The One with our "Family" for Family Camp

Well that was a wonderfully enriching post, now wasn't it?

An empty page. 

Thought provoking, no? 

An existential moment for you all. 

Now on to normal thought processes. 

(Did you pronounce that "prahsesses" or "prahseseeeese"?

Cause the latter is way cool.)

I am officially wearing (at least) two hats this week. 

Working at camp as per usual.

Except that it's the conference wide Family Camp. 

So there's, oh, 800 people camping here. 

All with needs. 

All who come to the Welcome Center with those needs.

Which means our little office keeps rather busy. 

But besides the different routines, 

different paperwork,

different parking passes,

and different schedules of camp this week, 

I'm putting on my youth pastor hat. 

Thankfully, my husband is an AMAZING youth pastor himself. 

So he's got things all but covered.

But nonetheless, we are in charge of 9 teens for the week.

They are camping on our site.

Eating meals with us.

And working morning and night with the kids and nursery programs while the adult services run. 

This is a week of service and volunteerism for them.

Our mission trip didn't pan out, so this is a great alternative. 

Learning to lead and serve.

Experiencing the phenomenon that is our conference wide family camp. 

Meeting tons of teens from across the state.

And hopefully making memories at the camp our churches own that will keep them coming back to this great ministry! 

So far so good.

We started off with a church picnic.

Then we headed to our site to set up camp.

Kevin and I put up the 6-8 person tent that we own.

Then it took 11 of us to set up the monsterous "house tent" that one of our teen's family's let us borrow. 

The girls were TOTALLY stoked about their amazing abode. 

And it was a really fun "group building activity.

And there wasn't even any yelling! 

How awesome is that?! :)

A victory, I'd say.

The adults in charge of nursery and the kids' program were so blessed to have our willing teens to help them.

There was even an announcement in the morning service's newsletter. 

Publicly thanking our youth group for the help. 

I was beaming with pride.

The nursery is always short of help, 

and five of our girls were jumping over each other to have the opportunity to work with the under 3s.

The other four teens worked with the kids 

and everyone did a great job! 

I'm so proud of them.

We ended the evening with a camp fire.

Smores.

and lots of miscellaneous junk food.

They all went to bed without an argument.

And were up before 7am!

I'm impressed. 

I look forward to seeing them experience the rest of the week.

Praying for unity.

And changed hearts.

And an encounter that might forever change their lives.