Today was technically our last day because it was the last day we would be going to our work site and preforming acts of service to members of the Harrisburg community. The morning went like every other, packing up things for lunches, gross breakfasts, water jugs and everything in between. All except for the fact that we had to wake up insanely early because we were on breakfast crew. Oh the joy. We didn't do much, basically just set the table and then cleaned some stuff. No worries. We all did devos, myself still staying with the Springvale group. I guess this was just because I had never really felt compelled to go somewhere by myself and just one-on-one it up with God, I guess that would've been from my overall shakiness with Him throughout the week. That, along with the breakdown the previous night, led me to want to remain in the company of others. It was a fairly chill morning.
We were going to Silence of Mary again today. Except today we were actually going to the homes she has downtown opened up with her "families." The houses were so easy to spot. There were beautiful paintings everywhere all over the building and sunflowers and a garden overflowing with fruits and vegetables. Rainbow benches and gates with portraits all over them were everywhere. It was the coolest thing. And the inside was just like that too. Murals with wonderful pictures all over the walls. There was a painted bible verse in almost every room. The place was just so happy. It made me smile just looking at it. And I guess that that's what the strive for, with all the family members she has coming in, they need a little something to smile at. There was a table set up in front of the house with all sorts of shoes and clothing and other things. The whole idea was people could just drop off what they didn't need, and those who were in need just came and took it. It was great because people were almost always there benefiting from it.
We were introduced to some family members, they didn't talk much but we smiled at them so much they had no choice but to smile back. We sat outside on the benches a Chinese Missionary team had painted a few weeks ago, it was really cool looking at all the interesting symbols. It really made me think how much we all depend on each other to get by. I mean, I don't even know how many people from different countries had been on her property there. It was kind of a crazy thing to wonder. Ms.Sue came after we were given a tour of the home and where they kept stuff and who has here and what their story was. We spent a lot of time with Dave, who is a family member. However, unlike the rest he's fairly stable, though, bipolar. So he does as much as he can to help out Ms.Sue. Funny guy, with a cool story. When Dave was just finishing up the tour a lady walked in. We walked with a cane, back hunched and her whole body seemed to be caving in. Then she looked up at us and Dave asked her how she was doing. She burst into tears. "THEY THINK I'M CRAZY" she screamed. And flung herself into Dave. Dave then proceeded to explain how Beverly had just lost her sister 4 days ago and was quite devastated. She was constantly depressed and could never sleep because of the terrible dreams she kept having. Dave had told us that they were starting to set up stars on the roof of Bev's bedroom because she really likes stars, so the plastic glow ones kept her at ease. It was a really cute idea. Bev stood there, still crying. Our group tried to comfort her, I couldn't really tell ho much of a difference we were making. We asked if we could pray over her, ad she said sure. So we did. After that, she seems less shaky and continued on her way. I didn't give too much thought to that other than how rough it must be for some of the family members here.
After we were done exploring the house, we were lead across the street to another of Ms.Sue's homes that had been rented out to college students throughout the school year, so basically what we'd be doing for the day was helping to clean it up. It was a 3 story building the hallways were so narrow. We moved so many immensely heavy pieces of furniture down from the 3rd floor onto the 2nd. It was very dangerous and kind of scary when you were carrying them, but we managed. There a strange room on the 3rd floor that had a giant bucket of crayons stashed away in the closet therefore leaving the whole house to smell a little like a crayola factory. Once the furniture was cleared out, we swept and mopped every room in the house. And boy that took a while. In between we did have some adventuring. You could get to the roof of the house from the 3rd stony window, so Emily and I went for a little walk around. It was pretty neat seeing the town from a different perspective. We did go back inside and do some more work though. I helped to clean up the garden in front of the house, however we couldn't go outside on our own, so a family member was always with us. 3 of them had come with us to help out. They didn't talk a lot, I don't even think they told us their names. But they enjoyed our company. The laughed at smiled at the way we talked to each other. We talked about amusement parks and roller coasters a lot, since we were all excited about going to Hersey Park. It was nice. Anyways, Maddie and Emily cleaned a fridge. I don't even know how you clean a fridge, but they did. Meanwhile I took to the sink and dishwasher. While in the kitchen, we discovered a trap door. This was actually really funny because when we climbed down through the tile on the floor to the damp, crusty, pitch black room. We realized we couldn't get out. So we kept pushing in a spot until it eventually let up and we shoved the floor tile up in a room near the backdoor. However, it happened to weight 48 million pounds, so Dave rescued us.
After all this wild adventuring, we decided to have an exciting lunch. We walked back to the first house and decided to eat in the house beside the first house. Confusing right? Well, the people who had lived in the house beside Sue's had decided that she needed it more than them, so they gave it to her to use, so now there are two side by side. The second one had a nicer kitchen, so we all sat down at one big table and ate there. When we came in, Bev was talking with another family member, she smiled at us and left. We ate there with Dave and another family member. It was the most interesting lunch I've had in a long time. They have gardens everywhere, so Dave brought us all these random peppers to try. And by random I mean incredibly, horribly, spicy peppers. None of which I ate. We were all having fun crying and throwing up and attempting to poison each other... until we ran out of water. Dave booked it to the fridge and grabbed a pitcher of milk and we downed the whole thing. It was so funny.
After everyone had finished/been too grossed out to eat, we walked back over to the house and finished up there. We went outside to the back and picked up garbage and swept and freshened up the gardens there. Just like the other house, the garden was painted and there were cute drawings on the fence posts. The inside was quite plain, but oh, the garden was such a happy place.
Ms.Sue dropped by when we were just finishing up. She started talking about Beverly and how happy she was. She said she hadn't seen her so okay in a while. She thanked us so much for whatever it was we did and just continued to be puzzled by it. I was yet again astounded by the impact I had made without even realizing it. Sue talked about how thankful she was to have us and how we were the best group she's had, however we were instructed not to tell anyone that. She was just really sweet and I'm going to miss her a lot. We took a group picture, had fifteen group hugs and then headed back to the Y for showers. I realized it was the last time I'd be singing in the showers with Delia, Alex, Julia, and Tess. Oh dear I miss them.
When we got back to the church, for the first time since we'd been there I didn't go to Target. Instead we stayed back and played an intense game of man hunt around the church. We kind of ran off property too. Robbie and Sean ended up booking it back to the church while managing to slice both their legs up through thorn bushes and metal fences. It was kind of funny, but it looked pretty painful.
We had another strange dinner. For our evening activity tonight we were going to have a BBQ with everyone who we'd been working with this week within the community. Majority of people there would be the kids who Amy, Tess, Dealia, Julia, Alex and Robbie had been working with. I was really excited for the dinner, mostly because I wanted to spend time with the kids. We drove over in the big white vans. It was just a community church. Small, with a backyard no larger than a soccer field. The minute I stepped through the gate, a little girl jumped into my arms. She just clung to me, her eyes were so happy and full of light. I don't even know her name, but she was adorable. Over the course of the evening, she was in many different peoples arms. It made me question how much love they got within their families. I played with a bunch of the kids, took lots of pictures, did a lot of double dutch with the girlies. This was actually really amusing because all of the kids there were black, so when they'd tell me to go skip, I'd go in and be followed by a bunch of eight year old girls screaming "Uhh! Yeahh! Dat's my girl. You do yo thang." It was all really fun. Everyone kind of had a kid trailing them of in their arms or on their back. I just kind drifted and said hi to everyone and chilled with the people who had a random child with them. When dinner was being served, I sat down wit Brenden and Steve and Robbie who were with a little guy named Brandon and his friend Jeanmeyer. Jeanmeyer wasn't eating though. So I asked him if he wanted to get anything, and he said sure. So we lined up together and I chatted with him for a bit. He was probably like 4 or something. So cute.
We got our burgers and sat back down in the same group. After we were done eating, I got up to go to the different groups again, but I realized Jean was somewhat following me. So as he was playing with a soccer ball, I came up and asked him if I could play. We started kicking it back and forth. Then we decided to play frisbee. Then skipping. Then skipping with him on my back. Oh the dangers. And after that, we were pretty much together the whole night. We played duck duck goose, had piggy back races, and played chase like crazy. We also had a mini juice fight. He'd always take off and on his shirt and kick his shoes random places so I'd always have to semi-remember where they were. I swear he's the cutest kid and I love and miss him so much. Speaking of adorable, there was this 2 or 3 year old dude named Angel. I almost want to cry just thinking of him. He hung out with Emily H. during the night. They were just so happy and cute together. When it was time to leave, Angel freaked out. He kept telling her not to go and how he'd miss her and how much he loved being with her. Emily was almost balling. Angel's mom had never wanted him, he'd always bee a mistake in her eyes and she hated him. But his dad thought he was beautiful and wonderful and everything he could want, so he named him Angel. But he got no love at home from his mom. She wouldn't even touch him, so just having Emily carry him around and touch him all the time meant so much. She was so upset when we needed to leave. And I'm not going to lie, I was too. When I told Jeanmeyer I had to go, I picked him up and hugged him for so long. When I let go, his eyes just dropped. It was probably the saddest thing I've ever seen. We took a group picture and then headed back to the church.
On the way back to the church, our van stopped to fill up on gas. This was very entertaining because we were blasting out our Jesus music at the station and we were all dancing and singing and some random person walked out and was just watching us. We had attracted a lot of attention over our stay. Created such an interesting impression of Stouffville, I'm sure. It was all good. Back at the church, we all talked about our day and the kids from the cook-out. Combined with Emily's story about Angel, my heart sank a bit when I kind of realized how rough some of these kids have it as opposed to our easy lives. After the discussion about our day, we all kind of talked about the 5 days we'd spent here and what we've learned, what we accomplished and what we can do coming back. It was pretty sweet. Obviously it somehow managed to turn to something ridiculous and we sent the rest of the night laughing with each other. We knew we had to get up and out of the church tomorrow morning and needed as much energy as possible for the day ahead so we didn't stay up too too late. Therefore it was off to bed on the last of of service to the community of Harrisburg.
Saturday, October 15
Tuesday, August 23
Mid-Week Change Up
Wednesday started off just like every other day, woke up early, dressed, teeth, hair, etc. Then upstairs for custy breakfast, then packing lunch, then packing vans then in for morning devos. We were all kind of in the hang of it by now considering we had kind of reached our mid-way point of the week. We all gathered back in the youth room and did our devos. I think the book that they gave us is such an awesome thing, because I know a lot of people struggle with finding ways to spend time or focus themselves on Christ, but this devotional book was just the neatest thing because I've had ones like these that they'd give us from camp when I was 8 or something, but these were books that our youth pastors were using as well. In our devo books, we were learning about reacting differently to situations were put in, and how to deal with them in a Godly way. There was a page in the book that was to be torn out, but on that page we had to write a problem we were dealing with, more specifically a problem we were having with someone. Then everyone would put their sheet in a basket and when we were done devos, we'd all take a sheet and pray for that person throughout the day. It was a cool idea. But there was an awkward number so I ended up without a sheet because I volunteered to go without. But it felt really cool knowing that someone was praying for my exact problem. But that led me to wondering how people would react if they knew that they were being prayed for, especially my non-Christian friends. It was kind of interesting.
Anyways, Team Jim had to re-meet up with Erin to find out what we were doing today because our schedule got changed half way through the week. We were done with Manor Care and Work Projects and were now moving on to Silence of Mary. Now we pretty much knew nothing about the Silence of Mary other than there was a lady who had a dog who has really big balls. This was had learned from the group that was there the past 2 days. Anyways, we were only briefly explained to about what this was and I guess the simplest way to put it is one lady who runs a bunch of homeless shelters, but it's so much more than that. It is one woman named Sue who has lived her whole life a Christian and when she was growing up, there was no poor, there was no hungry, there were no needy people; everyone was taken care of. And that's just how she lived so she continued to do that. Now something must be clear here, she is one lady. All on her own, no government support, no money coming in that she makes herself, nothing. Everything she does is either on her own or by way of donation. So what she does is basically takes in the homeless. She takes in those who are disabled, mentally challenged, sick, pregnant, orphaned, anything. And she makes them apart of her family. They aren't just clients, they are her legit family. She feeds them, gives them a bed, gives them a home, takes them to the doctors. These people are part of the family. So she basically has 8 different houses which she owns all around Harrisburg and she turns them into homes for these people. It's really cool.
So today we were just going to her house, Sue's direct house, where she and her husband live with one of the family members, Jody. And Jody is only there for a short time because she's getting ready to move out back on her own again after a terrible fire that occurred before. Because Sue does so much with her organization, she rarely does anything at all for herself. Basically today was going to spent helping her out around her house. She has quite a beautiful farm property. The first thing we did when we got there was go up this big hill with very heavy shovels and pile mounds of rocks into the back of a trailer so Sue could bring it down to patch up the holes in her driveway. She was afraid that because it was so rickety and broken up because of floods, if someone was to come to her in the middle of the night looking for shelter, they may fall and hurt themselves, so it was her goal to patch up the driveway. While we were shovelling, I got to talk to her a lot about her story which was really awesome to hear. She's around somewhere over 50 and the way she knows and talks about God is like she's just discovered Him for the very first time. She has such a passion for what she does and she's been doing it her whole life and can't imagine doing anything differently. It's just such an inspiration.
We did a variety of different jobs around the farm that day. When we were doing it, it really didn't seem like we were doing a lot but looking back, we got so much accomplished. We were able to pile all the rocks up, stain a chair, put the doors back on a newly furnish cabinet, cut down trees and bring the wood down to stack in the wood pile, refill all her laundry detergents and softeners, plant over 30 types of herbs as well as cut the grass and plant some bushes. The grass was very interesting. It was myself, Maddie and Mark who decided that we would take on the job. The grass that she had was up to my hips. MY hips, and if you know me, you know how long my legs are. It was insane. So when we cut this grass we didn't use a lawn mower. Oh no, we used something that I don't even know the name of. It was basically like a double ended saw attached to a pole, if that makes any sense. So we basically used them like a baseball bat swinging at the ground like it was bloody murder. It was wonderful. Now obviously we couldn't destroy the whole property so once we cleared out a good chunk of grass, we dug a hole with a shovel and a pix axe. Then we planted some Japanese plant that was very invasive, so the plan is that it will take over all the other grass and turn it into the plant that will flower and look pretty therefore they never have to worry about cutting the grass again. It was all very fun. Plus Becky came by and said hello around lunch and we all stayed and ate together in this little shack Sue had. It was fun. Our whole group had worn our Pocket Change apparel today so we were interrogated a lot about it, it was nice.
After saying good bye to Jody and Sue, we headed off to the Y for our daily showers. Somehow the guys managed to get in the pool, but we decided to just stick to the showers. After this, as per usual, Springvale kids went to Target. However this time we decided to drive, oh boy. Alex sped all the way into the plaza and then looped around the back of the store driving like a maniac the whole time, we were screaming and dancing and had our hands up in the air falling out of the seats, it was all good. And then we managed to park the van in a away that it took up 6 parking spots. Very nice looks from other customers and staff. After that exciting adventure, we headed back to the church for yet another stomach curdling dinner. After this, instead of having CLUB, we mixed it up a bit and went to our event first, then deciding to have CLUB afterward. But it wasn't really going to be CLUB, the past 2 days we had been talking about what we could do to show the Youthworks staff how much we appreciated them so we were going to do that for them tonight in CLUB. For our event we went to a youth group. Kind of like a Sr.High sort of deal. But we were told to dress nice. And by them saying nice, everyone started to dress like they were going out to dinner at some fancy place downtown. I mean, this is youth. But seeing everyone look so nice made everyone question whether or not they should change. Kat and I were walking down the stairs when two girls were debating whether or not they should change and Kat just said 'No, you look beautiful' and the girl responded with 'It's funny you say that, because I just went in my mail bag and found this' and she pulled out my note. I was so happy. So I just smiled and told her it was because it was true. I never found out who got the other ones but I was so happy that she got it and I found out that she got it and it made her day.
It was really sweet. I mean just walking in, you felt awesome and happy and loved and it's so incredible that they can set up the atmosphere like that. They facility was huge and so cool, they had a legit stage and technicoloured lights and mics and a sound system, nothing different than what we have, it was just set up like a concert. We started praise and worship, but it was a little strange because they wrote their own songs and they were really long, so none of us really knew the words to any of them. Half way through one of the songs, I bailed to go to the washroom, but I never re-entered the scene. When I came back I just sat down behind one of the pillars beside the huge group of everyone else. One of the student leaders of the youth came and talked to me to check and see if I was okay, I just told him I was feeling sick, which was true. He prayed for me and then went along and ended up semi-speaking. I kept listening to the songs. But my mind was just running wild. Then the speaker came up and started talking, it did partially confuse me how he started with 'Holy crap that was some good worship.' I guess it just threw me off, but what he was saying was really cool. He talked about hearing the voice of God and how He's always speaking, it just depends whether or not we're listening. As much as I'd really like to have what he said resonate with me, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Everyone stood up to leave and was saying good bye and giving hugs and I just sat there, until I actually had to stand up, then Schrep saw me and asked me how I was, and I told her I was about to fall apart, so we went outside and talked for a bit. But when you're in my situation, there's nothing someone can really say that makes anything better. I mean, I know the answers I'll get to the things I'll say so it's rather pointless to even say them. I guess I'm going to write more about this night on my main blog, so if you know it, you can go there for more details. I was just at a point of being so broken. And watching as those youth in there would stop in the middle of the song and fall to their knees and scream out prayers and praise to God. How every hand in the room would be stretched right up. How in between every song, everyone would stop and form a prayer huddle and just pray for each other. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't pretend that I had that any more. I was so lost and to be in a place like that when that was not truly how I felt was probably one of the only times I stopped pretending.
I felt sick, I thought I would throw up, I felt like ripping my heart out. And it's nothing that you would understand, person reading my travel blog right now. I don't think it'd be something you could grasp. But just stopped feeling. And I left there with Jen, got in the van and stayed silent the whole way back, while they blasted their Jesus songs and all sang along, gladly carrying through the Jesus high they had just experienced while I so blatantly denied getting on the trip. We got back to the church and everyone went to CLUB but I just went to the sleeping rooms and cried. Emily sat and talked with me a bit. We've been though similar things but the leaders kept telling us we should go back up. Emily left but I stayed. I just needed a moment, minutes; anything. Something to gather my thoughts, scream, sing, let some tears out after being bottled in for so long. It still didn't help. I felt terrible and worthless and trapped. But I went up just in time to sign the giant cards we had made for the Staff to thank them. I had missed the prayers and feet washing and other things they did for them while I was in my mental instability. Which I still was, having gone upstairs but it was more mild. I came into our group time looking like a bag of poo but no one asked or said anything because they all know me as one who doesn't ask for help. But we talked about that youth and opinions, thoughts, questions, worries, then all about our day and how it went. Well, they talked, I sat there and stared at the floor. We all stood and prayed. I realized I hadn't prayed out loud the whole time we'd been here. My mind was still running away from me during all the prayers but other than that I tried to maintain my sanity in order to at least hear what the others were saying. After that, it branched off into craziness and randomness. And I smiled. Then I laughed. Then it got to falling off my chair laughing. Then to rolling on the ground laughing. And it only improved as we spent this time all in tears because we were laughing so hard. I'm talking Alex Street curled up into the fetal position laughing so hard he's crying, Sarah and Amy running out of the room laughing so hard. And a few people actually peeing their pants laughing so hard. It was exactly what I needed. I sign that it was okay to be happy. And that's why God works in such insane ways. We kept having fun and jumping tables which was really cool. Then other people poked their heads in to see what we were doing and others came in and judged us. But it was fine, I was happy. Genuinely content, and that's something that tends to be difficult so that I was really needed and I appreciate everyone for being so awesome and letting that happen. I few people asked me if I was okay, but I told them no, but then again, I never am. But it's getting better. They kind of shrugged it off and walked away confused. The night had been too much fun to spark insomnia over the previous events, so I crashed as soon as I laid down.
Datatadaa! Day 3.
Anyways, Team Jim had to re-meet up with Erin to find out what we were doing today because our schedule got changed half way through the week. We were done with Manor Care and Work Projects and were now moving on to Silence of Mary. Now we pretty much knew nothing about the Silence of Mary other than there was a lady who had a dog who has really big balls. This was had learned from the group that was there the past 2 days. Anyways, we were only briefly explained to about what this was and I guess the simplest way to put it is one lady who runs a bunch of homeless shelters, but it's so much more than that. It is one woman named Sue who has lived her whole life a Christian and when she was growing up, there was no poor, there was no hungry, there were no needy people; everyone was taken care of. And that's just how she lived so she continued to do that. Now something must be clear here, she is one lady. All on her own, no government support, no money coming in that she makes herself, nothing. Everything she does is either on her own or by way of donation. So what she does is basically takes in the homeless. She takes in those who are disabled, mentally challenged, sick, pregnant, orphaned, anything. And she makes them apart of her family. They aren't just clients, they are her legit family. She feeds them, gives them a bed, gives them a home, takes them to the doctors. These people are part of the family. So she basically has 8 different houses which she owns all around Harrisburg and she turns them into homes for these people. It's really cool.
So today we were just going to her house, Sue's direct house, where she and her husband live with one of the family members, Jody. And Jody is only there for a short time because she's getting ready to move out back on her own again after a terrible fire that occurred before. Because Sue does so much with her organization, she rarely does anything at all for herself. Basically today was going to spent helping her out around her house. She has quite a beautiful farm property. The first thing we did when we got there was go up this big hill with very heavy shovels and pile mounds of rocks into the back of a trailer so Sue could bring it down to patch up the holes in her driveway. She was afraid that because it was so rickety and broken up because of floods, if someone was to come to her in the middle of the night looking for shelter, they may fall and hurt themselves, so it was her goal to patch up the driveway. While we were shovelling, I got to talk to her a lot about her story which was really awesome to hear. She's around somewhere over 50 and the way she knows and talks about God is like she's just discovered Him for the very first time. She has such a passion for what she does and she's been doing it her whole life and can't imagine doing anything differently. It's just such an inspiration.
We did a variety of different jobs around the farm that day. When we were doing it, it really didn't seem like we were doing a lot but looking back, we got so much accomplished. We were able to pile all the rocks up, stain a chair, put the doors back on a newly furnish cabinet, cut down trees and bring the wood down to stack in the wood pile, refill all her laundry detergents and softeners, plant over 30 types of herbs as well as cut the grass and plant some bushes. The grass was very interesting. It was myself, Maddie and Mark who decided that we would take on the job. The grass that she had was up to my hips. MY hips, and if you know me, you know how long my legs are. It was insane. So when we cut this grass we didn't use a lawn mower. Oh no, we used something that I don't even know the name of. It was basically like a double ended saw attached to a pole, if that makes any sense. So we basically used them like a baseball bat swinging at the ground like it was bloody murder. It was wonderful. Now obviously we couldn't destroy the whole property so once we cleared out a good chunk of grass, we dug a hole with a shovel and a pix axe. Then we planted some Japanese plant that was very invasive, so the plan is that it will take over all the other grass and turn it into the plant that will flower and look pretty therefore they never have to worry about cutting the grass again. It was all very fun. Plus Becky came by and said hello around lunch and we all stayed and ate together in this little shack Sue had. It was fun. Our whole group had worn our Pocket Change apparel today so we were interrogated a lot about it, it was nice.
After saying good bye to Jody and Sue, we headed off to the Y for our daily showers. Somehow the guys managed to get in the pool, but we decided to just stick to the showers. After this, as per usual, Springvale kids went to Target. However this time we decided to drive, oh boy. Alex sped all the way into the plaza and then looped around the back of the store driving like a maniac the whole time, we were screaming and dancing and had our hands up in the air falling out of the seats, it was all good. And then we managed to park the van in a away that it took up 6 parking spots. Very nice looks from other customers and staff. After that exciting adventure, we headed back to the church for yet another stomach curdling dinner. After this, instead of having CLUB, we mixed it up a bit and went to our event first, then deciding to have CLUB afterward. But it wasn't really going to be CLUB, the past 2 days we had been talking about what we could do to show the Youthworks staff how much we appreciated them so we were going to do that for them tonight in CLUB. For our event we went to a youth group. Kind of like a Sr.High sort of deal. But we were told to dress nice. And by them saying nice, everyone started to dress like they were going out to dinner at some fancy place downtown. I mean, this is youth. But seeing everyone look so nice made everyone question whether or not they should change. Kat and I were walking down the stairs when two girls were debating whether or not they should change and Kat just said 'No, you look beautiful' and the girl responded with 'It's funny you say that, because I just went in my mail bag and found this' and she pulled out my note. I was so happy. So I just smiled and told her it was because it was true. I never found out who got the other ones but I was so happy that she got it and I found out that she got it and it made her day.
It was really sweet. I mean just walking in, you felt awesome and happy and loved and it's so incredible that they can set up the atmosphere like that. They facility was huge and so cool, they had a legit stage and technicoloured lights and mics and a sound system, nothing different than what we have, it was just set up like a concert. We started praise and worship, but it was a little strange because they wrote their own songs and they were really long, so none of us really knew the words to any of them. Half way through one of the songs, I bailed to go to the washroom, but I never re-entered the scene. When I came back I just sat down behind one of the pillars beside the huge group of everyone else. One of the student leaders of the youth came and talked to me to check and see if I was okay, I just told him I was feeling sick, which was true. He prayed for me and then went along and ended up semi-speaking. I kept listening to the songs. But my mind was just running wild. Then the speaker came up and started talking, it did partially confuse me how he started with 'Holy crap that was some good worship.' I guess it just threw me off, but what he was saying was really cool. He talked about hearing the voice of God and how He's always speaking, it just depends whether or not we're listening. As much as I'd really like to have what he said resonate with me, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Everyone stood up to leave and was saying good bye and giving hugs and I just sat there, until I actually had to stand up, then Schrep saw me and asked me how I was, and I told her I was about to fall apart, so we went outside and talked for a bit. But when you're in my situation, there's nothing someone can really say that makes anything better. I mean, I know the answers I'll get to the things I'll say so it's rather pointless to even say them. I guess I'm going to write more about this night on my main blog, so if you know it, you can go there for more details. I was just at a point of being so broken. And watching as those youth in there would stop in the middle of the song and fall to their knees and scream out prayers and praise to God. How every hand in the room would be stretched right up. How in between every song, everyone would stop and form a prayer huddle and just pray for each other. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't pretend that I had that any more. I was so lost and to be in a place like that when that was not truly how I felt was probably one of the only times I stopped pretending.
I felt sick, I thought I would throw up, I felt like ripping my heart out. And it's nothing that you would understand, person reading my travel blog right now. I don't think it'd be something you could grasp. But just stopped feeling. And I left there with Jen, got in the van and stayed silent the whole way back, while they blasted their Jesus songs and all sang along, gladly carrying through the Jesus high they had just experienced while I so blatantly denied getting on the trip. We got back to the church and everyone went to CLUB but I just went to the sleeping rooms and cried. Emily sat and talked with me a bit. We've been though similar things but the leaders kept telling us we should go back up. Emily left but I stayed. I just needed a moment, minutes; anything. Something to gather my thoughts, scream, sing, let some tears out after being bottled in for so long. It still didn't help. I felt terrible and worthless and trapped. But I went up just in time to sign the giant cards we had made for the Staff to thank them. I had missed the prayers and feet washing and other things they did for them while I was in my mental instability. Which I still was, having gone upstairs but it was more mild. I came into our group time looking like a bag of poo but no one asked or said anything because they all know me as one who doesn't ask for help. But we talked about that youth and opinions, thoughts, questions, worries, then all about our day and how it went. Well, they talked, I sat there and stared at the floor. We all stood and prayed. I realized I hadn't prayed out loud the whole time we'd been here. My mind was still running away from me during all the prayers but other than that I tried to maintain my sanity in order to at least hear what the others were saying. After that, it branched off into craziness and randomness. And I smiled. Then I laughed. Then it got to falling off my chair laughing. Then to rolling on the ground laughing. And it only improved as we spent this time all in tears because we were laughing so hard. I'm talking Alex Street curled up into the fetal position laughing so hard he's crying, Sarah and Amy running out of the room laughing so hard. And a few people actually peeing their pants laughing so hard. It was exactly what I needed. I sign that it was okay to be happy. And that's why God works in such insane ways. We kept having fun and jumping tables which was really cool. Then other people poked their heads in to see what we were doing and others came in and judged us. But it was fine, I was happy. Genuinely content, and that's something that tends to be difficult so that I was really needed and I appreciate everyone for being so awesome and letting that happen. I few people asked me if I was okay, but I told them no, but then again, I never am. But it's getting better. They kind of shrugged it off and walked away confused. The night had been too much fun to spark insomnia over the previous events, so I crashed as soon as I laid down.
Datatadaa! Day 3.
Monday, August 22
Second Day Service
This day started out almost exactly like the other. I woke up insanely early, was late for breakfast, ate the nasty breakfast, packed a nasty lunch, then proceeded to finish preparing for the day. Everyone then piled into the youth room to start devos with our special little zebra books. When devos were done, we didn't really need to meet up with anyone because majority of us were doing the exact same thing.
Team Jim piled into the van and drove over to Manor Care. We were playing Bingo today. There is nothing better than playing BINGO in and old age home. How excited they get, oh jeez, it's crazy. And that my friends, is sarcasm. Well a few of them are. There was one lady who kept accusing another of cheating so she kept yelling at her. It was funny because the lady she was yelling at was hard of hearing so she just didn't care because she couldn't hear anything. We didn't play Bingo right away though, while Sammy was getting different residents to come play, we all got Bored Games down off the shelf and played with the residents until we were ready to start the game. We were playing cards, checkers, pictionary, all sorts of terribly exciting things. But I didn't really play anything, but that was because of the piano they had there. Emily would play something and I would sing to it while everyone else was playing. It was fun, and we had random residents who would poke their heads in and ask who was playing and singing then tell us we were really good and they enjoyed listening. We tried to keep the songs okay, so we stuck to mostly Adele and Christina Perri.
When Sammy was back with everyone she could find, we started the game. We played a bunch of different games, taking turns between myself, Maddie, Addie and Emily calling out the numbers. And by calling out, I mean screaming them and repeating around 3 times each so the partially def residents can hear as well. It was fun. When I wasn't calling out, and playing. I was sitting at a table with 3 other residents and the lady across me had nothing on her card yet, so I tried to make a joke about her doing even worse than me, and that's bad because I suck. But she just smiled and said she can't hear the numbers. So I was her Bingo buddy for the remainder of the games. Which was really cool because she ended up winning some games too. I guess they have this system at Manor Care that when you come out to Activities or do things or win games, you get 'Funny Money' and then at the end of the month they can use it to buy little things for themselves.
In the middle of one of the games, Sammy asked if she could see me. Now I had no clue what this was about, so I was a bit puzzled but I said sure. So we were talking outside and she was telling me how Sandy, the lady I was talking with yesterday really enjoyed talking to me yesterday and she really wanted to see if it was at all possible that I could go talk with her again today just to say good bye before I left. Now I was shocked at this, because I couldn't understand how I could have made that much of an impact from the little time I spent talking to her yesterday but I agreed and said it would be no problem so I told Sammy I'd pop in and see her before we all left. Though I was confused my it, it made me smile. So I continued playing Bingo happily assisting my table. When Bingo finally came to a close, Sammy had us help her set up for lunch and then she treated us all to popsicles to thank us for our help. It was then that I went to go see Sandy.
I basically just went in and she was watching TV. So I said 'Hi Sandy. Sammy told me that you wanted to see me' And she said 'Yes.' So the fact she didn't really say anything after that was kind of awkward but not overly, so I flashed a big smile and asked how she was. She responded by telling me how she was up all night thinking about me. And how I had been in her mind all day. She asked me to tell her a little more about why I was here. So I told her about Youthworks and how we were staying at the church and going to different places everyday to help out. She just smiled. She told me how she so greatly enjoyed talking to me yesterday and how she thinks I'm a great person and how she's so blown away by how good I am. Then she started talking about all the cool stuff there is to see around Hershey and all the Amish stuff that they have. We kept talking for a bit and then she just kind of stopped. Then she asked me if she'll ever see me again. This is where my heart just sunk. Her eyes were s filled with hope, yet sad at the fact she already knew the answer. I told her 'I don't know.' And I don't because who knows, I might be in Harrisburg 2 years time, I have no clue where I'll be, but for now, I don't know. She looked down at the floor and then back up at me. That's when Sammy interjected saying that Sandy could write me. It was such a good idea, and one I'd never have thought of myself. So I wrote down my address and gave it to Sandy, who seemed really pleased to have this new form of communication in place now. She asked me for a hug and I gladly obliged then headed on my out. I couldn't stop smiling. It was probably the oddest friendship I've ever formed, but it's one I won't soon forget.
We went back to the church to eat lunch because we needed to get directions for our next work project. So we ate on the gym floor and when we were done, Erin and Alex took us to our next location. We were working on this lady's house. Her name was Anna. And Anna probably lives in the sketchiest of all the ghettos in Harrisburg. There was another group already there, but we had been requested to come and help them because there was so much to do. So Anna is disabled, not mentally, but physically. She has a terrible back problem and can't even make it down the stairs to her kitchen without collapsing because of the pain. In addition to painting the upstairs bathroom and the entire front of her house, we were also placed with the task of cleaning up the basement. I entered along with Emily, not really knowing what to expect. Now I swear to you that this was so custy, the nastiest thing I have ever experienced in my life. There was clothing and random object sprawled all over the floor. Mold growing everywhere. I can't explain only using my words how bad it was but let me put it this way: we had to wear face masks and rubber gloves to enter the area. It was gross. There were bags just filled with pee. Do you know how gross that it? And poo, just laying on the floor covered with a bucket. Not to mention the random switchblades we found randomly as we were cleaning up. I was in there for a bit helping throw stuff out and doing laundry but after a while I couldn't take it anymore, I went back upstairs to go help paint the porch and door way.
When I got kicked off my painting duties, I already had the mindset of trying to avoid going into Anna's basement, so Team Jim, being the cool kids we are, decided to go above and beyond our required tasks and go check out the backyard. Now checking out the backyard would have been cool if we could have maybe seen the backyard. You could not see the ground. There was nasty all over and a fallen tree was just chilling the middle. We took an electric saw and cut the branches down to small, manageable pieces. These were then placed in a pile along with other leaves, branches, twig, and sticks covering the ground. Then another pile was formed for random miscellaneous objects including a headless teddy bear, a microwave, a doorknob, a metal gate, more knives and too many other bizarre items to remember. the third pile was one of bricks that we'd find just hanging out in random places. When these piles were established, we began to rake all of the left over yard waste/nasty into the tree pile, meanwhile being viciously barked at by the neighbours pit bulls. Since the ground was now somewhat visible, I found out that they had a path that ran through the middle of their yard. So I swept the path, and you could actually see the tiles. Upon discovering the path, I also noticed that there used to be garden beside the path, so we took all the bricks we had found and outlined the path so wonderfully, you could even see what was left of the garden. I was actually shocked at how different it looked when we were all done. It was a complete change from the way it was when we started. And that's the nice thing about physical service, you can literally watch the change happening in front of you. I was proud of the backyard, and even more so that it was something that wasn't required of us, but it was something that could make the most difference.
After that, we piled all the garbage out to the front of the house and emptied out the paint then headed off to the Y. It was a long day of service, but we were only at Anna's for half a day, the other group was only there for the whole week! The Y was chill and we reunited with our shower buds once more. Got wild cherry Pepsi once more. And ate cinnamon buns in the car ride back to the church. Free time was again spent going to Target, where Cameron decided to buy a thong. Very interesting. When we came back, we played a huge came of hide and go seek. Which then turned into a contest of who can roll down the hill the fastest. It was all good. Then we had another gross dinner. It was kind of weird having dinners so early, we ate at like 5:30 everyday. After dinner, there was CLUB in which we talked about acting different. And going from what you believe about God and how it affects what you do everyday, if it affects it. They did a really cool thing where Alex said that the first one to come up to the front would get a chocolate bar. And none of us really moved, everyone just sat and looked at him wondering whether we should take a chance and go up. Then Heidi jumped up and sprinted for Alex, and in return, Alex gave her a Snickers bar. And the overall message we took from this was that you need to act on what you believe. And it was a cool thought to be challenged with. They also did this really sick skit for us called Radio Romance and it was this play that was portrayed through lipsyncing al these mainstrem radio songs. It was kind of hilarious.
Tonight, we were supposed to have a city-wide scavenger hunt but instead we went to the Hershey Factory to make up for missing it on Monday, but we wouldn't have a make up for the scavenger hunt. In my opinion, that was totally fine because I wouldn't have minded either one. We drove down to the Factory which seemed vaguely familiar. I think I had been there before when I was really little with my parents driving back from Florida one year. But anyways, we got there and immediately upon arriving, we went for a little tour. In groups of 5 or 6 we all piled onto the little trolley cart things and went for a tour around the factory being instructed on how chocolate is made by our singing tour guide, Betsy the cow. It was all quite lovely. Then when we exited the ride, we were given samples of Hershey Drops which are kind of amazing. Then is was off to Chocolate World, the gift shop bigger than my house. Bigger than two of my houses actually. I have never seen so much chocolate in my life. They had the worlds largest chocolate bar, world's largest twizzlers, world's largest every-variation-of-candy. Almost everyone walked away with stacks of chocolate but I just bought some jolly ranchers because they're delicious. Katrina, Emily and I split a free milkshake and had just an overall dandy time. There was one point actually where we were all looking at plush tootsie pillows or something and I told Cameron he should plank on the stand, yeah I know, bad influence. Anyways, he did. In the process of doing so, he ended up pegging some little girl in the face! So he fell off because he was laughing so hard, and hit the floor. Then people proceeded to run up to him and ask him if he was okay. Meanwhile he's just laying there laughing saying 'I'm good. I'm good!' And people are just staring awkwardly saying how they thought he got knocked over or something. It was really really funny.
Back at the church we talked about our day and all the work we did and lives we impacted. Today I didn't feel worthless, today I felt like I accomplished something and that I was making a difference. I shared about Sandy and how it was finally starting to kick in that I was meant to be here, and I challenged everyone to keep in mind that even when you're feeling like you're not making any difference at all, you might actually be doing way more than you could have imagined. It was a good church group, like always and we were enjoying ourselves, like always. But there was a time when we actually had to sleep, and so we did. But before that, I went to go drop off 3 little letters. See, we had this thing going from day one where everyone on the trip had a brown paper bag and they were hung up on the wall in the dinning hall so people could drop encouraging messages in them. Like I normally do with situations like these, I wrote out 3 cards saying 'You're beautiful' and I dropped them into 3 random bags. Immediately after, I forgot what I did and decided to go down to the sleeping rooms. People kept coming up to us and saying how they were going to sneak into our church group because it was so much fun, but this gave us a bad reputation as just having fun, which was how most of them saw us, but they didn't see how serious we all are when we pray our how much we really take in. Street had all this stuff to talk about with us, all these verses to read for the whole week, but he didn't use any of them. We had real conversations every night. Not planned, not scripted; real. I fell asleep listening to worship music. And thus concluded day 2.
Team Jim piled into the van and drove over to Manor Care. We were playing Bingo today. There is nothing better than playing BINGO in and old age home. How excited they get, oh jeez, it's crazy. And that my friends, is sarcasm. Well a few of them are. There was one lady who kept accusing another of cheating so she kept yelling at her. It was funny because the lady she was yelling at was hard of hearing so she just didn't care because she couldn't hear anything. We didn't play Bingo right away though, while Sammy was getting different residents to come play, we all got Bored Games down off the shelf and played with the residents until we were ready to start the game. We were playing cards, checkers, pictionary, all sorts of terribly exciting things. But I didn't really play anything, but that was because of the piano they had there. Emily would play something and I would sing to it while everyone else was playing. It was fun, and we had random residents who would poke their heads in and ask who was playing and singing then tell us we were really good and they enjoyed listening. We tried to keep the songs okay, so we stuck to mostly Adele and Christina Perri.
When Sammy was back with everyone she could find, we started the game. We played a bunch of different games, taking turns between myself, Maddie, Addie and Emily calling out the numbers. And by calling out, I mean screaming them and repeating around 3 times each so the partially def residents can hear as well. It was fun. When I wasn't calling out, and playing. I was sitting at a table with 3 other residents and the lady across me had nothing on her card yet, so I tried to make a joke about her doing even worse than me, and that's bad because I suck. But she just smiled and said she can't hear the numbers. So I was her Bingo buddy for the remainder of the games. Which was really cool because she ended up winning some games too. I guess they have this system at Manor Care that when you come out to Activities or do things or win games, you get 'Funny Money' and then at the end of the month they can use it to buy little things for themselves.
In the middle of one of the games, Sammy asked if she could see me. Now I had no clue what this was about, so I was a bit puzzled but I said sure. So we were talking outside and she was telling me how Sandy, the lady I was talking with yesterday really enjoyed talking to me yesterday and she really wanted to see if it was at all possible that I could go talk with her again today just to say good bye before I left. Now I was shocked at this, because I couldn't understand how I could have made that much of an impact from the little time I spent talking to her yesterday but I agreed and said it would be no problem so I told Sammy I'd pop in and see her before we all left. Though I was confused my it, it made me smile. So I continued playing Bingo happily assisting my table. When Bingo finally came to a close, Sammy had us help her set up for lunch and then she treated us all to popsicles to thank us for our help. It was then that I went to go see Sandy.
I basically just went in and she was watching TV. So I said 'Hi Sandy. Sammy told me that you wanted to see me' And she said 'Yes.' So the fact she didn't really say anything after that was kind of awkward but not overly, so I flashed a big smile and asked how she was. She responded by telling me how she was up all night thinking about me. And how I had been in her mind all day. She asked me to tell her a little more about why I was here. So I told her about Youthworks and how we were staying at the church and going to different places everyday to help out. She just smiled. She told me how she so greatly enjoyed talking to me yesterday and how she thinks I'm a great person and how she's so blown away by how good I am. Then she started talking about all the cool stuff there is to see around Hershey and all the Amish stuff that they have. We kept talking for a bit and then she just kind of stopped. Then she asked me if she'll ever see me again. This is where my heart just sunk. Her eyes were s filled with hope, yet sad at the fact she already knew the answer. I told her 'I don't know.' And I don't because who knows, I might be in Harrisburg 2 years time, I have no clue where I'll be, but for now, I don't know. She looked down at the floor and then back up at me. That's when Sammy interjected saying that Sandy could write me. It was such a good idea, and one I'd never have thought of myself. So I wrote down my address and gave it to Sandy, who seemed really pleased to have this new form of communication in place now. She asked me for a hug and I gladly obliged then headed on my out. I couldn't stop smiling. It was probably the oddest friendship I've ever formed, but it's one I won't soon forget.
We went back to the church to eat lunch because we needed to get directions for our next work project. So we ate on the gym floor and when we were done, Erin and Alex took us to our next location. We were working on this lady's house. Her name was Anna. And Anna probably lives in the sketchiest of all the ghettos in Harrisburg. There was another group already there, but we had been requested to come and help them because there was so much to do. So Anna is disabled, not mentally, but physically. She has a terrible back problem and can't even make it down the stairs to her kitchen without collapsing because of the pain. In addition to painting the upstairs bathroom and the entire front of her house, we were also placed with the task of cleaning up the basement. I entered along with Emily, not really knowing what to expect. Now I swear to you that this was so custy, the nastiest thing I have ever experienced in my life. There was clothing and random object sprawled all over the floor. Mold growing everywhere. I can't explain only using my words how bad it was but let me put it this way: we had to wear face masks and rubber gloves to enter the area. It was gross. There were bags just filled with pee. Do you know how gross that it? And poo, just laying on the floor covered with a bucket. Not to mention the random switchblades we found randomly as we were cleaning up. I was in there for a bit helping throw stuff out and doing laundry but after a while I couldn't take it anymore, I went back upstairs to go help paint the porch and door way.
When I got kicked off my painting duties, I already had the mindset of trying to avoid going into Anna's basement, so Team Jim, being the cool kids we are, decided to go above and beyond our required tasks and go check out the backyard. Now checking out the backyard would have been cool if we could have maybe seen the backyard. You could not see the ground. There was nasty all over and a fallen tree was just chilling the middle. We took an electric saw and cut the branches down to small, manageable pieces. These were then placed in a pile along with other leaves, branches, twig, and sticks covering the ground. Then another pile was formed for random miscellaneous objects including a headless teddy bear, a microwave, a doorknob, a metal gate, more knives and too many other bizarre items to remember. the third pile was one of bricks that we'd find just hanging out in random places. When these piles were established, we began to rake all of the left over yard waste/nasty into the tree pile, meanwhile being viciously barked at by the neighbours pit bulls. Since the ground was now somewhat visible, I found out that they had a path that ran through the middle of their yard. So I swept the path, and you could actually see the tiles. Upon discovering the path, I also noticed that there used to be garden beside the path, so we took all the bricks we had found and outlined the path so wonderfully, you could even see what was left of the garden. I was actually shocked at how different it looked when we were all done. It was a complete change from the way it was when we started. And that's the nice thing about physical service, you can literally watch the change happening in front of you. I was proud of the backyard, and even more so that it was something that wasn't required of us, but it was something that could make the most difference.
After that, we piled all the garbage out to the front of the house and emptied out the paint then headed off to the Y. It was a long day of service, but we were only at Anna's for half a day, the other group was only there for the whole week! The Y was chill and we reunited with our shower buds once more. Got wild cherry Pepsi once more. And ate cinnamon buns in the car ride back to the church. Free time was again spent going to Target, where Cameron decided to buy a thong. Very interesting. When we came back, we played a huge came of hide and go seek. Which then turned into a contest of who can roll down the hill the fastest. It was all good. Then we had another gross dinner. It was kind of weird having dinners so early, we ate at like 5:30 everyday. After dinner, there was CLUB in which we talked about acting different. And going from what you believe about God and how it affects what you do everyday, if it affects it. They did a really cool thing where Alex said that the first one to come up to the front would get a chocolate bar. And none of us really moved, everyone just sat and looked at him wondering whether we should take a chance and go up. Then Heidi jumped up and sprinted for Alex, and in return, Alex gave her a Snickers bar. And the overall message we took from this was that you need to act on what you believe. And it was a cool thought to be challenged with. They also did this really sick skit for us called Radio Romance and it was this play that was portrayed through lipsyncing al these mainstrem radio songs. It was kind of hilarious.
Tonight, we were supposed to have a city-wide scavenger hunt but instead we went to the Hershey Factory to make up for missing it on Monday, but we wouldn't have a make up for the scavenger hunt. In my opinion, that was totally fine because I wouldn't have minded either one. We drove down to the Factory which seemed vaguely familiar. I think I had been there before when I was really little with my parents driving back from Florida one year. But anyways, we got there and immediately upon arriving, we went for a little tour. In groups of 5 or 6 we all piled onto the little trolley cart things and went for a tour around the factory being instructed on how chocolate is made by our singing tour guide, Betsy the cow. It was all quite lovely. Then when we exited the ride, we were given samples of Hershey Drops which are kind of amazing. Then is was off to Chocolate World, the gift shop bigger than my house. Bigger than two of my houses actually. I have never seen so much chocolate in my life. They had the worlds largest chocolate bar, world's largest twizzlers, world's largest every-variation-of-candy. Almost everyone walked away with stacks of chocolate but I just bought some jolly ranchers because they're delicious. Katrina, Emily and I split a free milkshake and had just an overall dandy time. There was one point actually where we were all looking at plush tootsie pillows or something and I told Cameron he should plank on the stand, yeah I know, bad influence. Anyways, he did. In the process of doing so, he ended up pegging some little girl in the face! So he fell off because he was laughing so hard, and hit the floor. Then people proceeded to run up to him and ask him if he was okay. Meanwhile he's just laying there laughing saying 'I'm good. I'm good!' And people are just staring awkwardly saying how they thought he got knocked over or something. It was really really funny.
Back at the church we talked about our day and all the work we did and lives we impacted. Today I didn't feel worthless, today I felt like I accomplished something and that I was making a difference. I shared about Sandy and how it was finally starting to kick in that I was meant to be here, and I challenged everyone to keep in mind that even when you're feeling like you're not making any difference at all, you might actually be doing way more than you could have imagined. It was a good church group, like always and we were enjoying ourselves, like always. But there was a time when we actually had to sleep, and so we did. But before that, I went to go drop off 3 little letters. See, we had this thing going from day one where everyone on the trip had a brown paper bag and they were hung up on the wall in the dinning hall so people could drop encouraging messages in them. Like I normally do with situations like these, I wrote out 3 cards saying 'You're beautiful' and I dropped them into 3 random bags. Immediately after, I forgot what I did and decided to go down to the sleeping rooms. People kept coming up to us and saying how they were going to sneak into our church group because it was so much fun, but this gave us a bad reputation as just having fun, which was how most of them saw us, but they didn't see how serious we all are when we pray our how much we really take in. Street had all this stuff to talk about with us, all these verses to read for the whole week, but he didn't use any of them. We had real conversations every night. Not planned, not scripted; real. I fell asleep listening to worship music. And thus concluded day 2.
Tuesday, August 16
Welcome to Harrisburg
We awoke at around 7:30 and basically just got dressed and headed upstairs. I was late. I was always late for breakfast, but that was fine. We all sat at a giant table and ate breakfast then went up and packed our lunches for the day in these small brown bags. I felt like I was going into grade 2 again, it was kind of funny. After that, we filled up our water bottles, filled our cooler, filled our water jug and hauled them out into the van.
We had morning devos all throughout the trip, so we were given this cute little devotional book to read through along with our bibles every morning. We basically all branched off to different places to do our devos and when we were done, we'd all come back and meet up together and head to the gym. Once in the gym, the different work groups were assembled. Everything we did related to the show 'The Office' so our teams were split up like that. My team was 'Team Jim' consisting of myself, Becka, Brendan, Emily M, Maddie, Mark, and Addie. Maddie Addie and Mark are from Maryland.
We all met with our team sand then talked to one of the programming staff to see what we would be doing for the day. My schedule was split Manor Care & Work Project. So only knowing that, we headed off to our service jobs. Manor Care, as it turns out, is an old age home. When we arrived, we met up with Sammy, the head of activities in Manor Care. She told us about the program they have going on with the residents that youth would come in and ask them about their life story and just talk one on one with them.
She gave us a lay of the land, went over some rules and we hung in the main room for a bit. It was nothing incredibly fancy, a bunch of tables and chairs, a piano and bookshelf filled with board games. Oh, and a bird cage, the birds name was Sassy and she was a love bird. Quite like Sunny actually. She lived alone and was very hateful towards everyone. I knew a few tricks that I had with Sunny before she passed, so I thought I'd try them out with Sassy and they worked. So everybody found it amusing how the love bird would spread out its wings full span as I pet its stomach. She was a cute bird, loud, but cute. Sammy came back after looking for residents who were awake and not deathly ill.
We followed her around and everyone branched off into a room with a resident. As we were going into the rooms, one old lady asked Becka, Emily and I to come in, so we did. She then insisted that we take all her 3 Musketeers chocolate bars from her because she cant eat them. We kindly refused, but she was persistent. It was really cute. We ended up not taking the chocolate because it was too early in the morning to have chocolate. Emily stayed and pursued the life stories program with her. I would have definitely wanted too as well, she was a really nice lady. As we were walking down the hallway, we could hear Emily: "fourteen. Fourteen. Fourteen! FOURTEEN!" I assumed she was asked about her age. Emily is not really the quietest kid but she'd so kind, I knew she'd feel very awkward about yelling at this lady.
Becka, Brendan and I were all put in the 'common room' type area. Brendan was put with probably the grumpiest old mad ever. He's such a nice guy too, I just laughed at every attempt the tried to ask a question and Hoag would just say 'No.' Becka and I were put with two ladies watching television. So it was somewhat hard to keep their attention at first. We were all close enough to hear each others conversations and feed off of what questions they were asking. Sammy had given us all a booklet with different questions to ask. I didn't use mine at all, I was trying to make real conversation. My lady's name was Sandy. She grew up on a farm with loads of brothers and sisters. She liked animals. That was about it. She got divorced at a young age, worked as a single mom all her life, never went to collage. I tried to ask her about her interests but she literally turned down everything I'd ask. 'Were you ever into music?' "Umm, no." 'Did you like to draw?' "No." 'Any type of art?" 'No.' And this continued until we eliminated sports, writing, singing, dancing, acting. There was some baseball that she played when she was young but other than that nothing. Plus she had terrible stage fright as a kid. Sounds like the coolest kid around right?
She was nice, but she didn't have that exciting of a life. And she didn't like to talk. It seemed as if she was fascinated at me being there but she just didn't make conversation. It was kind of a one word answer to every question I asked. So naturally, when people don't respond or things become awkward, I start talking to myself. But talking to myself in a way that others feel involved. All while she's managing to watch 'Let's Make a Deal' She eventually had to go to the washroom so I said my goodbyes as it was time to go back to the main room for the Morning Show. As much as I'd have liked to say that was fun, it wasn't. I felt so meh about everything. I guess I came in expecting to make a huge difference and felt feeling nothing had even happened. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.
I talked with Hoag for a bit with Brendan before it was time to go back to the main room, we kind of dragged him against his will to the morning show just because he's so depressing. but he is slightly amusing. He yelled at me to behave myself at one point. I almost fell asleep during the Morning Show. They basically read the weather, news, famous people born on this day, people who died this day, important events made on this day. It was jolly good fun. After the morning show, we all bailed and went to a park to eat our wonderfully bagged lunches. After that, it was off to Work Projects we go.
We ended up in the backyard of a very old broken lady grieving the death of her hamster in a very creepy neighbourhood. Her backyard wasn't terrible, it just needed some fixing up. We cut all her shrubs down and way back with clippers. We raked her whole yard. Watered all her plants. And trimmed her huge arse bush. It wasn't a lot of work, but it was crazy hot outside, so it just made it seem brutal. We thanked her for the opportunity to help out, and gladly relaxed in the cool air conditioned van.
I was a little confused at how showers were going to work due to the fact that there were none in the church, but it all made sense now. Everyday after we finished our service work for the day, we'd head to a Y (YMCA) and take showers there. I've never been to a Y before that but oh boy, they are fabulous. I'm not even kidding. The most beautiful thing. Showers, pool, gym, wild cherry Pepsi for only 6o cents. There is nothing better. And it was such a clean facility too. Emily and I made friends singing in the shower. It was quite enjoyable.
We then went back to the church, we had a little free time basically until everyone came back from their service jobs until dinner was made. When all the Springvale kids came back, we decided to walk down to Target. See, the church was like 2 blocks away from this amazing plaza filled with wonderful stores so we tended to go down there everyday. Plus the Target had a Starbucks in it, so it just became more beautiful. If I only say one thing about that place, its that I am actually so excited they're coming to Canada, no lie. They are the coolest thing. I didn't buy much though, because I was saving my money. After harassing a few of the staff, we came back and ate a nasty meal and then went to CLUB. We talked about putting your beliefs into action and such.
We were getting all stoked and ready to go to the Chocolate Factory that night after club, so people were just hanging out, doing whatever and it starts to POUR. The sky cracks and rain is just plummeting from the sky, there's a huge thunderstorm and lightening is blasting all around. Everyone was just staring at it in awe through the window. And there's me, who's out in the middle of the field dancing, coming back soaking wet. It was a great storm, as was the sunset we experienced the night before. I think that's where I find peace, in the middle of a rain storm, I know that doesn't make sense, but it works for me.
When I came back inside, people were freaking out because I group of Springvale kids were sitting outside filming the storm and then lightening struck 10 feet from them. I'm not kidding you, it's on video, 10 feet. So the whole video consists of them jumping up and booking it inside, scared for their lives. It was so funny! Well, obviously we couldn't go to the Factory because we couldn't even make it outside to our vans without dying. They set up Toy Story 3, the movie in the sanctuary so everyone could come watch. But the Springvale guys had a different idea, we played the animal game. Such a classic Springvale game too, and we taught all the Americans. It was fun, I was in the King's Seat for a while. After I lost, games of ninja were exchanged and we all headed off to Church Group Time. This was basically where all our different groups that we came with gathered together and talked about our day. What we liked, learned and saw love in the things we did that day.
Our group time was pretty legit because everyone was freaking out about how excited they were and how much they did and how in touch they felt with God. People were sharing stories of this garden that they had planted outside this orphanage or this church that they painted. There were stories about how many food boxes they packed at the homeless shelter or how many beds they made, how many homeless people they severed lunch too. There was one group who was working at a camp for the whole week, and knowing that I had just worked at camp all last week, I knew what great relationships they'd be building. It was crazy hearing all these different stories about how much the different groups had gotten done. Then I'm just sitting there like 'I talked to an old person and trimmed a bush.' I felt dumb, like I had gone through the whole day, not making any difference at all, meanwhile everyone else was out there changing lives. It kind of sucked for me, but it passed quickly. Like the day before, we stayed up way too late in our group, talking and making joke, having a good time. But we did a lot of praying for each other too. It was really cool.
But we did eventually have to go to bed, and so we did. Thus concluding day one in Harrisburg.
We had morning devos all throughout the trip, so we were given this cute little devotional book to read through along with our bibles every morning. We basically all branched off to different places to do our devos and when we were done, we'd all come back and meet up together and head to the gym. Once in the gym, the different work groups were assembled. Everything we did related to the show 'The Office' so our teams were split up like that. My team was 'Team Jim' consisting of myself, Becka, Brendan, Emily M, Maddie, Mark, and Addie. Maddie Addie and Mark are from Maryland.
We all met with our team sand then talked to one of the programming staff to see what we would be doing for the day. My schedule was split Manor Care & Work Project. So only knowing that, we headed off to our service jobs. Manor Care, as it turns out, is an old age home. When we arrived, we met up with Sammy, the head of activities in Manor Care. She told us about the program they have going on with the residents that youth would come in and ask them about their life story and just talk one on one with them.
She gave us a lay of the land, went over some rules and we hung in the main room for a bit. It was nothing incredibly fancy, a bunch of tables and chairs, a piano and bookshelf filled with board games. Oh, and a bird cage, the birds name was Sassy and she was a love bird. Quite like Sunny actually. She lived alone and was very hateful towards everyone. I knew a few tricks that I had with Sunny before she passed, so I thought I'd try them out with Sassy and they worked. So everybody found it amusing how the love bird would spread out its wings full span as I pet its stomach. She was a cute bird, loud, but cute. Sammy came back after looking for residents who were awake and not deathly ill.
We followed her around and everyone branched off into a room with a resident. As we were going into the rooms, one old lady asked Becka, Emily and I to come in, so we did. She then insisted that we take all her 3 Musketeers chocolate bars from her because she cant eat them. We kindly refused, but she was persistent. It was really cute. We ended up not taking the chocolate because it was too early in the morning to have chocolate. Emily stayed and pursued the life stories program with her. I would have definitely wanted too as well, she was a really nice lady. As we were walking down the hallway, we could hear Emily: "fourteen. Fourteen. Fourteen! FOURTEEN!" I assumed she was asked about her age. Emily is not really the quietest kid but she'd so kind, I knew she'd feel very awkward about yelling at this lady.
Becka, Brendan and I were all put in the 'common room' type area. Brendan was put with probably the grumpiest old mad ever. He's such a nice guy too, I just laughed at every attempt the tried to ask a question and Hoag would just say 'No.' Becka and I were put with two ladies watching television. So it was somewhat hard to keep their attention at first. We were all close enough to hear each others conversations and feed off of what questions they were asking. Sammy had given us all a booklet with different questions to ask. I didn't use mine at all, I was trying to make real conversation. My lady's name was Sandy. She grew up on a farm with loads of brothers and sisters. She liked animals. That was about it. She got divorced at a young age, worked as a single mom all her life, never went to collage. I tried to ask her about her interests but she literally turned down everything I'd ask. 'Were you ever into music?' "Umm, no." 'Did you like to draw?' "No." 'Any type of art?" 'No.' And this continued until we eliminated sports, writing, singing, dancing, acting. There was some baseball that she played when she was young but other than that nothing. Plus she had terrible stage fright as a kid. Sounds like the coolest kid around right?
She was nice, but she didn't have that exciting of a life. And she didn't like to talk. It seemed as if she was fascinated at me being there but she just didn't make conversation. It was kind of a one word answer to every question I asked. So naturally, when people don't respond or things become awkward, I start talking to myself. But talking to myself in a way that others feel involved. All while she's managing to watch 'Let's Make a Deal' She eventually had to go to the washroom so I said my goodbyes as it was time to go back to the main room for the Morning Show. As much as I'd have liked to say that was fun, it wasn't. I felt so meh about everything. I guess I came in expecting to make a huge difference and felt feeling nothing had even happened. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.
I talked with Hoag for a bit with Brendan before it was time to go back to the main room, we kind of dragged him against his will to the morning show just because he's so depressing. but he is slightly amusing. He yelled at me to behave myself at one point. I almost fell asleep during the Morning Show. They basically read the weather, news, famous people born on this day, people who died this day, important events made on this day. It was jolly good fun. After the morning show, we all bailed and went to a park to eat our wonderfully bagged lunches. After that, it was off to Work Projects we go.
We ended up in the backyard of a very old broken lady grieving the death of her hamster in a very creepy neighbourhood. Her backyard wasn't terrible, it just needed some fixing up. We cut all her shrubs down and way back with clippers. We raked her whole yard. Watered all her plants. And trimmed her huge arse bush. It wasn't a lot of work, but it was crazy hot outside, so it just made it seem brutal. We thanked her for the opportunity to help out, and gladly relaxed in the cool air conditioned van.
I was a little confused at how showers were going to work due to the fact that there were none in the church, but it all made sense now. Everyday after we finished our service work for the day, we'd head to a Y (YMCA) and take showers there. I've never been to a Y before that but oh boy, they are fabulous. I'm not even kidding. The most beautiful thing. Showers, pool, gym, wild cherry Pepsi for only 6o cents. There is nothing better. And it was such a clean facility too. Emily and I made friends singing in the shower. It was quite enjoyable.
We then went back to the church, we had a little free time basically until everyone came back from their service jobs until dinner was made. When all the Springvale kids came back, we decided to walk down to Target. See, the church was like 2 blocks away from this amazing plaza filled with wonderful stores so we tended to go down there everyday. Plus the Target had a Starbucks in it, so it just became more beautiful. If I only say one thing about that place, its that I am actually so excited they're coming to Canada, no lie. They are the coolest thing. I didn't buy much though, because I was saving my money. After harassing a few of the staff, we came back and ate a nasty meal and then went to CLUB. We talked about putting your beliefs into action and such.
We were getting all stoked and ready to go to the Chocolate Factory that night after club, so people were just hanging out, doing whatever and it starts to POUR. The sky cracks and rain is just plummeting from the sky, there's a huge thunderstorm and lightening is blasting all around. Everyone was just staring at it in awe through the window. And there's me, who's out in the middle of the field dancing, coming back soaking wet. It was a great storm, as was the sunset we experienced the night before. I think that's where I find peace, in the middle of a rain storm, I know that doesn't make sense, but it works for me.
When I came back inside, people were freaking out because I group of Springvale kids were sitting outside filming the storm and then lightening struck 10 feet from them. I'm not kidding you, it's on video, 10 feet. So the whole video consists of them jumping up and booking it inside, scared for their lives. It was so funny! Well, obviously we couldn't go to the Factory because we couldn't even make it outside to our vans without dying. They set up Toy Story 3, the movie in the sanctuary so everyone could come watch. But the Springvale guys had a different idea, we played the animal game. Such a classic Springvale game too, and we taught all the Americans. It was fun, I was in the King's Seat for a while. After I lost, games of ninja were exchanged and we all headed off to Church Group Time. This was basically where all our different groups that we came with gathered together and talked about our day. What we liked, learned and saw love in the things we did that day.
Our group time was pretty legit because everyone was freaking out about how excited they were and how much they did and how in touch they felt with God. People were sharing stories of this garden that they had planted outside this orphanage or this church that they painted. There were stories about how many food boxes they packed at the homeless shelter or how many beds they made, how many homeless people they severed lunch too. There was one group who was working at a camp for the whole week, and knowing that I had just worked at camp all last week, I knew what great relationships they'd be building. It was crazy hearing all these different stories about how much the different groups had gotten done. Then I'm just sitting there like 'I talked to an old person and trimmed a bush.' I felt dumb, like I had gone through the whole day, not making any difference at all, meanwhile everyone else was out there changing lives. It kind of sucked for me, but it passed quickly. Like the day before, we stayed up way too late in our group, talking and making joke, having a good time. But we did a lot of praying for each other too. It was really cool.
But we did eventually have to go to bed, and so we did. Thus concluding day one in Harrisburg.
Monday, August 8
Heads Up
So if you note the title, this is just a little fill in / heads up for those who don't really know what's been happening recently in my life. I'm going to try to do the best I possible can to recall all the details of my trip.
My trip, which was myself going out of the country to Harrisburg Pennsylvania with 21 other Canadians to meet up with several other American groups under the Supervision of Youthworks in Harrisburg.
We were there as a Church going down on a Mission to just go there and help out with the various needs in the community. In order to do this, we needed to apply, answer questions, go to meetings, give up a week of our summer, be accepted, and then manage to raise $10, 500 as the overall cost of our trip.
So myself, and 15 other kids were selected as well as 8 other adults were made into the Harrisburg Team. Fundraising was quite difficult because another group from our church was actually going down to Poland for around a month and they were fundraising around the same time as we were. We both managed to fund our trips, so it was quite incredible.
We basically took 2 large white vans down Saturday morning at around 5AM. So the night before a bunch of us slept over at the church photocopying passports, getting everything put together, packing the vans, blasting music, playing ball tag, and just hanging out really. I know for a short time Robbie took my phone and started texting you, so that was kind of funny. Anyways, we were all asleep before 1 so it was okay, we slept in the sanctuary after having a little talk with the girls about what we were afraid of and what we wanted to take out of the trip. Then I think we all crashed pretty hard listening to Jesus Culture.
The next morning we were up bright and early and in the vans pretty quick. My van was Alex, Becka, Kat, Emily, Brendan, Cameron, Caleb, Tyler, Greg and Ryan. So it was pretty legit. I actually expected to sleep a bit. HAHAH, like that happened. No chance at all. We were talking and playing games and jamming out to music. It was pretty intense. Party Rock was our song for the trip. I loved it. Van rides were just so much fun. We'd be dancing and then a car would pass and we'd just be rocking it out and someone would turn and see the reaction and die laughing. I fell out of my seat so many times it's not even funny. Plus I had my seat belt locked, so I was kind of confined to my seat for a while, like what Patty and Thomas used to do in the morning rides. Gosh I miss them!
When we go into Niagara, we stopped and took off out of the van to go look at the Falls. We had a few nice group pictures there. It was pretty sweet, because I've never really seen the Falls before. Anyways, we got back in the vans and crossed the border, they basically asked us what we were doing, where we were going, asked if we were a youth group. He made us all hold our passports up to our face and take off our glasses/hats etc and slid the door open and checked us. Then he A-OK-ed the pedo vans to enter America. So we drove past the Falls of the USA side and man, they're not as pretty as the are in Canada.
In our van, we had this weird thing that we'd hold our breath every time we went over a bridge, but the bridges we crossed were about a two and half minutes each, so we all light headed after each bridge adventure. So it was obviously completely safe for Alex Street to be doing it while driving.
We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast then messed around in the gift shop and took a group shot there. Then it was back in the vans! We decided to play Hands Up. Which is basically where you put one of your hands up and see how long you can last without putting it down. I think Kat and Greg were going for a good 3 hours until they agreed to both put theirs down. It was actually really funny because we all went to Wendy's for lunch and they walked in with their hands up in the air. Lots of weird looks. We basically responded to everything with a "Sorry, we're Canadian" It was fun.
While we were driving we passed this open field where this group of people were setting up a slip and slide so we made Alex do a U-turn and go back. He asked them if we could use it but they didn't have any water because a fire truck was coming so they could use that water in 45 minutes. Instead, in the time we had, we got out of the vehicles and ran around, played balls, and rolled down the hills as a little break from sitting in the car for so long. They did let us take a picture with them though, so that was cool.
We continued to drive until we reached Pennsylvania. Where many landscape pictures were taken and a group shot as well. Lots of planking and owling, but still, it was all good. We possed with our hands up in the picture, so Katrina and Greg could continue their competetion. We then loaded back in the vans and pretty much drove until we got there.
The church we stayed at was called the Swatara Church of God and they're awesome for letting us all crash there. We all stayed in the basement. There were 4 sleeping rooms for guys and 4 for girls. So we crammed all the Springvale girls in one room. Let's just say that there wasn't that much room to breathe. It was all good though. We set up all our stuff upon getting there. Then the leaders had a meeting and the kids went upstairs to the youth room for a lay down of all the rules. "No Purple" would have to be one of my faveourites. It meant no guys in girls room, no girls in guys rooms, etc. Get it? Like red and blue making purple. I thought it was kind of hilarious. That rule was broken a few times though, no big deal.
We had a nasty dinner of American nasty food, it was just like camp food, but disgusting. So yay. We ate in the gym with tables and chairs etc, so it wasn't like we were all eating on the floor or anything. After dinner, we had this thing called CLUB which is kind of like Chapel at WSC, worship, music, scripture, and a speaker who happened to be Alex who was one of the Youthworks Staff for the week. There were 4 of them Alex, Aaron, Becky, and Jenny. They're all really cool. Anyways, CLUB was cool and after CLUB we had church group time, so Springvale met in the youth room, so we didn't have to go anywhere. We stayed there much longer than we were expected to. We were talking through our worries, our fears, what we wanted this trip to do, what we wanted to take back home with us. We also looked at what we were doing for the week and talked about how we felt about that. I had Manor Care, Work Project & Silence of Mary. So I really didn't know what any of those would be so I had no real concerns, just a general nervous excitement.
We had some deep conversations, as per usual. So we were up late. A lot of people asked why our group went so long. I really dont know how to anwser that question. I mean, I get it with everything I do with this group. We just have real conversations. Real people, real prayers, a real God, real struggles, and we're really there for each other. And that's all I can really say.
We all went to bed after church group time, meanwhile every other group was already passed out asleep. We were all pretty exhausted from the car ride and night before. Myself espically from being at camp the week before. So we were passed out in a matter of minutes. On the wonderful, hard, cold, carpeted, church basement floor.
And that was just one day. I suggest you brace yourself for the rest of the week.
My trip, which was myself going out of the country to Harrisburg Pennsylvania with 21 other Canadians to meet up with several other American groups under the Supervision of Youthworks in Harrisburg.
We were there as a Church going down on a Mission to just go there and help out with the various needs in the community. In order to do this, we needed to apply, answer questions, go to meetings, give up a week of our summer, be accepted, and then manage to raise $10, 500 as the overall cost of our trip.
So myself, and 15 other kids were selected as well as 8 other adults were made into the Harrisburg Team. Fundraising was quite difficult because another group from our church was actually going down to Poland for around a month and they were fundraising around the same time as we were. We both managed to fund our trips, so it was quite incredible.
We basically took 2 large white vans down Saturday morning at around 5AM. So the night before a bunch of us slept over at the church photocopying passports, getting everything put together, packing the vans, blasting music, playing ball tag, and just hanging out really. I know for a short time Robbie took my phone and started texting you, so that was kind of funny. Anyways, we were all asleep before 1 so it was okay, we slept in the sanctuary after having a little talk with the girls about what we were afraid of and what we wanted to take out of the trip. Then I think we all crashed pretty hard listening to Jesus Culture.
The next morning we were up bright and early and in the vans pretty quick. My van was Alex, Becka, Kat, Emily, Brendan, Cameron, Caleb, Tyler, Greg and Ryan. So it was pretty legit. I actually expected to sleep a bit. HAHAH, like that happened. No chance at all. We were talking and playing games and jamming out to music. It was pretty intense. Party Rock was our song for the trip. I loved it. Van rides were just so much fun. We'd be dancing and then a car would pass and we'd just be rocking it out and someone would turn and see the reaction and die laughing. I fell out of my seat so many times it's not even funny. Plus I had my seat belt locked, so I was kind of confined to my seat for a while, like what Patty and Thomas used to do in the morning rides. Gosh I miss them!
When we go into Niagara, we stopped and took off out of the van to go look at the Falls. We had a few nice group pictures there. It was pretty sweet, because I've never really seen the Falls before. Anyways, we got back in the vans and crossed the border, they basically asked us what we were doing, where we were going, asked if we were a youth group. He made us all hold our passports up to our face and take off our glasses/hats etc and slid the door open and checked us. Then he A-OK-ed the pedo vans to enter America. So we drove past the Falls of the USA side and man, they're not as pretty as the are in Canada.
In our van, we had this weird thing that we'd hold our breath every time we went over a bridge, but the bridges we crossed were about a two and half minutes each, so we all light headed after each bridge adventure. So it was obviously completely safe for Alex Street to be doing it while driving.
We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast then messed around in the gift shop and took a group shot there. Then it was back in the vans! We decided to play Hands Up. Which is basically where you put one of your hands up and see how long you can last without putting it down. I think Kat and Greg were going for a good 3 hours until they agreed to both put theirs down. It was actually really funny because we all went to Wendy's for lunch and they walked in with their hands up in the air. Lots of weird looks. We basically responded to everything with a "Sorry, we're Canadian" It was fun.
While we were driving we passed this open field where this group of people were setting up a slip and slide so we made Alex do a U-turn and go back. He asked them if we could use it but they didn't have any water because a fire truck was coming so they could use that water in 45 minutes. Instead, in the time we had, we got out of the vehicles and ran around, played balls, and rolled down the hills as a little break from sitting in the car for so long. They did let us take a picture with them though, so that was cool.
We continued to drive until we reached Pennsylvania. Where many landscape pictures were taken and a group shot as well. Lots of planking and owling, but still, it was all good. We possed with our hands up in the picture, so Katrina and Greg could continue their competetion. We then loaded back in the vans and pretty much drove until we got there.
The church we stayed at was called the Swatara Church of God and they're awesome for letting us all crash there. We all stayed in the basement. There were 4 sleeping rooms for guys and 4 for girls. So we crammed all the Springvale girls in one room. Let's just say that there wasn't that much room to breathe. It was all good though. We set up all our stuff upon getting there. Then the leaders had a meeting and the kids went upstairs to the youth room for a lay down of all the rules. "No Purple" would have to be one of my faveourites. It meant no guys in girls room, no girls in guys rooms, etc. Get it? Like red and blue making purple. I thought it was kind of hilarious. That rule was broken a few times though, no big deal.
We had a nasty dinner of American nasty food, it was just like camp food, but disgusting. So yay. We ate in the gym with tables and chairs etc, so it wasn't like we were all eating on the floor or anything. After dinner, we had this thing called CLUB which is kind of like Chapel at WSC, worship, music, scripture, and a speaker who happened to be Alex who was one of the Youthworks Staff for the week. There were 4 of them Alex, Aaron, Becky, and Jenny. They're all really cool. Anyways, CLUB was cool and after CLUB we had church group time, so Springvale met in the youth room, so we didn't have to go anywhere. We stayed there much longer than we were expected to. We were talking through our worries, our fears, what we wanted this trip to do, what we wanted to take back home with us. We also looked at what we were doing for the week and talked about how we felt about that. I had Manor Care, Work Project & Silence of Mary. So I really didn't know what any of those would be so I had no real concerns, just a general nervous excitement.
We had some deep conversations, as per usual. So we were up late. A lot of people asked why our group went so long. I really dont know how to anwser that question. I mean, I get it with everything I do with this group. We just have real conversations. Real people, real prayers, a real God, real struggles, and we're really there for each other. And that's all I can really say.
We all went to bed after church group time, meanwhile every other group was already passed out asleep. We were all pretty exhausted from the car ride and night before. Myself espically from being at camp the week before. So we were passed out in a matter of minutes. On the wonderful, hard, cold, carpeted, church basement floor.
And that was just one day. I suggest you brace yourself for the rest of the week.
Saturday, July 30
WSC Day Six
Last day today. It's so very sad.
Breakfast was something and English muffins and eggs. I didn't eat much because frankly, it did not taste good. During Chapel I went up to the staff room to do some devos all by my lonesome. So while I was up there, it just started POURING. It sounded like applause in an orchestra. Like that standing up and clapping while people are crying because what they witnessed was that beautiful. So at first I thought they were clapping and then it didn't calm down and I realized that it was rain. It was crazy. I wanted to go run outside. But it stopped really soon so I did not get a chance. It was good that it cleared up though, because then we were able to do our skills.
Tori did not want to participate in Sports and Games so we played ping pong inside the barn. For crafts, Tori made Zukko a flower and then wrote him a card. When she was done, she asked me to make him a red and black gimp bracelet. But the string was too short so it became a keychain instead. Zukko has acquired quite a collection of things from Tori and he keeps them all in his pocket, which she is just very happy about. Whenever he comes over to her and says something, she just turns away and doesn't look at him, but as soon as he walks away she just fist pumps the air and yells 'OH YEAH' It's funny. She also discovered a hole puncher in Crafts, so a lot of time was spend poking holes in things. She then decided that the hole puncher was hers and she was going to keep in forever. Which she had done for almost every item that took her fancy. So, like every other item, I just let her hang on to it until she got bored and put it down, in which case I would pick it up and hide it. However, the hole punching phase lasted until Outdoor Survival, but all they were doing in Outdoor Survival was colouring because it was extremely windy and pouring rain. So Tori and I went back inside the Chapel to hole punch various things until it was time for Drama, to which we came down from the barn, Fiona gave Tori a bracelet and then Tori and I went upstairs to play air hockey. Well, Tori played air hockey with Caleb, and I was the referee.
I've been telling you all week how good the kids have been to her and how they always ask her to play and go up and talk to her. But the crazy thing that kind of struck me was that almost all of them didn't realize she had a disability. It's not like she didn't look or act like it, because she did very much so. It just didn't register with them that she was different. They just saw her as an equal, as another kid. And that was so cool to see the innocence in them. I'd have campers come up to me and ask me questions like 'Why are you always with Tori?' or 'It's not fair you just stay with one camper!' or they'd just be puzzled at why she got so much of my attention. I was talking with one of the campers and they were talking about feeling bad for having her repeat everything because they couldn't understand. Then they were said something along the lines of 'Does she just talk like that, or is there something else?' And that's the point where I just stepped back and wowed at the situation. These kids are so innocent and just love everyone so much. With a love that's coming from God, too. It was a sick thing to witness.
Lunch was Campers Choice, which is basically everyone gets to pick their faveourite meal of the week and eat that. So I had Shepard's Pie, Fries and a Sub. The same deal with dessert, so I had apple crumble. So good. Tori pretty much just dumped the bowl of pickles on her plate. She's been volunteering to scrape a lot lately and we kind of all figured out why, she'll scrape everyones plates on to one big plate and then pick through everyones nasty mushed up leftovers and eat from there. And she'll lick all the ketchup right off her plate. Like Brad at Scanlon. It was so gross. I got poprocks from Reanna in the mail, and I also was handed a wonderful bright blue note with the words 'Allahab called for Hanna B' I was excited. I hoped that meant you were home and I just couldn't wait to talk to you. I couldn't call you back at camp though, so I hope you weren't too crushed about not being able to talk to me. During cabin time, the girls just packed up all their stuff. Then in place of what would usually be a game, we had the "Settling of disputes" So all throughout the week, all the games we play, verses we lear, things we do, they earn us cabin point. Or "posse points" because of our western theme. So the cabin with the most posse points won. And there were different options.
One prize was a movie, there was 5 extra tuck stars, beach party, counsellor payback, pinata, and an ice cream sundae. We got the pinata, which ended up being filled with freezies. Tori was very saddened at not winning the movie but she was only acting sad for Zukko. T-Ko told her she could come watch the movie with them. So we were watching Ice Age 3, and she sat beside Zukko, while I went and got her tuck. We left the movie half way through to go to the waterfront before it got closed down for the beach party. She had fun swimming with Zukko and I even went in. Then we went back to the cabin and she got changed and sat on the porch eating my pop rocks and having her tuck. Meanwhile I was attacked my campers asking me my name. Half the camp is dead set on the fact that my name in Henrita. (Hen-ree-et-a) Which is false, but funny. I did tell all of my cabin my name though. Because I am cool like that. They all said I look like a Hanna, which I disagree. But I don't see myself as anything else.
Tori did not want to come inside the cabin for cabin time, and being extremely difficult. Plus she ended up forgetting 5 things which is completely her fault for not going and checking during cabin time. Silly girl. She didn't want to go anywhere because she was too busy looking at Zukko. She saw him at dinner though, so it's all good. We had sloppy joe's. So good. I remember when you first tried the Manwhiches. We had fudgesicles for dessert and then had the award ceremony of which camper won which award. It was cute. And after dinner, the parents arrived. Which was interesting to get to meet them all. It was sad to say goodbye, but I had no problems, it had been a good week. Tori showed her mom Zukko, which was probably fairly awkward on his part and I hung out with the other staff. We had our little closing ceremonies and it was all just fine and dandy. After all the campers left, it was clean up time. I moved all the chairs from the Chapel, swept the floor and brought a bunch of things upstairs into the programming office. Then I helped Phurbi put dishes away in the kitchen and went to go sweet Vista.
I was thanked so many times by Winnie and Porkchop for being there and helping out. They all swore that if I wasn't there, they literally would not have been able to do it. So that was nice to hear. We had a meeting in the Chapel after everyone was done cleaning. It took a little long because the guy campers apparently liked to build dams, so there were a lot of those to be taken down. The meeting started and we watched the camp video and rewinded/rewatched the part where Don-E fell flat on his face. We went over all the highlights of the week, and the top 10 reasons of why camp was great this week. Number one being "Temp was here helping us out" Which was really cool. They talked about all the campers and the choices made this week and what was cool, what was a struggle, and all sorts of things. There's also this thing called a 5 Dollar Holler. And that goes to the Staff Memeber who just worked the hardest, put forth the most work and just did an outstanding job that week, and they all awarded that to me, So I got a $5 Timmies card which I really didn't need. My the end of the night I also got a bag of fuzzy peaches and a wonderful card, thanking me. It was really sweet. And I felt very appreciated.
It was a weird feeling to leave. I mean, it wasn't breaking my heart to go, but it wasn't like I was celebrating that it was over, it was just a good week. A long week, but a good one. Plus coming home and spending my time webcaming with you made it all the better. In that short time I got to see your face, I preformed skits for you, laughed so hard someone came in to see if I was crying, fed you a fuzzy peach and then had a spaz when I found out what classes we have together. It was so wonderful. I get back around 4pm on Saturday. So I plan on seeing you almost everyday after that.
I miss you a lot. But I can not stay. Because in pretty much 3 hours I will crashed at Springvale getting ready to leave the country which is a very cool thing. I do love you very much, and it pleases me greatly that you were given cards to a mental health facility on my behalf. You are an amazing girl and talking to you last night made my week. I love you so much.
Tell Zoe 'Hi' and Beivenue au Canada pour moi. D'accord? Bein.
Je n'aime que toi
Breakfast was something and English muffins and eggs. I didn't eat much because frankly, it did not taste good. During Chapel I went up to the staff room to do some devos all by my lonesome. So while I was up there, it just started POURING. It sounded like applause in an orchestra. Like that standing up and clapping while people are crying because what they witnessed was that beautiful. So at first I thought they were clapping and then it didn't calm down and I realized that it was rain. It was crazy. I wanted to go run outside. But it stopped really soon so I did not get a chance. It was good that it cleared up though, because then we were able to do our skills.
Tori did not want to participate in Sports and Games so we played ping pong inside the barn. For crafts, Tori made Zukko a flower and then wrote him a card. When she was done, she asked me to make him a red and black gimp bracelet. But the string was too short so it became a keychain instead. Zukko has acquired quite a collection of things from Tori and he keeps them all in his pocket, which she is just very happy about. Whenever he comes over to her and says something, she just turns away and doesn't look at him, but as soon as he walks away she just fist pumps the air and yells 'OH YEAH' It's funny. She also discovered a hole puncher in Crafts, so a lot of time was spend poking holes in things. She then decided that the hole puncher was hers and she was going to keep in forever. Which she had done for almost every item that took her fancy. So, like every other item, I just let her hang on to it until she got bored and put it down, in which case I would pick it up and hide it. However, the hole punching phase lasted until Outdoor Survival, but all they were doing in Outdoor Survival was colouring because it was extremely windy and pouring rain. So Tori and I went back inside the Chapel to hole punch various things until it was time for Drama, to which we came down from the barn, Fiona gave Tori a bracelet and then Tori and I went upstairs to play air hockey. Well, Tori played air hockey with Caleb, and I was the referee.
I've been telling you all week how good the kids have been to her and how they always ask her to play and go up and talk to her. But the crazy thing that kind of struck me was that almost all of them didn't realize she had a disability. It's not like she didn't look or act like it, because she did very much so. It just didn't register with them that she was different. They just saw her as an equal, as another kid. And that was so cool to see the innocence in them. I'd have campers come up to me and ask me questions like 'Why are you always with Tori?' or 'It's not fair you just stay with one camper!' or they'd just be puzzled at why she got so much of my attention. I was talking with one of the campers and they were talking about feeling bad for having her repeat everything because they couldn't understand. Then they were said something along the lines of 'Does she just talk like that, or is there something else?' And that's the point where I just stepped back and wowed at the situation. These kids are so innocent and just love everyone so much. With a love that's coming from God, too. It was a sick thing to witness.
Lunch was Campers Choice, which is basically everyone gets to pick their faveourite meal of the week and eat that. So I had Shepard's Pie, Fries and a Sub. The same deal with dessert, so I had apple crumble. So good. Tori pretty much just dumped the bowl of pickles on her plate. She's been volunteering to scrape a lot lately and we kind of all figured out why, she'll scrape everyones plates on to one big plate and then pick through everyones nasty mushed up leftovers and eat from there. And she'll lick all the ketchup right off her plate. Like Brad at Scanlon. It was so gross. I got poprocks from Reanna in the mail, and I also was handed a wonderful bright blue note with the words 'Allahab called for Hanna B' I was excited. I hoped that meant you were home and I just couldn't wait to talk to you. I couldn't call you back at camp though, so I hope you weren't too crushed about not being able to talk to me. During cabin time, the girls just packed up all their stuff. Then in place of what would usually be a game, we had the "Settling of disputes" So all throughout the week, all the games we play, verses we lear, things we do, they earn us cabin point. Or "posse points" because of our western theme. So the cabin with the most posse points won. And there were different options.
One prize was a movie, there was 5 extra tuck stars, beach party, counsellor payback, pinata, and an ice cream sundae. We got the pinata, which ended up being filled with freezies. Tori was very saddened at not winning the movie but she was only acting sad for Zukko. T-Ko told her she could come watch the movie with them. So we were watching Ice Age 3, and she sat beside Zukko, while I went and got her tuck. We left the movie half way through to go to the waterfront before it got closed down for the beach party. She had fun swimming with Zukko and I even went in. Then we went back to the cabin and she got changed and sat on the porch eating my pop rocks and having her tuck. Meanwhile I was attacked my campers asking me my name. Half the camp is dead set on the fact that my name in Henrita. (Hen-ree-et-a) Which is false, but funny. I did tell all of my cabin my name though. Because I am cool like that. They all said I look like a Hanna, which I disagree. But I don't see myself as anything else.
Tori did not want to come inside the cabin for cabin time, and being extremely difficult. Plus she ended up forgetting 5 things which is completely her fault for not going and checking during cabin time. Silly girl. She didn't want to go anywhere because she was too busy looking at Zukko. She saw him at dinner though, so it's all good. We had sloppy joe's. So good. I remember when you first tried the Manwhiches. We had fudgesicles for dessert and then had the award ceremony of which camper won which award. It was cute. And after dinner, the parents arrived. Which was interesting to get to meet them all. It was sad to say goodbye, but I had no problems, it had been a good week. Tori showed her mom Zukko, which was probably fairly awkward on his part and I hung out with the other staff. We had our little closing ceremonies and it was all just fine and dandy. After all the campers left, it was clean up time. I moved all the chairs from the Chapel, swept the floor and brought a bunch of things upstairs into the programming office. Then I helped Phurbi put dishes away in the kitchen and went to go sweet Vista.
I was thanked so many times by Winnie and Porkchop for being there and helping out. They all swore that if I wasn't there, they literally would not have been able to do it. So that was nice to hear. We had a meeting in the Chapel after everyone was done cleaning. It took a little long because the guy campers apparently liked to build dams, so there were a lot of those to be taken down. The meeting started and we watched the camp video and rewinded/rewatched the part where Don-E fell flat on his face. We went over all the highlights of the week, and the top 10 reasons of why camp was great this week. Number one being "Temp was here helping us out" Which was really cool. They talked about all the campers and the choices made this week and what was cool, what was a struggle, and all sorts of things. There's also this thing called a 5 Dollar Holler. And that goes to the Staff Memeber who just worked the hardest, put forth the most work and just did an outstanding job that week, and they all awarded that to me, So I got a $5 Timmies card which I really didn't need. My the end of the night I also got a bag of fuzzy peaches and a wonderful card, thanking me. It was really sweet. And I felt very appreciated.
It was a weird feeling to leave. I mean, it wasn't breaking my heart to go, but it wasn't like I was celebrating that it was over, it was just a good week. A long week, but a good one. Plus coming home and spending my time webcaming with you made it all the better. In that short time I got to see your face, I preformed skits for you, laughed so hard someone came in to see if I was crying, fed you a fuzzy peach and then had a spaz when I found out what classes we have together. It was so wonderful. I get back around 4pm on Saturday. So I plan on seeing you almost everyday after that.
I miss you a lot. But I can not stay. Because in pretty much 3 hours I will crashed at Springvale getting ready to leave the country which is a very cool thing. I do love you very much, and it pleases me greatly that you were given cards to a mental health facility on my behalf. You are an amazing girl and talking to you last night made my week. I love you so much.
Tell Zoe 'Hi' and Beivenue au Canada pour moi. D'accord? Bein.
Je n'aime que toi
Thursday, July 28
WSC Day Five
Today was day five, that means we have one more day left. Oh dear.
So basically I come home Friday night, Saturday I am probably going to sleep until sometime late in the afternoon, wash my clothes, run back to the house to pick some stuff up, then go to the church to be out of the country at 5am Sunday morning. Cool stuff.
My alarm didn't go off today, so to make up for being late, I brought my cabin a 40 pack of timbits. Those were then used as bribes. One timbit for getting dressed. One timbit for making your bed. One for picking the stuff up off the clothes line. One for fixing the shoes. It was a good strategy. We did a rock-paper-scissors train war before we rose the flag, but Tori did not partake in that event. Breakfast was coffee cake to celebrate Bamboo's birthday. His table was surrounded by balloons and banners. It was a colourful breakfast. And Tori probably ran out of the Dinning Hall three times. So it's a 'There goes Tori, There goes Temp' kind of thing. Winnie was with Tori for Chapel, though it was still pretty chill. The Chapel speaker, Jeremy Best, his little baby son was named Rocky today. And Rocky kind of threw up on Winnie's arm before Chapel. And I kind of vomited in my mouth. Anyways, the little Squirrel thing from Ice Age made another appearance through a video.
In Sports and Games, they played a really weird version of Soccer Baseball but Tori had no interest in that, so we played basket ball together and looked around the barn. In crafts, Tori finished her tic tac toe game and started to colour with LT. She coloured a picture of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz but she made it look like me. I now have four pictures of me; Tori's, Carolina's, Jenna's and Jasmine's. Jazzy's is pretty sick though, because she can draw anime and she's pretty much incredible. Like she draws at around the same skill level you do. And you're very much older than her. Well, I am only comparing this to doodles I have seen from you, I am sure that you are a wonderful artist, I'm just trying to give you a comparison and whatnot. In outdoor survival, Jitter pulled out her bug collection, which is a bunch of any type of bug you can think of being pinned in a box. It was quite legit. Tori and I went up the ramp for a bit so Tori could look a Zukko. Krutch came back somewhere during outdoor survival just to say hi and deliver mail to all the girls in our cabin because she soon left again. I'm still writing her back in forth online, because we're tight like that. And I'm going to miss her. In Drama we just played Mafia again, because that is popular and I taught Drama Skill 4 how to play it the Russo way as well. So that is now a camp thing.
It's actually really cool when you look back on our grade, the eight pacers, and how much creativity is actually there. I mean, just all the extra ideas and things that we do or say or make up just to add some flare or make something better. To go above and beyond the norm. I think its sweet. Like take Haldon as a random example of how we make no sense, but for some reason it stuck. For several years ... Winnie called me Haldon today. She was trying to ask me something, so she said "Haldon," And then just stopped and said "Did I really just call you that? *shakes head* Never mind, Temp," Then proceeded to ask the question. Regardless, lunch was subs! And I got no mail, because I am loser who doesn't get mail. But Tori got two letters and was very excited about that. After lunch, she passed out. And I mean passed out. So she completely fell asleep and stayed asleep. The widegame was Gladiator, but we decided it would best to not wake her, so she remained sleeping while I quietly read and half-napped.
I did wake her up for free time though, and she got some Tuck. Omnom came a visitor. I guess he's not on Staff this year. He donated $50 to our Missions, so he's automatically awesome. And aren't I fancy? I used the radio today to find a camper when their parents came to give them something. Oh yes, it is god. After Tori got Tuck, she changed into her bathing suit and went down to the Waterfront to go swimming. While we were walking down there, Michael gave me a rootbeer, so he is officially my faveourite. Once down there however, I was brutally attacked by Noah with a watergun. Then I went out on that kayaks with Tori and Jenna and we played tag. Tori tried to push me off the dock though, while I was in clothes. So I was kind of soaked after coming back in from the kayaks. Plus, Sunny sent Anne to go spray me with a water gun but I convinced her otherwise and we ganged up and got Sunny. Even though she was using her bible as shield. So funny. And then she made a Z on the back of LT with water. Anne is a great kid. I was in Jr.High with Ben, her brother, last year. And then this year with Jamie, her sister. They are all really cool kids so their family just must be a crazy ball of amazing.
Squrittle and I set up for evening game, which was 'Unbearable' And of course I was in jeans the whole time, having had my shorts soaked during free time. The first round was staff vs campers and the second was campers vs staff. At one point I went to go tag Michael and then he just yelled rootbeer at me and I started chasing someone else, because Temp is nice to those who buy her Tuck. Tori didn't really want to play at first but she got into the game and pretty much just followed Zukko the whole time. So I was free to completely participate, I'd just look up, find Zukko, and she'd be right behind him. He really is good for putting up with her. And he doesn't just put up with her, he's actually going over and talking and wearing the stuff she makes for him. She wrote him a letter tonight so I assume I'll be giving that to him tomorrow.
Campfire was great tonight. They did the feeling the face game, statue skit and lots of fun songs. But the loser of the face-feeling game has to jump in the pond. And Zukko was the loser, so he had to jump in. And Tori was screaming 'NO! NOT MY BROTHER!" And when he jumped in, she cried. So I spent a good few minutes getting her calmed down and then Zukko came over and told her it was cool. He didn't have to, but like I said, good guy. She also pretended to be a wolf later on and he became a wolf too. Phurbi spoke, and it was really cool to hear, just her testimony and stuff. Really, just hearing testimonies is the coolest thing because everyone has a different story of how they got where they are now. Cool beans, brother.
When we wet back to the cabin for devos, Jasmine asked me if she could call her mom because she was feeling really homesick. So I gave her the cell and she called, but when she didn't come back in, I went to go see what was up and she was crying. She misses her mom a lot. So I stayed with her and we talked for a bit. Then we went for a little walk around the barn and came back in for devos, to finish off.
It's been a crazy week. And it's even more crazy to think it ends tomorrow! I hope you're doing okay. Temp loves you!
I'm telling people I got the name 'Temp' Because I have a really bad temper when my tempura isn't at the right temperature. I get called Tempy and Temperature a lot anyways.
So basically I come home Friday night, Saturday I am probably going to sleep until sometime late in the afternoon, wash my clothes, run back to the house to pick some stuff up, then go to the church to be out of the country at 5am Sunday morning. Cool stuff.
My alarm didn't go off today, so to make up for being late, I brought my cabin a 40 pack of timbits. Those were then used as bribes. One timbit for getting dressed. One timbit for making your bed. One for picking the stuff up off the clothes line. One for fixing the shoes. It was a good strategy. We did a rock-paper-scissors train war before we rose the flag, but Tori did not partake in that event. Breakfast was coffee cake to celebrate Bamboo's birthday. His table was surrounded by balloons and banners. It was a colourful breakfast. And Tori probably ran out of the Dinning Hall three times. So it's a 'There goes Tori, There goes Temp' kind of thing. Winnie was with Tori for Chapel, though it was still pretty chill. The Chapel speaker, Jeremy Best, his little baby son was named Rocky today. And Rocky kind of threw up on Winnie's arm before Chapel. And I kind of vomited in my mouth. Anyways, the little Squirrel thing from Ice Age made another appearance through a video.
In Sports and Games, they played a really weird version of Soccer Baseball but Tori had no interest in that, so we played basket ball together and looked around the barn. In crafts, Tori finished her tic tac toe game and started to colour with LT. She coloured a picture of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz but she made it look like me. I now have four pictures of me; Tori's, Carolina's, Jenna's and Jasmine's. Jazzy's is pretty sick though, because she can draw anime and she's pretty much incredible. Like she draws at around the same skill level you do. And you're very much older than her. Well, I am only comparing this to doodles I have seen from you, I am sure that you are a wonderful artist, I'm just trying to give you a comparison and whatnot. In outdoor survival, Jitter pulled out her bug collection, which is a bunch of any type of bug you can think of being pinned in a box. It was quite legit. Tori and I went up the ramp for a bit so Tori could look a Zukko. Krutch came back somewhere during outdoor survival just to say hi and deliver mail to all the girls in our cabin because she soon left again. I'm still writing her back in forth online, because we're tight like that. And I'm going to miss her. In Drama we just played Mafia again, because that is popular and I taught Drama Skill 4 how to play it the Russo way as well. So that is now a camp thing.
It's actually really cool when you look back on our grade, the eight pacers, and how much creativity is actually there. I mean, just all the extra ideas and things that we do or say or make up just to add some flare or make something better. To go above and beyond the norm. I think its sweet. Like take Haldon as a random example of how we make no sense, but for some reason it stuck. For several years ... Winnie called me Haldon today. She was trying to ask me something, so she said "Haldon," And then just stopped and said "Did I really just call you that? *shakes head* Never mind, Temp," Then proceeded to ask the question. Regardless, lunch was subs! And I got no mail, because I am loser who doesn't get mail. But Tori got two letters and was very excited about that. After lunch, she passed out. And I mean passed out. So she completely fell asleep and stayed asleep. The widegame was Gladiator, but we decided it would best to not wake her, so she remained sleeping while I quietly read and half-napped.
I did wake her up for free time though, and she got some Tuck. Omnom came a visitor. I guess he's not on Staff this year. He donated $50 to our Missions, so he's automatically awesome. And aren't I fancy? I used the radio today to find a camper when their parents came to give them something. Oh yes, it is god. After Tori got Tuck, she changed into her bathing suit and went down to the Waterfront to go swimming. While we were walking down there, Michael gave me a rootbeer, so he is officially my faveourite. Once down there however, I was brutally attacked by Noah with a watergun. Then I went out on that kayaks with Tori and Jenna and we played tag. Tori tried to push me off the dock though, while I was in clothes. So I was kind of soaked after coming back in from the kayaks. Plus, Sunny sent Anne to go spray me with a water gun but I convinced her otherwise and we ganged up and got Sunny. Even though she was using her bible as shield. So funny. And then she made a Z on the back of LT with water. Anne is a great kid. I was in Jr.High with Ben, her brother, last year. And then this year with Jamie, her sister. They are all really cool kids so their family just must be a crazy ball of amazing.
Squrittle and I set up for evening game, which was 'Unbearable' And of course I was in jeans the whole time, having had my shorts soaked during free time. The first round was staff vs campers and the second was campers vs staff. At one point I went to go tag Michael and then he just yelled rootbeer at me and I started chasing someone else, because Temp is nice to those who buy her Tuck. Tori didn't really want to play at first but she got into the game and pretty much just followed Zukko the whole time. So I was free to completely participate, I'd just look up, find Zukko, and she'd be right behind him. He really is good for putting up with her. And he doesn't just put up with her, he's actually going over and talking and wearing the stuff she makes for him. She wrote him a letter tonight so I assume I'll be giving that to him tomorrow.
Campfire was great tonight. They did the feeling the face game, statue skit and lots of fun songs. But the loser of the face-feeling game has to jump in the pond. And Zukko was the loser, so he had to jump in. And Tori was screaming 'NO! NOT MY BROTHER!" And when he jumped in, she cried. So I spent a good few minutes getting her calmed down and then Zukko came over and told her it was cool. He didn't have to, but like I said, good guy. She also pretended to be a wolf later on and he became a wolf too. Phurbi spoke, and it was really cool to hear, just her testimony and stuff. Really, just hearing testimonies is the coolest thing because everyone has a different story of how they got where they are now. Cool beans, brother.
When we wet back to the cabin for devos, Jasmine asked me if she could call her mom because she was feeling really homesick. So I gave her the cell and she called, but when she didn't come back in, I went to go see what was up and she was crying. She misses her mom a lot. So I stayed with her and we talked for a bit. Then we went for a little walk around the barn and came back in for devos, to finish off.
It's been a crazy week. And it's even more crazy to think it ends tomorrow! I hope you're doing okay. Temp loves you!
I'm telling people I got the name 'Temp' Because I have a really bad temper when my tempura isn't at the right temperature. I get called Tempy and Temperature a lot anyways.
Wednesday, July 27
WSC Day Four
Hello there darling Laura,
I hope all is well in your world because mine is a tad messed up, but for the most part, it is all swell. I will get to the messed up part later.
I got there at quarter to today, so I thought that was good time. We played head up head down for the flagpole game and Macey from our cabin won it and got to raise the flag. Breakfast was waffles, which were wonderful with all the fancy berries they had to accompany them. I never really liked waffles, but I think I am warming up to them. Chapel was fine because Winnie was with Tori again. We keep parading around the Chapel in a giant train, this happens everyday. It is fun though, I do admit. Sports and Games played soccer, but Tori did not want to play so she just hung out on the jungle gym while I watched from a distance. O'Dyole went over and stayed with her for a bit. In crafts, Victoria made a travel tic tac toe game, I remembered when we attempted to play on the canoe trip, in between canoes. Victoria finished that pretty fast so to everyone's amusement, she started splatter painting. When she was done, Phurbi helped her paint a picture of a horse that is now hanging in the craft room.
In Outdoor Survival today, they focused on making tents so Jitter hid parts of the tent around camp while the campers went to go search for them and then assembled the tent. Tori had a colouring book with her all day so she pretty much did that when things stopped amusing her. When the tent was finished, everyone went inside and hung out meanwhile Fiona and Jitter and I spoke about random videos on YouTube. Drama was just a giant game of non-stop Mafia. In which Temp successfully almost killed off everyone. Lunch was hot dogs and kraft dinner. Tori eats the funniest things. Her proportions are out of whack. Reanna sent me mail again today, with several vitamin C's attached to it. Just when I was getting sick too She's sweet. I had to sing some Spice Girls to get it though. Anyways, cabin time was chill, as always but the kids did their verses, we're almost done for the most part.
After lunch actually, Ace pulled me aside and was just talking to me about Tori and just said some stuff that I could try doing, and make sure to show authority and to just remember to keep doing certain things. She said not to worry about it at all and that I was doing great and it's not a problem. But it really, really bugged me. I think I should have been doing the best I could be and remembered to do those things without having to be told or asked. And I know Ace meant no harm and was only trying to help, but that just put me down. I had been feeling very bleh all day and a bit gag-y to tell you the truth. So that was one. I was also completely exhausted from being on the go 24/7. The counsellors all get breaks. They get free time off, and skills off, and time before and after devos. I get no time off, and I'm doing at least an extra 40% of my energy is put into just being with Tori. So yes, I was very tired, that's two. I am also sleep deprived from constantly writing to you, that's three. As well as I am on the verge of a spiritual breakdown, that's four. So several different things all building up and then Ace talking to me. That would be five. So I kind of broke down.
Yeah, I cried. Two years buddy, two year since I last cried. But I couldn't eve breathe today. I felt sick, I felt tired, I felt ridiculous, and stupid, and bad for wasting Winnie's time while she was with me. But she wanted to be there, basically to avoid sink the canoe. Which I missed due to my breakdown. Tori said we did good though. Anyways, Winnie came to the conclusion that I was doing amazing and everyone else can't stop talking about it. She thinks the solution to all my problems is to get me time off, which is really what I need. So she thinks that during Chapel I should take some time to relax and just have some down time. So after crying and hyperventilating on her bed, I went up to the Staff Room for half of free time because I was able to melt down during the entire game. My I remind you that everyone working there as a counsellor, doing what I am doing is between 17 and 25. And I am 14. Mhmm. I took my temperature and it's all normal so I'm not going to be sick. And after relaxing for a bit I felt a lot better. I slept for a bit on one of the couches then I started to read and was then emerged in a wonderful conversation about which tattoos all of us staff were planing to get and where and when. LT radioed Brenda and asked her to ask me to come down to the Waterfront and so I did. I guess someone told the campers I was sick because while I was walking back I was flooded with "Are you okay, Temp?' 'Temp, what happened?' "Do you feel better?" 'Temp!' *hugs* So that was really sweet.
That, and Noah barfing up cards and doing several tricks to amuse me. I am quite popular among the guy campers, which I enjoy because I'm a little tom-boy myself. Well, not really but I'm Haldon. You know what I mean. We're "specimens." When I got to the waterfront, LT just asked me if I was okay. It wasn't an actual conversation, but it was fine. Tori was upset. I think it's because I wasn't with her for the past hour. And kids with disabilities really need consistency. She kept trying to talk to LT, he is good with her. When we were leaving, she went in for a hug, and then didn't let go. Then proceeded to lick him. Which he turned to me for help, but I can't do anymore than she can. I did get her off though. It was entertaining. We headed back to the cabin and I Tom did the same kind of "You okay?" talk with me. Meanwhile Tori was hanging from my back so obviously everything was cool. We went to dinner which was tacos. Yeah baby. So good.
There was no Chapel today because we had High Lite. So that was giant scavenger hunt and tons of skits and songs and T-Ko spoke. However, I couldn't really listen because Tori decided to run away to the boys washroom, I could still hear from where I was though, so it was cool. They did that spit skit, bible skit, swimming pool skit, side skit, and toothpaste skit. Eww, toothpaste skit. So gross. Anyways, High Lite was wonderful. After it was done, Tori wanted to go talk to Zukko. She asked me to go tell him 'I want to stay with you forever. And I want to be your brother.' So he, being awesome came over and said that he would love to be her "brother forever" Squirttle and I were enjoying it. She is so boy crazy. Tunstle ran devos and we talked about things that we need to leave behind for God. The girls had lots of questions, so that was really cool. Ace stayed with us for devos because Krutch is still MIA. She's sick. But she's always been sick. I've only recently understood how sick she is/has been. I'm slightly worried and praying for her, but I hope she's okay. Ace had a laugh attack that came completely without any reason which caused Winnie, Pocho, Tunstle and I to just laugh spaz for a good 4 minutes while our campers just sat there staring at us. It was really funny. And it made no sense.
It's Bamboo's birthday tomorrow so Winnie is planing something special for him. I want to make Krutch a Get-Well-Soon-Card. I'm thinking about getting all the girls timbits tomorrow because that would be fun. And I feel nice. All the campers are so awesome though. I'm going to write down all their names so I don't forget them.
Bella. Jenna. Jazzy. Mariana. Victoria. Macey. Katia.. Petra. Carolina. // Porkchop. Winnie. Krutch. Kaityln
And of course, yours truly.
-Temp
I hope all is well in your world because mine is a tad messed up, but for the most part, it is all swell. I will get to the messed up part later.
I got there at quarter to today, so I thought that was good time. We played head up head down for the flagpole game and Macey from our cabin won it and got to raise the flag. Breakfast was waffles, which were wonderful with all the fancy berries they had to accompany them. I never really liked waffles, but I think I am warming up to them. Chapel was fine because Winnie was with Tori again. We keep parading around the Chapel in a giant train, this happens everyday. It is fun though, I do admit. Sports and Games played soccer, but Tori did not want to play so she just hung out on the jungle gym while I watched from a distance. O'Dyole went over and stayed with her for a bit. In crafts, Victoria made a travel tic tac toe game, I remembered when we attempted to play on the canoe trip, in between canoes. Victoria finished that pretty fast so to everyone's amusement, she started splatter painting. When she was done, Phurbi helped her paint a picture of a horse that is now hanging in the craft room.
In Outdoor Survival today, they focused on making tents so Jitter hid parts of the tent around camp while the campers went to go search for them and then assembled the tent. Tori had a colouring book with her all day so she pretty much did that when things stopped amusing her. When the tent was finished, everyone went inside and hung out meanwhile Fiona and Jitter and I spoke about random videos on YouTube. Drama was just a giant game of non-stop Mafia. In which Temp successfully almost killed off everyone. Lunch was hot dogs and kraft dinner. Tori eats the funniest things. Her proportions are out of whack. Reanna sent me mail again today, with several vitamin C's attached to it. Just when I was getting sick too She's sweet. I had to sing some Spice Girls to get it though. Anyways, cabin time was chill, as always but the kids did their verses, we're almost done for the most part.
After lunch actually, Ace pulled me aside and was just talking to me about Tori and just said some stuff that I could try doing, and make sure to show authority and to just remember to keep doing certain things. She said not to worry about it at all and that I was doing great and it's not a problem. But it really, really bugged me. I think I should have been doing the best I could be and remembered to do those things without having to be told or asked. And I know Ace meant no harm and was only trying to help, but that just put me down. I had been feeling very bleh all day and a bit gag-y to tell you the truth. So that was one. I was also completely exhausted from being on the go 24/7. The counsellors all get breaks. They get free time off, and skills off, and time before and after devos. I get no time off, and I'm doing at least an extra 40% of my energy is put into just being with Tori. So yes, I was very tired, that's two. I am also sleep deprived from constantly writing to you, that's three. As well as I am on the verge of a spiritual breakdown, that's four. So several different things all building up and then Ace talking to me. That would be five. So I kind of broke down.
Yeah, I cried. Two years buddy, two year since I last cried. But I couldn't eve breathe today. I felt sick, I felt tired, I felt ridiculous, and stupid, and bad for wasting Winnie's time while she was with me. But she wanted to be there, basically to avoid sink the canoe. Which I missed due to my breakdown. Tori said we did good though. Anyways, Winnie came to the conclusion that I was doing amazing and everyone else can't stop talking about it. She thinks the solution to all my problems is to get me time off, which is really what I need. So she thinks that during Chapel I should take some time to relax and just have some down time. So after crying and hyperventilating on her bed, I went up to the Staff Room for half of free time because I was able to melt down during the entire game. My I remind you that everyone working there as a counsellor, doing what I am doing is between 17 and 25. And I am 14. Mhmm. I took my temperature and it's all normal so I'm not going to be sick. And after relaxing for a bit I felt a lot better. I slept for a bit on one of the couches then I started to read and was then emerged in a wonderful conversation about which tattoos all of us staff were planing to get and where and when. LT radioed Brenda and asked her to ask me to come down to the Waterfront and so I did. I guess someone told the campers I was sick because while I was walking back I was flooded with "Are you okay, Temp?' 'Temp, what happened?' "Do you feel better?" 'Temp!' *hugs* So that was really sweet.
That, and Noah barfing up cards and doing several tricks to amuse me. I am quite popular among the guy campers, which I enjoy because I'm a little tom-boy myself. Well, not really but I'm Haldon. You know what I mean. We're "specimens." When I got to the waterfront, LT just asked me if I was okay. It wasn't an actual conversation, but it was fine. Tori was upset. I think it's because I wasn't with her for the past hour. And kids with disabilities really need consistency. She kept trying to talk to LT, he is good with her. When we were leaving, she went in for a hug, and then didn't let go. Then proceeded to lick him. Which he turned to me for help, but I can't do anymore than she can. I did get her off though. It was entertaining. We headed back to the cabin and I Tom did the same kind of "You okay?" talk with me. Meanwhile Tori was hanging from my back so obviously everything was cool. We went to dinner which was tacos. Yeah baby. So good.
There was no Chapel today because we had High Lite. So that was giant scavenger hunt and tons of skits and songs and T-Ko spoke. However, I couldn't really listen because Tori decided to run away to the boys washroom, I could still hear from where I was though, so it was cool. They did that spit skit, bible skit, swimming pool skit, side skit, and toothpaste skit. Eww, toothpaste skit. So gross. Anyways, High Lite was wonderful. After it was done, Tori wanted to go talk to Zukko. She asked me to go tell him 'I want to stay with you forever. And I want to be your brother.' So he, being awesome came over and said that he would love to be her "brother forever" Squirttle and I were enjoying it. She is so boy crazy. Tunstle ran devos and we talked about things that we need to leave behind for God. The girls had lots of questions, so that was really cool. Ace stayed with us for devos because Krutch is still MIA. She's sick. But she's always been sick. I've only recently understood how sick she is/has been. I'm slightly worried and praying for her, but I hope she's okay. Ace had a laugh attack that came completely without any reason which caused Winnie, Pocho, Tunstle and I to just laugh spaz for a good 4 minutes while our campers just sat there staring at us. It was really funny. And it made no sense.
It's Bamboo's birthday tomorrow so Winnie is planing something special for him. I want to make Krutch a Get-Well-Soon-Card. I'm thinking about getting all the girls timbits tomorrow because that would be fun. And I feel nice. All the campers are so awesome though. I'm going to write down all their names so I don't forget them.
Bella. Jenna. Jazzy. Mariana. Victoria. Macey. Katia.. Petra. Carolina. // Porkchop. Winnie. Krutch. Kaityln
And of course, yours truly.
-Temp
Tuesday, July 26
WSC Day Three
Whoot day three!
Today was fun. Perfect day at camp. Actually, it was just one of those days when you can flop down and say that today was a good day. I woke up a little late, so I got to the flagpole a little late, but only too late to miss the game. They fixed the flag somehow, so we were actually able to raise it. Breakfast was cinnamon buns. After that we had Chapel, as per usual. Tori sat with Winnie so I got to sit with my cabin. I'm starting to give her a little more freedom and trusting her more. The only problem is that she likes to hide so that makes me not want to trust her to get to and from a certain place. She was good today though, minus hiding in a garbage can, a dumpster, a bush, behind curtains and under a bed. She thinks it's funny though, but like I said, she can run fast so if I don't know which direction she took off in, I need to go get a little search party going on.
We played dodgeball in sports and games, most likely every different version of that can possibly be played. She liked it. I did too, minus the fact I am always left as one of the last ones because I can dodge but I can not throw. We need the full package and that is not within my abilities. After dodging several balls we went to Crafts and made Sheriff badges. Because our theme this summer is "Western" And when you finished the badge, you could make a flower. So Tori did both with help from Phurbi and I finished dodgeball d my name tag and barely started on my badge. After Victoria made her flower, she decided she wanted to give it to LT so I told her she should write a card. On the card it said "lT. Here is flower that I made for you. I love you. From Tori" We saw him just as we were leaving crafts so she ran up and gave it to him. It was cute. All breakfast she was just sitting with her hands on her chin starring at him. Porkchop and I were amused.
In Outdoor Survival we did fishing. However we didn't catch any fish. Tori ate some of the bait though, it was just raw hot dog so I think it was okay for her. We did actually catch a turtle so that was pretty sick. It was a painted turtle with a shell around the size of your hand, because your hands are smaller than mine. We named him Otis off of the character in the story from yesterday. There was a bucket containing googles which was dumped out, filled with water, leaves, grass, stick, dirt, and two large rocks that then became his home until lunch. Therefore the campers could check him out. Someone asked me if it was a hard transition going from camper to staff. I laughed, it wasn't hard. At all. It feels natural actually, and that's why I think I a meant to be a camp counsellor. There were go, I just decided my life. Well, not really. ANYWAYS. I was rather uninvolved in Drama because Tori stayed with Winnie a lot and all we did was make a commercial about a prop that wasn't what it was actually supposed to be used for, like something that wasn't its intended purpose. Then after that we played Mafia. I told Fiona how we play it with the Russo's and she laughed but said that it was actually a really cool idea.
Lunch was grilled cheese. Such a camp classic. We had popsicles for dessert. No mail for me today. But Jazz's letter said my name on it so I violently crossed it out and shredded it nicely for her. My cabin has some what stopped trying to figure out my name, they moved on to age. Most of them all guessed that I was over 17, so that was quite amusing because I am not close to 17. During cabin time I kind of just half-slept on Jasmine's bed. I was tired. But we had Wide game after and that was Steal the Bacon. So I actually had to play when they called Female Staff. And of course that round Vista got the bacon. Mhmm. During free time Tori walked down the the water front so I met her down there. I didn't go swimming though, which was a bad idea. Because I got drenched by wonderful campers who find it amusing to splash me and/or cannonball directly in front of me. I did walk in up to my knees to play ball with some of the campers. Tori was with a bunch of girls who were being really awesome with her. I talked to our Chapel speaker. He has a baby named Elijah and he wanted us all to think of a camp name for him so I suggested Derby. Just because at dinner last night he stuck his hand in the shepard's pie and mushed up all the mashed potatoes. So since he smashed them, smash up derby sounded cool, and thus Derby was born. Well, thus the suggestion of Derby was born* We were the last ones out of the water front, naturally.
Cabin time was fairly chill again. But we did make our cabin video which is basically the whole cabin sleeping and then all the campers wake up and run out of the cabin and hide and all the counsellors freak out and go find them. We did this and then headed of to dinner which was Pasta and apple crumble for dessert. Chapel was pretty sweet, but nothing too noteworthy at the moment. We're talking about how people fill their lives with false sources of happiness like fame, money, power etc. And how all those things can never fill that God shaped hole we have inside of us. It's cool stuff, Jeremy is great. He told us all a story of when he was in high school and blew up his knee and all the ligament completely ripped a part. He told us about how much he prayed and how many other people prayed for him the night of surgery. When he went in, the doctors couldn't find anything wrong, he had been completely healed and they didn't understand. So his knee was okay and he could play sports again and everything. The power of prayer, my friend.
It was girl/guy night tonight. Which means that the girls do something while the guys do something else, and that takes place of a game, bonfire, snack and devos. So our girls night was a bit messy. We started off my making human snowmen, using shaving cream. Our team one, Team Winning Monkey's is what we were called. Then we played a game where every person on the tea vaseline m has a tooth pick in their mouth and they have to slide a life saver candy all the way down the line without letting it fall. Our team also came out on top. Then we played cover-a-campers-face-with--and-see-how-many-cherrios-will-stick-to-their-face-when-we-throw-them-at-them game. So fun. We did well. After that there was a game where the campers needed to jump into a little pool of mud, dirt, sticks, and water and search for gummy worms in the bottom. It was really gross. Phurbi go tossed in. Then of course my faveourite part of the night came next. I don't even know what to call it. Kozbee, Winnie and I completely covered ourselves in shaving cream, and I mean covered, there wasn't an inch of myself that was without shaving cream. So what we did was run. Yeah, the three of us ran while each team got cups of water and tried to completely soak us and get all the shaving cream off. The team that was chasing me was very persistent. And angry. And fast. I was surprised I kept going as long as I did. They almost cleaned me too. Minus the face and hair. Splendid, really. We all ran in and took quick showers before we went into the Chapel to have a giant group devos. Squirttle and Fiona ran it and they did a good job. Then it was cookies and back to the cabin.
I taught a bunch of my cabin how to dance fox trot, tango, and the meringue. Which I felt very proud of having remembered them all. We then had a mini dance party and they all went to bed. Krutch left the camp after lunch because she wasn't feeling well so I hope she'll be back tomorrow. I missed her. And as you can probably tell, I didn't sleep over because they think it's important I get a good nights sleep, little do they know I stay up for like two hours writing you every night. You better be reading these and going "Oh boy, Temp is the best. I sure love and miss her. I should write her back right now." Oh wait, my name isn't Temp. It's Haldon. Or Glina. Or Bergy. Or Hanna. Why hello there internet.
I will bid you a due though, for I probably should get some sleep.
Miss you.
Today was fun. Perfect day at camp. Actually, it was just one of those days when you can flop down and say that today was a good day. I woke up a little late, so I got to the flagpole a little late, but only too late to miss the game. They fixed the flag somehow, so we were actually able to raise it. Breakfast was cinnamon buns. After that we had Chapel, as per usual. Tori sat with Winnie so I got to sit with my cabin. I'm starting to give her a little more freedom and trusting her more. The only problem is that she likes to hide so that makes me not want to trust her to get to and from a certain place. She was good today though, minus hiding in a garbage can, a dumpster, a bush, behind curtains and under a bed. She thinks it's funny though, but like I said, she can run fast so if I don't know which direction she took off in, I need to go get a little search party going on.
We played dodgeball in sports and games, most likely every different version of that can possibly be played. She liked it. I did too, minus the fact I am always left as one of the last ones because I can dodge but I can not throw. We need the full package and that is not within my abilities. After dodging several balls we went to Crafts and made Sheriff badges. Because our theme this summer is "Western" And when you finished the badge, you could make a flower. So Tori did both with help from Phurbi and I finished dodgeball d my name tag and barely started on my badge. After Victoria made her flower, she decided she wanted to give it to LT so I told her she should write a card. On the card it said "lT. Here is flower that I made for you. I love you. From Tori" We saw him just as we were leaving crafts so she ran up and gave it to him. It was cute. All breakfast she was just sitting with her hands on her chin starring at him. Porkchop and I were amused.
In Outdoor Survival we did fishing. However we didn't catch any fish. Tori ate some of the bait though, it was just raw hot dog so I think it was okay for her. We did actually catch a turtle so that was pretty sick. It was a painted turtle with a shell around the size of your hand, because your hands are smaller than mine. We named him Otis off of the character in the story from yesterday. There was a bucket containing googles which was dumped out, filled with water, leaves, grass, stick, dirt, and two large rocks that then became his home until lunch. Therefore the campers could check him out. Someone asked me if it was a hard transition going from camper to staff. I laughed, it wasn't hard. At all. It feels natural actually, and that's why I think I a meant to be a camp counsellor. There were go, I just decided my life. Well, not really. ANYWAYS. I was rather uninvolved in Drama because Tori stayed with Winnie a lot and all we did was make a commercial about a prop that wasn't what it was actually supposed to be used for, like something that wasn't its intended purpose. Then after that we played Mafia. I told Fiona how we play it with the Russo's and she laughed but said that it was actually a really cool idea.
Lunch was grilled cheese. Such a camp classic. We had popsicles for dessert. No mail for me today. But Jazz's letter said my name on it so I violently crossed it out and shredded it nicely for her. My cabin has some what stopped trying to figure out my name, they moved on to age. Most of them all guessed that I was over 17, so that was quite amusing because I am not close to 17. During cabin time I kind of just half-slept on Jasmine's bed. I was tired. But we had Wide game after and that was Steal the Bacon. So I actually had to play when they called Female Staff. And of course that round Vista got the bacon. Mhmm. During free time Tori walked down the the water front so I met her down there. I didn't go swimming though, which was a bad idea. Because I got drenched by wonderful campers who find it amusing to splash me and/or cannonball directly in front of me. I did walk in up to my knees to play ball with some of the campers. Tori was with a bunch of girls who were being really awesome with her. I talked to our Chapel speaker. He has a baby named Elijah and he wanted us all to think of a camp name for him so I suggested Derby. Just because at dinner last night he stuck his hand in the shepard's pie and mushed up all the mashed potatoes. So since he smashed them, smash up derby sounded cool, and thus Derby was born. Well, thus the suggestion of Derby was born* We were the last ones out of the water front, naturally.
Cabin time was fairly chill again. But we did make our cabin video which is basically the whole cabin sleeping and then all the campers wake up and run out of the cabin and hide and all the counsellors freak out and go find them. We did this and then headed of to dinner which was Pasta and apple crumble for dessert. Chapel was pretty sweet, but nothing too noteworthy at the moment. We're talking about how people fill their lives with false sources of happiness like fame, money, power etc. And how all those things can never fill that God shaped hole we have inside of us. It's cool stuff, Jeremy is great. He told us all a story of when he was in high school and blew up his knee and all the ligament completely ripped a part. He told us about how much he prayed and how many other people prayed for him the night of surgery. When he went in, the doctors couldn't find anything wrong, he had been completely healed and they didn't understand. So his knee was okay and he could play sports again and everything. The power of prayer, my friend.
It was girl/guy night tonight. Which means that the girls do something while the guys do something else, and that takes place of a game, bonfire, snack and devos. So our girls night was a bit messy. We started off my making human snowmen, using shaving cream. Our team one, Team Winning Monkey's is what we were called. Then we played a game where every person on the tea vaseline m has a tooth pick in their mouth and they have to slide a life saver candy all the way down the line without letting it fall. Our team also came out on top. Then we played cover-a-campers-face-with--and-see-how-many-cherrios-will-stick-to-their-face-when-we-throw-them-at-them game. So fun. We did well. After that there was a game where the campers needed to jump into a little pool of mud, dirt, sticks, and water and search for gummy worms in the bottom. It was really gross. Phurbi go tossed in. Then of course my faveourite part of the night came next. I don't even know what to call it. Kozbee, Winnie and I completely covered ourselves in shaving cream, and I mean covered, there wasn't an inch of myself that was without shaving cream. So what we did was run. Yeah, the three of us ran while each team got cups of water and tried to completely soak us and get all the shaving cream off. The team that was chasing me was very persistent. And angry. And fast. I was surprised I kept going as long as I did. They almost cleaned me too. Minus the face and hair. Splendid, really. We all ran in and took quick showers before we went into the Chapel to have a giant group devos. Squirttle and Fiona ran it and they did a good job. Then it was cookies and back to the cabin.
I taught a bunch of my cabin how to dance fox trot, tango, and the meringue. Which I felt very proud of having remembered them all. We then had a mini dance party and they all went to bed. Krutch left the camp after lunch because she wasn't feeling well so I hope she'll be back tomorrow. I missed her. And as you can probably tell, I didn't sleep over because they think it's important I get a good nights sleep, little do they know I stay up for like two hours writing you every night. You better be reading these and going "Oh boy, Temp is the best. I sure love and miss her. I should write her back right now." Oh wait, my name isn't Temp. It's Haldon. Or Glina. Or Bergy. Or Hanna. Why hello there internet.
I will bid you a due though, for I probably should get some sleep.
Miss you.
Monday, July 25
WSC Day Two
Hello Laura dearest.
Hope all is splendid in your wonderful world across the continents. And I miss you more and more everyday.
I arrived at the camp at around 7:30 to go run into Vista, as to my surprise, all the campers were alive! And they had apparently been so since 5:00am ish. Which must have been fantastic for Winnie and Porkchop. There was a huge thunderstorm, seeing as that would be something you did not know because you are very far away from home currently so they pretty much all woke up and didn't go back to sleep after that. Anyways, we got there and Krutch and I bailed from the cabin and went into Ducks, were she is staying and took all the 150 balloons we had blown up and carried them in sleeping bags over our shoulders (Santa style) and shoved them in Minioc's cabin. So basically her birthday was celebrated with being attacked by balloons, having the camp sing to her, and a large banner in the dinning hall. That's always good.
I went back in the cabin and was given many hugs then we all made our way to the flag pole to raise the flag. However there was no flag raising because the flag had become severely tangled and they have decided to now just leave it up there. We did play Ambush before we sang though, so that was very fun. Then off to breakfast which was a lovely french toast. I for one, don't enjoy french toast. But camp food is just plain awesome, so I ate it and it was mildly okay. Tori actually stayed in Chapel after breakfast. This was most likely because she was sitting beside LT, the one she "loves." However she also loves T-KO, Justin Bieber and Zukko, so I don't know how well this will work. She's a little boy-crazy. Like if I tell her to do something, it's a flat out "No!" But if any of those three ask her the same thing, she takes off running. It's cute. We keep watching Ice Age videos in Chapel which is entertaining because we're following the journey of Scratch ( The nut obsessed squirrel like thing ) Lots of laughs to be had.
Since today is Monday, we had our first day with Skills. Victoria's skills are Sports & Games, Crafts, Outdoor Survival & Drama. I am constantly amazed at that kid. On the first day, Kructh and I were just sitting there with our mouths hanging open watching her pour herself a glass of water. But she's great, she can play basketball really well and run and sing. It's the funniest and cutest thing to hear her sing. She sang me some JB today and the whole cabin listened in. We just played Octopus in Sports&Games but she was sweet! She was actually doing so well it was crazy, unlike myself. Because I suck. Everyone was all like "Temp! You out aggaaaaiiinn?" I just sit there like 'yup.' It's funny. All the campers know my name now.
Crafts was a nice break because she was worn out from Octopus she didn't want to make anything though. Instead she glued googly eyes to her hand and made it talk by moving her thumbs. Then she was off in her own little world. I always found that fascinating how disabled kids can so easily slip into another mindset, it's like a whole new place and scene no one is familiar with. It's so cool to watch. She did run away when my back was turned, so that was scary. Kozbee and I were looking all over, but we found her in the cabin so that was okay. She was just tired. I'm actually really worried that she'll leave when I'm not looking and they'll all freak out ad I'll be held responsible, even though it's not my fault, I could have prevented it. I'm hoping it wont, so I'm sure it will good. On the plus side, I made a name tag magnet! Well not really, because it is not done. But I am in the process of making it. Once I started making it, Tori realized she wanted to make one too, but alas, the whistle blew and we were on our way to the next skill.
The next skill being Outdoor Survival. It was slightly rainy, so we didn't do anything too intense today. We played the name game, talked about the 5 things need for survival. Refer to the later posts if you need refreshing. Tori didn't want to walk at first, but being who I am, I convinced her otherwise and she actually really enjoyed it. We just walked though, it was nothing crazy. We just go around pointing out things that are cool. You know what's cool? How awesome the campers are with her. Like they include her and talk to her and ask her questions. She feels important, it's good. Even though she doesn't respond properly or even completely not respond, they still engage her. It's sweet to see.
Drama was the last skill of the day and we play the name again, in which I dominated, no big deal. And Tori completely played with us. I am actually really surprised, I have only given away my name once. And no one has heard, so that was all good. We were playing a game, and I got out so I said "Aww
And after skill 4 of course there is a wonderful thing called lunch. For lunch we had Hamburgers. When kitchen staff writes what we're having on the board, they always find an interesting way to write it. Like today it was a picture of a pig, and then a burger with a + and a picture of a frying pan. The fries were good. Very tasty indeed. We had peaches for dessert. And as Willow Springs tradition goes, we all got mail at lunch. Reanna sent me one. But on the front she wrote HALDON. So everyone was insanely confused. I had to sing a song to get it so 'small town girl' was the one. Inside there was a letter inclosed with a bag of iced tea powder because Reanna is amazing. However, the letter did say my name and one of my campers knows it now, but she's cool, she wont tell anyone. So now I have 3 campers who know. That one (Katia) Colleen (Family friend) & Jazzy who had said my name so many times it's not even funny.
After lunch we had cabin time, so the campers just learned their memory verses. After that we plays Curly Larry and Mo. Which is somewhat hard to explain, but I'll try my best. So you sit down in a line of three people and each one has one of the names above. So all these different lines are in a circle. Basically one name is called and whoever that person is, they need to get up, run around the circle go through a bridge the other two have made for them and grab a ball in the middle of a circle. So that was fun to play. Free time came next. Tori got tuck and then we went kayaking. She had a blast. We went out to the dock and she jumped off a few times. Then we went back in and entered the swimming area. She took her swim test and passed. She's a really good swimmer. And I don't mean good for a person with downs, I mean a good 11 year old swimmer. She had fun in the water and went out to the iceberg. She managed to climb one side. I didn't go out with her. We had an air horn drill, like for a missing person. But that didn't take too long and soon we were back in the water. She stayed there for the whole remainder of free time and was the last to leave. Having to get Zukko to hold her hand and walk her out. He's good. Like I may have mentioned, his name is Robbie and I'm going to be spending all of next week with on the Missions.
After free time we had cabin time which was a continued memory verse learning and people changing out of their wet stuff. We also took a cabin picture. I'll be sure to show you later. We decided to all dress up in our PJ's for dinner. Dinner which was a picture of a dude with a staff surrounded by sheep. And an image of Pi. (3.14) Shepard's pie, if you didn't catch that. And cupcakes for dessert to celebrate Minioc being awesome. After dinner, we had Chapel again which was nice because Winnie was with Tori so I had a little break. It's awesome that the counsellors are being so sweet with helping out top, because it's a lot of work for me. I think she's getting more independent though. Or at least I'm hoping. Anyways, I see improvement from yesterday. After Chapel we played a game which can basically be described as all the counsellors go hide and the campers find them. The counsellors that cant be found have to make it into a circle without being caught. So everyone hid but me, because I was with Tori. I had not problem with that though.
When the game concluded, we went to go to campfire with was awesome. They did the doctor's office skit and the amazing caterpillar one. Remind of these and they will be acted out for you. We sang some songs, Kozbee spoke, and Vista returned to our cabin of awesome. I then serenaded all of the campers with my singing of Disney music. I find whenever I am at camp, I usually end up singing for people. It's unavoidable. They were pleased though. We made unwritten book bracelets. Also known as a string with a black bead, a red bead, and white bead, a yellow bead. I will sum up the meaning in this song. You ready? I'm going to sing for you! "My heart was dark with sin *points to black* Until my Saviour came in. His precious blood *points to red* I know, washed me white as snow *points to white* And in God's word I am told I'll walk the streets of gold. *Points to yellow* The wonderful, wonderful day, God washed my sin away." The end. I hope you enjoyed it.
We ended off devos with a Bruce Almighty prayer. Which was new to me, but it was the coolest thing. To sum it up, everyone in the room starts to pray at the exact same time and they're just all praying out loud over top of each other so no one feels alone or worried and then those who have nothing to say can listen in to what others are saying. After devos finished, everyone hopped into bed and we came around and said good night. But not really, because we just talk to them all. They were all trying to figure out my name because I made the mistake of bringing my Grad sweater so they found my name. Well, they thought they found my name. They think I am Natalie Chan. Which I am clearly not. I find it quite humorous because they are convinced that Natalie is my name. Either Natalie or Debbie they think. I just laugh and deny everything. I might tell some of them at the end of the week though. Just because. But I do really want to keep it a secret.
I don't know if I'll be blogging tomorrow because I am trying my very hardest to get a bed for myself in one of the staff cabins. So we will see where that goes. Either way, enjoy yourself wherever you are.
Love you lots.
Hope all is splendid in your wonderful world across the continents. And I miss you more and more everyday.
I arrived at the camp at around 7:30 to go run into Vista, as to my surprise, all the campers were alive! And they had apparently been so since 5:00am ish. Which must have been fantastic for Winnie and Porkchop. There was a huge thunderstorm, seeing as that would be something you did not know because you are very far away from home currently so they pretty much all woke up and didn't go back to sleep after that. Anyways, we got there and Krutch and I bailed from the cabin and went into Ducks, were she is staying and took all the 150 balloons we had blown up and carried them in sleeping bags over our shoulders (Santa style) and shoved them in Minioc's cabin. So basically her birthday was celebrated with being attacked by balloons, having the camp sing to her, and a large banner in the dinning hall. That's always good.
I went back in the cabin and was given many hugs then we all made our way to the flag pole to raise the flag. However there was no flag raising because the flag had become severely tangled and they have decided to now just leave it up there. We did play Ambush before we sang though, so that was very fun. Then off to breakfast which was a lovely french toast. I for one, don't enjoy french toast. But camp food is just plain awesome, so I ate it and it was mildly okay. Tori actually stayed in Chapel after breakfast. This was most likely because she was sitting beside LT, the one she "loves." However she also loves T-KO, Justin Bieber and Zukko, so I don't know how well this will work. She's a little boy-crazy. Like if I tell her to do something, it's a flat out "No!" But if any of those three ask her the same thing, she takes off running. It's cute. We keep watching Ice Age videos in Chapel which is entertaining because we're following the journey of Scratch ( The nut obsessed squirrel like thing ) Lots of laughs to be had.
Since today is Monday, we had our first day with Skills. Victoria's skills are Sports & Games, Crafts, Outdoor Survival & Drama. I am constantly amazed at that kid. On the first day, Kructh and I were just sitting there with our mouths hanging open watching her pour herself a glass of water. But she's great, she can play basketball really well and run and sing. It's the funniest and cutest thing to hear her sing. She sang me some JB today and the whole cabin listened in. We just played Octopus in Sports&Games but she was sweet! She was actually doing so well it was crazy, unlike myself. Because I suck. Everyone was all like "Temp! You out aggaaaaiiinn?" I just sit there like 'yup.' It's funny. All the campers know my name now.
Crafts was a nice break because she was worn out from Octopus she didn't want to make anything though. Instead she glued googly eyes to her hand and made it talk by moving her thumbs. Then she was off in her own little world. I always found that fascinating how disabled kids can so easily slip into another mindset, it's like a whole new place and scene no one is familiar with. It's so cool to watch. She did run away when my back was turned, so that was scary. Kozbee and I were looking all over, but we found her in the cabin so that was okay. She was just tired. I'm actually really worried that she'll leave when I'm not looking and they'll all freak out ad I'll be held responsible, even though it's not my fault, I could have prevented it. I'm hoping it wont, so I'm sure it will good. On the plus side, I made a name tag magnet! Well not really, because it is not done. But I am in the process of making it. Once I started making it, Tori realized she wanted to make one too, but alas, the whistle blew and we were on our way to the next skill.
The next skill being Outdoor Survival. It was slightly rainy, so we didn't do anything too intense today. We played the name game, talked about the 5 things need for survival. Refer to the later posts if you need refreshing. Tori didn't want to walk at first, but being who I am, I convinced her otherwise and she actually really enjoyed it. We just walked though, it was nothing crazy. We just go around pointing out things that are cool. You know what's cool? How awesome the campers are with her. Like they include her and talk to her and ask her questions. She feels important, it's good. Even though she doesn't respond properly or even completely not respond, they still engage her. It's sweet to see.
Drama was the last skill of the day and we play the name again, in which I dominated, no big deal. And Tori completely played with us. I am actually really surprised, I have only given away my name once. And no one has heard, so that was all good. We were playing a game, and I got out so I said "Aww
And after skill 4 of course there is a wonderful thing called lunch. For lunch we had Hamburgers. When kitchen staff writes what we're having on the board, they always find an interesting way to write it. Like today it was a picture of a pig, and then a burger with a + and a picture of a frying pan. The fries were good. Very tasty indeed. We had peaches for dessert. And as Willow Springs tradition goes, we all got mail at lunch. Reanna sent me one. But on the front she wrote HALDON. So everyone was insanely confused. I had to sing a song to get it so 'small town girl' was the one. Inside there was a letter inclosed with a bag of iced tea powder because Reanna is amazing. However, the letter did say my name and one of my campers knows it now, but she's cool, she wont tell anyone. So now I have 3 campers who know. That one (Katia) Colleen (Family friend) & Jazzy who had said my name so many times it's not even funny.
After lunch we had cabin time, so the campers just learned their memory verses. After that we plays Curly Larry and Mo. Which is somewhat hard to explain, but I'll try my best. So you sit down in a line of three people and each one has one of the names above. So all these different lines are in a circle. Basically one name is called and whoever that person is, they need to get up, run around the circle go through a bridge the other two have made for them and grab a ball in the middle of a circle. So that was fun to play. Free time came next. Tori got tuck and then we went kayaking. She had a blast. We went out to the dock and she jumped off a few times. Then we went back in and entered the swimming area. She took her swim test and passed. She's a really good swimmer. And I don't mean good for a person with downs, I mean a good 11 year old swimmer. She had fun in the water and went out to the iceberg. She managed to climb one side. I didn't go out with her. We had an air horn drill, like for a missing person. But that didn't take too long and soon we were back in the water. She stayed there for the whole remainder of free time and was the last to leave. Having to get Zukko to hold her hand and walk her out. He's good. Like I may have mentioned, his name is Robbie and I'm going to be spending all of next week with on the Missions.
After free time we had cabin time which was a continued memory verse learning and people changing out of their wet stuff. We also took a cabin picture. I'll be sure to show you later. We decided to all dress up in our PJ's for dinner. Dinner which was a picture of a dude with a staff surrounded by sheep. And an image of Pi. (3.14) Shepard's pie, if you didn't catch that. And cupcakes for dessert to celebrate Minioc being awesome. After dinner, we had Chapel again which was nice because Winnie was with Tori so I had a little break. It's awesome that the counsellors are being so sweet with helping out top, because it's a lot of work for me. I think she's getting more independent though. Or at least I'm hoping. Anyways, I see improvement from yesterday. After Chapel we played a game which can basically be described as all the counsellors go hide and the campers find them. The counsellors that cant be found have to make it into a circle without being caught. So everyone hid but me, because I was with Tori. I had not problem with that though.
When the game concluded, we went to go to campfire with was awesome. They did the doctor's office skit and the amazing caterpillar one. Remind of these and they will be acted out for you. We sang some songs, Kozbee spoke, and Vista returned to our cabin of awesome. I then serenaded all of the campers with my singing of Disney music. I find whenever I am at camp, I usually end up singing for people. It's unavoidable. They were pleased though. We made unwritten book bracelets. Also known as a string with a black bead, a red bead, and white bead, a yellow bead. I will sum up the meaning in this song. You ready? I'm going to sing for you! "My heart was dark with sin *points to black* Until my Saviour came in. His precious blood *points to red* I know, washed me white as snow *points to white* And in God's word I am told I'll walk the streets of gold. *Points to yellow* The wonderful, wonderful day, God washed my sin away." The end. I hope you enjoyed it.
We ended off devos with a Bruce Almighty prayer. Which was new to me, but it was the coolest thing. To sum it up, everyone in the room starts to pray at the exact same time and they're just all praying out loud over top of each other so no one feels alone or worried and then those who have nothing to say can listen in to what others are saying. After devos finished, everyone hopped into bed and we came around and said good night. But not really, because we just talk to them all. They were all trying to figure out my name because I made the mistake of bringing my Grad sweater so they found my name. Well, they thought they found my name. They think I am Natalie Chan. Which I am clearly not. I find it quite humorous because they are convinced that Natalie is my name. Either Natalie or Debbie they think. I just laugh and deny everything. I might tell some of them at the end of the week though. Just because. But I do really want to keep it a secret.
I don't know if I'll be blogging tomorrow because I am trying my very hardest to get a bed for myself in one of the staff cabins. So we will see where that goes. Either way, enjoy yourself wherever you are.
Love you lots.
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