Ali Ballweg

Sugar Creek had a very special week with the very first ever Fine Arts week!  There were many different programs going on including Music, Theatre, Art, Norwegian and… Horse.  Horse camp was the biggest program with 5 counselors (4 of us lived in Wagons and 1 in the Discoverer cabins).  The campers had a lot of fun and enjoyed the extra time with the horses, however the disorganization and lack of communication was quite frustrating for all of us on staff.  At least a lot of insight was gained for next year. 

On a happier note, I had some great campers and did some cool things! We had quite a bit of free time this week and took advantage of that by going to the pool and canteen everyday, which was super nice.  We also got to package food for Feed My Starving Children again as well as spend an evening at Outpost (I was in charge of games and I made a new version of Ship to Shore and called it Barn to Pasture).  We had some awesome electives, one of which was lasso with Bryce and Jesse.  They had James dress up as a bull (complete with cups ducked taped to a hemet) and taught the kids how to lasso and hog tie.  It was quite hilarious for those involved and those of us who were just watching from afar. 

We got to go on 3 horse rides this week, one of which was an hour and a half (and my stirrups were too short so my knees killed the whole time).  I got Anders the Norwegian Fiord all 3 times so now he and I are great buddies.  Actually this week got me more comfortable around all the horses in general. 

I have a few funny stories from the week to share and the first one happened Sunday evening.  I was unrolling the window flap on the outside of our wagon when I touched and saw a bat!  I was so startled and scared that I screamed and jumped backwards off the ledge that is about 4 feet off the ground.  Another story is when Bryce bet about 15 of the campers that they couldn’t pull a post out of the ground with the lasso rope that he was having them stretch out.  Turns out he knew a few days earlier a few of the horses had loosened it and it needed to come out anyway so after a few minutes they were able to do it and were super proud of themselves.  We ended up having to have the closing festival/program in the barn (and barnyard) because of rain, but it was still fun and one of the activities was “So you think you can pull a wagon?” and all 5 of us counselors had some of our campers pull us around the barnyard in one of the wagons in the rain, which was great fun.

This week I worked with Elise, Sara H., Jesse and Ace (as well as working closely with Jo, Jessica, Heidi and Bryce) and I have to give them all credit for being amazing counselors even though many times we had no clue what was going on.  On top of that, Elise had several difficult campers and yet still was able to make it through the week in one piece.  Praise God for helping her and all of us through it!  We did it and now we only have 2 weeks left!  I’m off on Settlers this week (8th graders who canoe for 3 days on the Mississippi)! 

This week I did a Day Camp for First Lutheran Church in Onalaska with Beth, Jeff and Nikki…. And it was awesome!  We had 32 campers entering grades 1-5 (for Bible Studies I was with 9 campers all entering 5th) at a local park from 9-3 Monday-Thursday.  

We stayed with Tina, Brian and Dominick Antony (Dom is 12).  They are an awesome family and staying with them was an awesome experience.  They had a boxer named Madison and three cats, Orange Julius, Sydney and Otto, all of whom we enjoyed immensely. 

We had dinner with different people every night, which was awesome for connecting with multiple people in the church.  The couple who made us dinner the first night took us boating which was super fun.  I tubbed twice but still managed to get a sore neck.  The people the second and third nights made us keep eating and eating and although it was very yummy… I felt very sick. 

Overall it was a great week, though I did find out that I like older campers better.  This coming week I am on Horse Camp at Wagons with girls going into 6th grade and the week after that I’m on Settlers with girls going into 8th grade.  And then there’s only one week of camp left… AHHHH!!! 

(PS: Pictures from this week and the fair will be posted next weekend)  

I now consider myself a seasoned veteran on Wagons, considering that I just completed my third week in four weeks.  I had another good week, though not as great as last week (but that’d be really hard to beat).  Activity wise this week was almost a mirror of last week so I’ll just share the new things we did and a few big things that stand out.

            An amazing opportunity arrived at Sugar Creek on Sunday in the form of a truck full of supplies for our very own Feed My Starving Children set-up.  If you’ve never heard of Feed My Starving Children then you should check out www.fmsc.org because it is an awesome organization that I’ve wanted to be apart of for some time.  Over the first three weeks of camp our campers donated to something we call the Hunger Jar.  We we’re sure exactly which organization it would go to but it was decided that we would use it to get involved with Kids Against Hunger.  Our village group (27 campers) watched a video about the difference FMSC is making and then split into three stations for packaging.  They only spent about 15 minutes packaging, but packaged enough meals for 620 people.  This will be going on all summer and is something that I am very excited about!

            I experience my first homesick camper this week and while it was challenging, it was also rewarding for both her and myself because we made it through the whole week and had fun in doing so.  Between dealing with that, several campers feeling sick at different points in the week, and one of my campers losing two teeth, I felt very much like a mom this week.

            I have another few fun stories with fires again this week.  I burnt three of my fingers on a Dutch oven lid that I thought had cooled long enough and had the nurse come visit me.  Thankfully the nurse this week was Phil’s mom who is amazing and I healed in no time.  On Wednesday morning I woke up to pouring rain and thought to myself, “Humm, how are we supposed to start a fire to eat breakfast?”  Turns out you can indeed start a cooking fire in rain and I can proudly report that I did so (and without the lighter fluid that Bryce offered).  However I was a nervouse wreck the whole time I was cooking the bacon and eggs because I was sure I was going to have a grease fire.  But I didn’t!  Yey!

            I also experienced something else really awesome… At Wednesday night worship we wash our campers feet as an act of service towards them and this week after I had washed all my campers feet, one of them asked if she could wash mine.  I said no because that wasn’t the point of what we were doing, but I was deeply moved by her thinking of that and asking me. 

            Well the summer with campers is now half done and I must admit that I have had a blast (as you can tell from reading and looking at pictures), I am also completely exhausted and looking forward to being on Day Camp in Onalaska this week.  I’ll actually get to sleep, not constantly have smoke in my eyes, AND get to shower!  YES!!!

During Week 3 I found myself back at Wagons, this time with Laura, Kyle and Amanda.  It was much cooler this week (almost cold at times) and just an awesome week overall.  I was a little nervous going into the week because I had 7 campers (a full wagon), but they were all amazing girls and had deep hearts for Christ.  It was nice being on Wagons again because I was pretty familiar with the schedule already.  

            Monday and Tuesday were super busy but a lot of people stepped up to help out.  We came back from initiatives on Monday night to find that the Staff In Training campers had started our dinner fires for us, which made our Dutch oven chicken and rice even better. On Tuesday I got a little upset because I didn’t have any time for bible study on Tuesday and that’s what we’re here for.  However after talking to Karsten about it, he stepped up and took some of the other campers during canteen so that I could have some time with my girls doing bible study.  Also on Tuesday afternoon we had a counseling staff meeting while the support staff played games with our campers and Jake brought cookies and hot chocolate for us!  Tuesday night we had a pool party and then pool worship and it was FREEZING, but the kids still had fun and then we actually got to take showers.  We also did electives on both Monday and Tuesday night and I led frog catching the first night and card games the second. 

            Wednesday and Thursday offered some free time, which my campers and I spent doing the labyrinth, making bracelets, creek stomping, swimming, hiking, and at canteen.  We also had some fun Thursday afternoon sneaking around and hiding from the Pony Express (Bryce) and doing a tough questions session with Sherry (the Chaplin).  On Wednesday night we did a special village devotional with Brandon in the barn where he reads scriptures about the second coming to music.  It was kind of scary for some of the campers, but after we debriefed it they definitely all liked it.  Wednesday evening was the all-camp activity of Romans and Christians and this week I had a play a Roman soldier who took campers to jail.  I was appalled at how many of the campers denied they were Christians, however after talking to my campers about it and how bad they felt about it I realized the important lesson that it taught many of the campers.  Thursday evening was the Christ Hike, which I was not in this week, so I just walked along. 

A few big things that happened this week were the finding of a huge wolf spider (whom we named Wolfie) by one of the campers in the outhouse, my first grease fire (as I was browning hamburger the flames lapped over and I started freaking out, but thankfully Manda was there and stayed calm and we got it put out), and I can finally start fires in 10 minutes or less!

            Friday was a crazy busy day, like always, and it was really sad to see my wonderful campers go.  I have a full wagon again this week and I hope all continues to go smoothly, but even if it doesn’t, I know Christ will provide.  Please be praying for me!

Surprise!  Week two I was put on River Boaters even though I’m a middle school counselor and it’s a high school program and therefore wasn’t trained in driving the house boats.  But for whatever reason Jake thought I would be a good fit and placed me on an all girls boat with Kathryn… And it was SO much fun!  We had ten girls (two going into 10^th grade and eight going into 9^th) who were all amazing and so much fun.  I was also with some amazing staff- Kathryn, Jesse, Amanda, Kirsten and Matt.

            We spent Sunday night on the floor of the air-conditioned Retreat Center and then right away on Monday we headed to the boat rental place and then out on the river.  We drove down stream a few miles and I got to drive my first boat!  Amanda came over the radio asking who was driving our boat because I was swerving all over the place and Kathryn radioed back saying it was me and reminding her how hard it is the first time (it really is, those things are huge).  Also during our drive as ran into a problem of one boat having no lunchmeat.  So one of the boats pulled up aside the other and threw two bags of turkey over, which was quite hilarious.  Monday night we slept on the roof of the boat with a beautiful blanket of stars above us.

            Tuesday was the hottest day so far this summer so we spent the whole afternoon in the river staying cool and doing River Boat Olympics (of which I have some pictures posted).  Tuesday it looked like it was going to storm but it only sprinkled for a little bit and we were able to sleep on the roof again.  Also Tuesday night we did something called counselors on the beach where all six of us spread out on the beach and were available for any questions campers had.

            Wednesday we went on a canteen run to Lansing (oh yeah we were docked on the Iowa side of the Mississippi for the three days we were on the river).  We played a night game on the dunes that Kathryn made up called ultimate kickball, which was a combo of capture, the flag and kickball.  It didn’t really work out the best, but it was still fun.  On our way back to the boats we had to walk through water for a short stretch and there were like eight snakes swimming around our feet!  It was so scary and I couldn’t pretend it didn’t bother me because it definitely did.

            Thursday morning we cleaned the boats top to bottom and then headed back to camp where we rode horses, visited canteen, had a pool party, did the Christ Hike (which I was in again), and did Spirit Worship for our campers.  We slept in the upper part of the barn Thursday night and had a busy day Friday.  Before I knew it all my campers were gone, which was sad.  But it was a great week and I am very thankful that I got the opportunity to try River Boaters.

This week I was on the Wagoneer’s program, which meant that I was in the farthest village on camp and lived in a covered wagon for the week.  I had 5 girls going into 5th and 6th grade (Alanna, Lauren, Bronte, Alana and Kaitlyn) and they were awesome!  They were all friendly, went to bed easily, never got homesick, and were great helpers… I’m definitely praising God for blessing me with such awesome campers the first week.  I also worked with some awesome people this week with having ED, Phil and Kyle in the other wagons and Bryce, Manda and Jenna coming out to help us with every meal.    

Oh yeah, we cooked almost all our meals over the fire, either in a frying pan or dutch oven, in our individual wagons.  This meant that I not only improved my cooking skills, but also my fire building skills.  Sadly most of the time it took 20-30 minutes fore me to get a good fire going because it kept dying out.  However, one morning it only took 2 matches and a few minutes and I was so proud of it!  We also got lucky a lot of the time because scheduling was tight and we were late for meals so our fires would already be started for us when we got back from horses or nature (a big thank you to all you who helped with that).  We participated in a huge variety of activities this week including: Nature (my girls had a blast catching frogs), Arts and Crafts (they made bird houses), pool parties, bible study, an all camp game that was similar to Romans and Christians but way more complicated, the Challenge Course, the Christ Hike (I was a disciple!), electives (I led parachute games), campfires, horse riding (twice- the second time in the rain), and hiking… Just to name a few   

We had some good weather this week, but we also had a lot of rain and even some storms.  For the most part the rain held off until nighttime, but on Tuesday it rained in the evening, canceling electives and sending us to the barn to do some skits instead and Thursday it rained a lot from mid-morning until mid-afternoon, soaking my girls and I as we rode horses for an hour.  Then on Thursday night a big storm rolled in and around 10 we were told to end the campfire and get all our campers inside the wagons.  I had just gotten all my girls tucked in and was telling them a story (I made up stories about a family of woodchucks every night to put them to sleep) when a van pulled up outside our wagon and Jillian jumped out and told us to get in because we needed to head to the storm shelter.  There was some panicking in our wagon for a few moments, but surprisingly they calmed down and were in the van in just a few minutes (the whole camp made it to safety within 15 minutes of us getting news of the Tornado Warning).  Somehow we packed all 21 campers, 4 counselors, and then Karsten and Jillian into one van and raced our way down the bumpy and muddy valley (Jake was shocked when we told him we had everyone and didn’t need to send the van back for more people).  Once we got everyone in the brand new storm shelter (which made it very uncomfortable because there was construction stuff everywhere and the cement floor was super cold) we lead some silly songs and told some stories for about an hour.  It was almost midnight by the time my girls finally got back to the wagon and to sleep so I let them sleep in Friday.  

All in all I had a great first week, although I am tired and sick (I barely have a voice because of the combination of being sick and singing/shouting all the time).  I am very much looking forward to this week because I will be on River Boats and will be co-counseling 10 high school girls with Kathryn!    

I spent my only day off, last Saturday, playing guitar, doing laundry, and going to the Culvers in Viroqua with a group of people (we got lost on the way home, but it was a fun ride and I felt like we were in the mountains).  Then Sunday we all had to wake up early and go to different churches to lead worship.  My group went to a tiny country church called Northwest Prairie and I played guitar publically for the first time!

 The week was filled with session after session of information; From emergency procedures to tough questions with guest pastors, to dealing with homesickness and wandering children.  We also got acquainted with the nature center, horses, arts and crafts, and canteen.  We did the first run through of the Christ Hike (which is a one hour drama of Jesus’ life that we act out for the campers every Thursday evening), and it went pretty well, with only a few parts where we couldn’t help laughing- Like when Jesus made the raise the roof sign when coming across the lake in a canoe, when the guards knocked Peter down a little too hard, and when Jesse took off leaping through the woods in an attempt to not get arrested.  Oh we also did this awesome thing called Spirit Worship in which people are blindfolded and through auditory and tactile senses, experience a little bit of what Jesus went through.  It was very powerful and definitely made me look at Christ’s love and sacrifice in an even deeper way.  We had overnights one night this week and I was in the Pathfinder Village and we slept in the platform tents.

While my group was sitting outside the nature center, Tipper (the donkey around here who makes some obnoxious sounds) ran past with Bryce (the wrangler) right behind.  Not too far from us, Bryce wrestled Tipper to the ground and then four guys from our group ran over and held him down until Bryce came back with the halter and lead rope.  It was seriously the funniest thing I’ve seen since being here.  However something else that was really funny was The Middle School Dance… On Friday night we all dressed up in middle school clothes, danced to the likes of N’Sync and Backstreet Boys, and created a lot of drama for Karsten, who was acting as chaperon.  It was great fun!

Next week I will be a Wagoneer counselor, meaning that I will be staying in the covered wagons located on the farthest end of camp, cooking all my wagons’ meals over the fire.  I will have five girls, going into 5^th and 6^th grade.  ED (Elizabeth Dalton) is the village leader and Kyle and Phil are the other counselors.  I’m a little nervous about the cooking and being so far from running water and electricity, but I’m excited for all that I will experience and I am also definitely grateful to have only five girls when I could have eight.  We’re going to have a great time and I am so excited to write all about it next weekend!

I arrived safely at Sugar Creek on Monday afternoon and less ten minutes after arriving a deer jumped across my path.  The wildlife here is amazing and within my first 24 hours on camp I saw two more deer (one a baby and one that stunk up on me when I was spending some quiet time by the pond), ate dinner next to some hummingbirds that were eating theirs at a feeder, and met the family of woodchucks that lives near the nature center. 

Everyone I’ve met here is super nice and some of the people that I’ve been spending the most time with are my family group (we’re the Blue Barracudas) and my room group.  At then end of campfire worship ever night we are invited to “share the peace,” which I figured was shaking hands like in church, but here it’s hugging and though at first I thought it was weird since I didn’t know anyone, but I really enjoy it now.

Staff training has been really busy, with different sessions and events filling every minute of the day.  Some of the things we’ve done this week are learning a lot of worship songs, planning bible studies, cooking over the fire, doing the challenge course as a family group, learning about Lutheran Theology, making and performing skits, hiking to Jesus Point, learning about the horses, pool and bikes, going to a speaker in LaCrosse, going on a canoe trip on the Mississippi and hosting EWALU (another Bible Camp) overnight.  

The internet is really slow here so sadly I am not able to post my pictures yet… However, I am planning on going into town sometime next weekend, so I will post them then.  

Have a great week and GOD BLESS