"the week I became a whore"/"the week I had an epiphany"/"the week God constantly blessed me"

Week five of camp--week seven at Miracle Ranch--what can I say about it? It was incredible. God blessed me with a fantastic cabin this week, probably a cabin I did not deserve to have at all. *thinks a bit more* Yep, pretty sure I couldn't have done anything to earn this cabin.

This week was one of two "Tomodachi" weeks. There's a Christian school in Sendai, Japan, that teaches English to its students from kindergarten through seventh (I think?) grade, and at the culmination of the last grade, these students have the opportunity to take this three week trip to the US to help them with their conversational skills.

Their first week in the US is at Miracle Ranch, where they live side by side with American campers for a week. Integration is encouraged, and it was so great to watch my girls all warm up to each other. I think by the end of Monday, they were all friends, joking and laughing and playing together. During KBMO, the American girls were trying to teach the Japanese girls slang, and Alice kept saying, "Tights!" instead of "Tight!" All involved laughed about that one. :)

After leaving Miracle Ranch, the students from Meysen Academy have several homestays in the area, then they take a trip through southern California, hitting up San Fran, the Redwoods, and Disneyland. From there, they go to Hawaii, and then back home. Typically, students who come on these trips value their week at Miracle Ranch above the rest of their destinations. (Score! We're better than Disneyland! :) )

All of my girls, even my Japanese girls, believed in God prior to camp, so Bible studies got a little intense. Some super challenging questions were asked, and I fumbled through them the best that I could. (Example: do you actually burn in hell, because isn't it just your soul that goes there? And how can your soul be burned?) We tended to deviate quite often from the Bible study, but I think that's okay because Bible studies are basically a refresher of fireside the night before. Plus, it got the girls even more curious about God and faith, and one of them even started reading Revelation during her free time.

It was difficult to have such a language barrier, though. I wish that I'd thought of getting a translator in the cabin during Bible study so that I could have worked the Japanese girls into it more, but maybe this next week I can do that instead. However, during night devos, I got the Japanese girls to participate a little more.

Here's where I need to elaborate on one of the nightly devotions. One night, the questions were asked: "Where are you in your relationship with God?" and "Where do you want to be?" An illustration that we have been using to describe our relationship with God is that of two chairs--God in one, a person in the other. If that person is in relationship to God, the chair is facing Him; if not, it is facing away from Him. This was really good, because I was able to use that to communicate more with my Japanese campers.

All of the girls that night said that their "chairs" were facing God. Some said that their chairs had been facing away from God before they came to camp last year, others said that their chairs turned around when they went to Awana. One girl said that she wanted to be as close to God as she possibly could be, which, for a twelve year old girl, is saying a lot. I got so excited about their wholehearted pursuit of the Lord this week! I felt humbled, too, and so very blessed.

[topic change]

My epiphany of this week happened around Wednesday. At the beginning of the week, I kept trying to get together with my CIT so we could talk, but it just wasn't happening. So one day, during waterfront duty, I wrote her a letter instead, in which I listed all the things that I appreciate about her--her big heart, her positive attitude, her willingness to sacrifice personal time to be with campers--and slipped the note in her mailbox. It's amazing how the truth can be so encouraging. I feel like our relationship got closer after that, like we warmed up more to each other. I feel like an idiot for not saying something sooner, to be honest, but I'm not very good at verbally acknowledging someone's positive traits. I notice them, I just don't say anything about them.

The rest of my epiphany happened later in the week when I had some free time to talk with two of the other counselors--both of whom have been at MR much longer than I have. We were discussing CITs, and I mentioned that Frisbee was great with the campers, except that she tended to be off with Bippity a lot. Both of them said that CITs are really there to hang with their friends, and not so much with the campers. And then I realized that all this summer, I had been expecting a fifteen year old--just after her freshman year in high school--to be acting like a college student. It's not like she's supposed to be my partner in the cabin, she's supposed to be learning how to do what I do. She's there to learn, not to be doing my job. I think my attitude has lightened up significantly in regards to the whole situation, which is great.

[abrupt segue]

I know you're probably thinking right about now that, "Hey, she hasn't mentioned the whole 'become a whore' thing yet." So here you go:



Highlights from the week:

1. Dinner dress ups :) Four significant nights: Star Wars night (I dressed as Aayla Secura), dress your counselor night (my girls dressed me "gangster," including marker tattoo sleeves, bling, basketball shorts over boxers, and a grill made of tinfoil. We got second for that one...), a military themed night where we dressed as hippy protesters, and dress as your favorite movie night, in which we picked Pirates of the Caribbean. We had Calypso, Davey Jones, Elizabeth, Jack Sparrow, random pirate scum, and then Giselle (Frisbee) and Scarlet (myself). Yes, at a Christian camp, the counselor and her CIT dressed as whores. And we got first place. :) (I think it had to do with the leg Fris and I flashed Gub Gub...)

2. the Japanese version of "Rock, Paper, Scissors"

3. Boating class with Baton Rouge, and Dean jumping in the lake with all his clothes on. Also got to help tip a canoe, which was surprisingly a lot of fun.

4. Morning swims with Re/Marzi/Bekha/pan

5. getting whiplash from a slip-n-slide

6. trying to run a "steeplechase" at the end of the rodeo Thursday night while wearing xtra tufs and carrying a Canadian flag. (O the humiliation!) It's hard to run in rainboots and with a cold...

7. Kari being the smartest little twelve year old who would help explain concepts in junior high lingo during Bible study

8. Frisbee shooting Runway in the face with a paintball and then getting shot in the back in retribution

9. Purell wars after meals