School is over and I'm neck deep in camp preparations. Hard to believe I've been the director for nearly ten years. I've been out to the new camp a couple of times now. The last time I went we began planning where we will have each event. I am really excited about the new place. It should be another tremendous year of camp. I am most excited about what God wants to do. The theme for camp this week is from Psalm 23, "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life." I'll have more to say about the theme later, but part of it is about my previous post about Divine Mercy.
We renamed some of the places at the new camp site. Some of their cabin names were just too corny to use. Additionally, we wanted to bring some of our tradition (now that we have over 20 years of it) to the new place. So we named several locations at camp after some key people from the past. We couldn't honor every single key person. I'll have to put some thought into ways to do that.
We just had a staff training session today. Wow, what a great group of guys...and a very funny group of guys, too. I think every person has a great sense of humor, a great sense of purpose and mission and a great grasp of where kids are today.
Last year was a great year of camp but I really had to strain to do the job. I was not as excited about it as I normally am. Everything took great effort on my part until I actually got out to camp. This year, the thrill is back, and I have been having a great time doing camp prep.
I overhauled one of the big games we do at camp, called "Conquest." I created the game to make some of the leadership and team-building exercises that we've done more fun for the kids. There are two phases to the game. The first phase lasts four days (2 hours each day). The second phase, and arguably the most exciting part of the game, lasts 1 day (2 hours). Most of the changes won't be noticed at first. It's sorta like taking a video game and giving it a new engine and making a few tweaks to the game. You don't really notice much until later. In a sense, I did give the game a new engine. I overhauled the "nuts and bolts" of the game to allow greater efficiency and the possibility of cool additions to the game in the future. I made some minor tweaks which should result in a more exciting experience for the campers. I'm eager to see how well the game works, especially at the new site. It took me nearly 20 hours of work to get the game the way I want it so I will be upset if the tweaks don't improve the game. Unfortunately, I only worked on the first phase of the game. Phase II may not be as exciting as it was in years past because I worked with a partner to make that part of the game really sweet. I am not kidding when I say it was really sweet. It just plain rocked. But my friend who worked with me to plan and execute the 2nd phase of the game is not able to come out to camp this year. The good news is that the work I did on phase 1 this year will allow me to focus much more time and energy on phase 2 in coming years.
God is good! I worked really hard this week and enjoyed every minute of it. Hopefully next week will be more low key. I probably put in about two 18 hour days, two 16 hour days, and two 12 hour days this week. It would be nice to have a few evenings to relax, play some Guild Wars or Counterstrike, play the guitar some, and read a book or two.
I can't wait to see what God chooses to do at camp this year. And I really hope the kids have a lot of fun.
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