Something's Different Here

  Life here at camp always feels like an adventure...so here's this weeks crazy, chaotic happenings, from surfing, homework, juniors retreat, and OT literature!


    Ahh, surfing...well for one thing, I know that I'm never ever going to be a pro surfer, but I do know that I can stand up on the board! We roadtripped and stopped at this little (but cool) market place called goats on a roof, then we stopped at Cathedral Grove provincial park. We made it finally to Ucluelet (the town near Tofino) and stayed in Christ's Community Church. The first day we went to Green Point where we played some ultimate frisbee and ran around in the water and had quite a lot of fun there. The next day we got to actually go surfing and we went to Chesterman Beach. We had these two instructors who were really cool and easy going and gave us pretty good instruction. We were rearing to go once we got our wetsuits on and had our boards. The instructors kept us waiting for a little while, but finally we got into the water...and it took me from about 1-4:45 and I could barely get up on my knees. It was SO MUCH FUN though!! Although I didn't really get that chance to stand up, I wasn't totally bummed out because we had some really fantastic weather that day (it was actually warm!) and everyone just enjoyed themselves. After all that surfing, we went back to the church and cleaned up and got to watch soul surfer---great movie to watch when the next day you're going to go surfing..not!! (I actually prefer the documentary over the movie personally!) We had some really awesome devotions that night too, we had separated in to boys and girls and really delved in to different issues. And the next day we headed out earlier in the morning and ended up at long beach. It was quite a bit cooler out, and it was slightly overcast. And to make matters worse, we had to put on cold, wet wetsuits! That was definitely an experience, but I got it done! But there were so many more waves, and they were bigger! There was just one problem...we just couldn't catch a break 'cause all the waves kept coming! However, we were able to battle the waves and actually found that because there were so many more waves, it allowed for more chances to practice standing up. I finally stood up!!! In fact, everyone who didn't stand up the day before got to stand up, it was just a day of accomplishments! The only trophy that I really got to take back with me is the nice rash across my neck from the wetsuit. Everyone else just looks like they were hanged because of the bright red line across their neck, but mine actually looks like a hickey...how embarrassing!! 
    We really experienced different things along this trip. For one, being in the ocean and feeling so small was something that I encountered, and really coming into understanding about how great God really is - for although the ocean is majestic and wonderful, how much more glorious are we, mankind, whom He formed to be the pinnacle of creation because He loves us so immeasurably more. So it was quite an adventure! With all the travelling, and surfing, we arrived back to camp quite worn out, but so grateful for the opportunity that we had to actually surf - I never actually thought that I'd surf in my lifetime, so it was really fantastic to realize that I quite enjoyed myself!

 

  There has been one thing so far here at Camp Qwanoes that has had me terrified out of my mind, and it has not been any of the adventures, or the classes...in fact, and it's quite surprising, it's actually the Juniors Retreat. Why, you ask? Although I absolutely love kids and investing into their lives, I have never counselled before. And my job this past weekend was to look after 6 girls of 11 and 12 years old and attempt to create relationships that model Christ's love for them and to show them that something's different here (the theme of the weekend). I really can't explain why I was so afraid, I just was - and my fear was increased when I realized that I knew 2 girls in my cabin. They come from the church that I attend during the week at Lake Cowichan Baptist, and they are 2 of the most craziest, unpredictable girls that I know (they almost remind me of boys with ADHD because they're just that incredible). So thus, the weekend full of 120 junior campers commenced on Friday and took off! It was absolutely crazy with all the games, activities and trying to wrangle my girls together. I kid you not when I say that almost every time I looked up, one of my girls from Lake Cowichan would be gone, and we would have to go looking for them, and then try to persuade them to return to the current activity. However, it was actually an enjoyable time to actually get to know these beautiful young girls and really develop a surprisingly quick and strong relationship with them. They were so responsive in the cabin devotion times, and really interacted during the activities (when they weren't distracted with wanting to go to the park or something similar). It was really interesting to see a certain maturity amongst some of them and how they accepted each other without any sort of hesitation (you could call it child naivety, but I don't think so). And on top of all this I belayed at the climbing tower during free time and got to get to know so many more kids. I loved it!! I love to love kids and this gave me a chance to encourage them and challenge them a little more than what they think they can achieve. I even had one child say to me, "That's the first time someone has ever told me how proud they were of me!" and it made me really step back and realize how powerful my words could be to a child, even one simple sentence. So that was quite an afternoon! And to top it all off, every girl in my cabin said that they didn't want to leave, they wanted to come back again (music to my ears!!!) and so when it came time to leave on sunday afternoon, they were quite brokenhearted - so we ended off on a lot of hugs and goodbyes and see you soons...hopefully I'll be seeing some of them in the spring for the next juniors retreat!

  I have to say that although I was so scared before this weekend started - I know now that I'm ready to do it again, and to learn from my mistakes and to experience actual camp life here at Qwanoes again.

Finally, we've come full circle to the next week...and our next class: Old Testament literature. This is a class in which I was really interested to see what I would learn, but also kind of unsure of our professor, Don Taylor and what he would be like. We had this pile (or more like heap) of pre-course work (that we're still working on): 2 papers, one book, 1 large creative project and an exam + all the class material. I was expecting someone who was a lot more strict that what he actually was, so I was really caught off guard when he turned out to be really flexible, quite knowledgable with the skill of making OT quite interesting (I love OT, but still, it's more interesting now), made Jesus and his story more relevant, and he was actually funny! I feel so much more less stress now that he's cleared up most of our work and I'm excited to see what we're going to learn, and it's quite sad to think that we only have 4 more days left with him :(


Although in this past week there has been a roller coaster of emotions and different happenings, I have been able to stay somewhat sane and my devo time with God has really helped me to stay centred on Him and to give me a place of refuge when I'm lacking in sleep, strength and understanding. So thank you to you who have been praying for me, I definitely have been revelling in God's love and grace - He has given me so much more than I could ever be worthy of. 
  

5 Weeks in!!

   I'm back! I know it's been a little longer since my last update, but there's been a ton going on and really no time to sit down and do a quality post for you all.

   Let's start with the S.A.L.T.S trip. It was amazing, fantastic, incredible, sensational, stupendous, unbelievable (I think I covered just about all of it). It was such an awesome experience that I want to do it again, and this is a mutual feeling that is shared with the rest of the group. Once we settled in, we were split up into different watches (designated groups). We were assigned to different times when we were in charge of the boat (stern, bow watch, radio watch, steering, or standby) with our watch leader. This also meant that we would be on anchor watch for 1 hour during the night time (It would be with just two people each hour). We ate breakfast, cleaned the deck in the morning, and did cleanup of the dining area together in our watches. The girls and boys were split up in to two sleeping quarters: The girls were in the hole (which doubles as the kitchen and dinning room), and guys were in the fo'c'sle. There was a lack of privacy everywhere, but we managed to work around it and actually use it to our advantage as some really awesome bonding time. There was a lot of singing and a lot of learning. We had the opportunity to raise and lower the sails on many occasions and actually sail, and were able to go out on the dories (the little boats) once. We did have lessons in which we learned different aspects of the boat, from terminology, wind directions and driving patterns - which was also really interesting. We had night games, which were quite an adventure in themselves (I ended up with quite a few bruises - curtesy of the various objects aboard the ship). We also docked one night and got to play a large night game which provided us the chance to stretch our legs and our stealth techniques, it was staff and leaders against the students, and I'm almost positive we won, but the leaders say otherwise!
     The food...oh my goodness was absolutely phenomenal! Everything was made from scratch, it was so good, and Kailey (our cook) had actually done Kaleo before, so it was really cool to hear from her what her experiences were like. Talking about food, we also got to have the chance to stop at an open orchard where we picked apples off of a tree and then brought them back to the boat in order so that we can have some apple pie! After a couple of us had finished peeling and cutting up all the apples that we had, Kailey then baked them in to a beautiful apple pie which we had for mug-up that night (or night time snack) it was spectacular, and apparently one of the guys wanted to propose (We couldn't lose such an amazing gift of cooking!).
     In our watches, while we would be having meals together, we would also have devotional times, which was definitely a great way of reminding us of our focus and just being thankful for what we are and being aware of our calling as leaders.
     One of the most coolest things was how much the staff of the ship really were a part of the whole trip. I know that really seems trivial, but they were almost always there and were always so willing to answer our questions and make this our trip - they did every devo with us, they would make sure that we were not idle, and provided us with all the "off-boat" excursions. They also did all the night games and actually wanted to get to know us, and talk to us and they even stayed up late at night (even when they had to get up early the next morning) to hear our testimonies that we shared in the last 3 nights (some of the testimonies were really awe-inspiring, and even some were heart-breaking; thanks mom and dad for providing a home where I grew up very healthy and blessed). Their desire to invest in us just made us feel valued, and not just another guest group.
So this sailing trip has so far been the absolute, no doubt about it highlight (probably for this year possibly)...there's so much that I could go in to detail with, but that could take all night! Our group really got to know each other, what each of our stories are and how to work with one another. We had some amazing weather and really powerful one-on-one time with our friend who we were partnered with during our night time shift and got to really be still and just revel in God's creation and in the dark and silence. By the time we had to pack up, we all realized that we could have probably continued the trip another week if not two and still have had fun, but we also understood that we really needed to shower after 5 days of basically living in the same clothes and not having any showers (apparently we looked pretty greasy and smelt really bad) - and that we needed to get back home so that we could start up our next class!!

  Camp and Youth Ministry. Our prof, Sid Koop was so cool! He was so easy-going and really rolled with everything, and although this course was very material loaded, it made it easier for us to handle. There was a TON of reading that needed to get done, and we had spent an entire week (which included most of our down-time on the ship) trying to get the reading and the papers for the reading finished. There was definitely quite a lot of stress this week, but I'm glad that I had a chance to experience it, because I know now how to handle the pressure better. Our exam today actually surprised us with how easy it was...because of our amount of curriculum that we had covered these 4 days, we had expected that there was going to be a lot more, but Sid said that he was more concerned about our learning to apply what we've learned, rather than needing to know it just because it's for a test (isn't he just the coolest?!). But it made us remember that what we've learned here is something more than just academics, it's life, and it teaches us how to make disciples of the children that God brings in to our lives to invest in.

    This weekend is the women's retreat, and already I've made some friends! I love how we are able to immerse ourselves in to ministry, even though we don't really have to! But since I'm not helping there, I'll be helping our program director, Jay (who did my interview for the school) move with some other students, so it'll be nice to actually get out of my room - where we've spent the last week, holing up so that we can get the work done!

   Tonight was also our first night of youth! Finally we get to really begin our church ministry. It's definitely going to be a place where we are going to have to listen to God on this because we have already experienced the different personalities that we're going to have to teach and learn from. We know that there is a reason that God has put them under our care on Friday night, but right now we're unsure. All we know is that God has called us to love them, and love them we shall. So I am just asking for some prayer right now in this area that God will continue to provide for us the means to do His work in these kids lives.

 I think that about sums up our past couple of weeks, and I'm pretty sure that there's a lot that I've missed, but I know that this is probably a good amount that I've covered.
A couple more prayer requests: Nancy (one of my roommates) is not feeling well and we're kind of thinking that it might be some sort of food poisoning, so please pray for healing! Also, please pray for protection, one of the girls that I've been talking to have really been feeling attacked spiritually and are just mentally and emotionally tired. I've been praying for her constantly here, and talking with her. We know that God is sovereign in this and that He will use this to His good, but right now she's feeling a little more in the valley. So prayer would be absolutely welcome!

God is so good, I've been really able to see Him in so many things here and I've never felt so at peace. I know that I too may be attacked spiritually, and I know that those are going to be trying days, but right now I'm not taking this for granted, this is amazing peace that I'm feeling. So may the peace that I have right now be passed on to you, so that you can also experience it throughout your week. That is my prayer for you.




If you want to see some of the pictures from the sailing trip: Keeping it P.G.

School. Silence. Judas. Love.

    Ahhh...the first week of school has been completed and I can now breathe, at least for the next couple of hours. It's definitely been a real eye opening process from the beginning to the end, but I'm glad I've learned the lessons that I have. The first lesson that I've learned is that getting a head start on things really diminishes the stress during the week, and I'm so thankful that I prepared ahead of time our different memory verses (which by the way I got perfect on most of them and 99% on only 3 of them, so I'm pretty satisfied with that).  The second lesson I've learned was that I can't really treat the things that I'm learning as part of my academics, but rather part of my life. It changes the perspective completely and allows me to really put in to practice what I've been taught; so these memory verses are not just for grades, they're for me to store in my heart and to use on a daily basis. Thirdly, I've learned that though I may be ahead and all organized when it comes to prioritizing the work load for the next three classes, there are other students who are struggling with just trying to keep up. It's such a benefit for everyone to be in this program because we're all taking the same classes and we're all there in the same building so it's easier to keep people accountable when we're supposed to be doing school work. Anyways, it's just amazing how much I can relate to people when they're feeling overwhelmed because our work load looks daunting (Andrew, our leader did warn us that we would feel overwhelmed...they did that on purpose apparently!), and understanding that feeling, it helped me to be able to get a couple of them settled down and focusing on the work that is most important rather than watching them drown in a pool of despair.

     The most important lessons of this week I learned, were while we were fasting. We went from lunch time to breakfast the next morning, putting aside the distractions and all of our complaints and had some silence and solitude (we didn't have to be silent, we just couldn't talk to people, just God). It was quite difficult for me to focus for the first couple of hours, but eventually I was able to put off some of the different issues that I was having and was able to concentrate in reading my Bible. I began reading John 13, where Jesus washed all of his disciples' feet and then revealed to them which one of them would betray him that night.     

      But there was something that I just knew that I just had to learn from this passage. The act of servant leadership astounded me, but I had this inkling that there was more to this than what I was reading. Since I wasn't seeing it, I decided to go further in the forest that I was in, and stumbled upon a path which I followed until I came upon a bench that I ended up sitting upon. It was there that I had this "vision" (for lack of a better word), where Jesus was washing my feet right there on that bench and what really got me was the fact that he kept calling me Judas. There on a bench, I was convicted and humbled at the same time. His love is so great that he would wash the feet of his very own betrayer, knowing full well that it is because of Judas that he would suffer the most painful death. I realized something that has really opened my eyes to who I am in comparison to who Jesus is, and I wrote it in my journal:

"Jesus is washing my feet, 

Even though I've betrayed him.

He knows what I've done, yet he 

still chooses to wash me clean. 

He humbled himself for me so 

that I may experience true and 

unrelenting grace and mercy."

     It's amazing how much I've grown to understand more of God's love for me through this one class and I feel all the more at peace. I know that there are more hard times to come in this program, but I know that God's love is steadfast and eternal, and abide in that I will. 

     So we finished our first class with a 3 hour exam with 3 essays - I have to say that I'm very glad that that portion is over :)  And to top it all off, right after the test I was told that I had packages waiting for me!!! It felt like Christmas morning as I was opening these two amazing gifts. Mom...thank you so much for the food (don't worry, I do get fed over here - maybe a little too well!) and for your letter, I love it. Melissa Jackson, I do miss you!! I love the surprise gift, your amazing baking and beautiful jewellery were so special! So here's some shameless advertising just for you:New Fashioned Whispers :) 

     Thank you all for continuing to follow me on this journey and for praying for me and my friends here at Kaleo. I appreciate all of your love and for all of your time that you take to read my rambling blog.