I was providing them with verses and thoughts on problems they are directly dealing with verses just throwing out random bible study passages.  They also loved having my tuck them in at night and actually called me over to their tent one night when I forgot.

Ross had something extra special set up for the campers after worship on Thursday, and although it took longer than we thought, it was amazing!  The labyrinth was set up inside with four different stations to stop at along the path and their counselor sitting in the middle waiting to pray with them.  Each cabin went separately while the others sat outside of the RC listening to various stories.  The atmosphere inside the room was amazing… It was dark except for candles (which smelled good as well) and there was some really soothing music playing…  It was even an amazing experience for me even though I didn’t even walk through it and was just sitting in the middle.  This and Spirit Worship are both things I definitely plan on remembering and using in the future.

There were a lot of lasts week 7… My last week with my own campers, my last Christ Hike (I was the man with the withered hand and a disciple for the 5^th time this summer), my last Christmas cards, my last week on camp, and my last cabin cleaning…  Some of it (like the latter) won’t be missed… But most of it will be…

Oh and I forgot something else really important about week 7… I didn’t shower all week!  YEY!!!