Day 3 Mistaken Identity

Breakfast was a little quieter today.  Between lots of “one foot in front of the other” yesterday and waking up 3 hours before the normal summer rise and shine, students were not quite as lively this morning.  After multiple servings of cereal (cookco for CocoPuffs the favorite), eggs, biscuits and gravy, students waddled to the pavilion for the morning challenge.  Our camp pastor recounted “pretty boy” king Saul’s demise in I Samuel 31 and the fulfillment of God’s prophesy because of the failure of His people to follow their true leader and making bad choices.  10 for 10 was focused on Psalm 146 with the question: “Who or what is the next big thing your are putting your hope in”.

Seems our middle school group failed to keep a leash on their contract mascot and penance consisted of a rendition of the chicken dance in front of the crowd followed by a group circle walk (cinnamon roll?) to their morning activity.  They found the activity was double booked so they returned to camp for Frisbee and the coffee shop.  Juniors and seniors descended to the river edge and experienced a team building exercise on the dam.  Fortunately everyone scaled the face (up and down) and no one had to be left at the river for the next camp.  Unfortunately there were some critters in the water that were looking for donors and selected our group to latch on to.  So it was off to the showers to send those unwelcome friends packing.  The middle school team headed back to the mountain for the Sherpa walk where they tip toed along a narrow path cut into the rack face held only by their nimble feet and lobster claws.  The slip-n-slide section showed that the counselors have still “got it”.

After lunch, the middle school team plodded to the TAG field for take no prisoners archery warfare.  These guys are warriors.  Upper classmen launched down the target zip lines where, fortunately, the points don’t count.  9-10 graders were back to the water in kayaks, where we found that some were balance-challenged when they aren’t on terra firma.

The late rec activity was a camp wide Kingdom Games which pitted each team against the others to determine who was the best. The games were a series of skill activities,  many of which required much longer to complete for the larger teams.  Our junior-senior team was one of the largest but they were good sports in the face of this apparent oversight by the games creators.  The last event was capture the flag chaos.  Each team’s goal was to grab a flag from the other 18 teams to complete a full set.  The wild card was a rule that any person can tag another and both have to go to the center of the field to trade flags. Once traded, they are now on a different team than they started.  When it was suspended, most teams had completely different members who didn’t know the team’s signature cheer and were out of place.  The teams lost their original identity, history, and expression. Our camp pastor walked the students through the analogy to the children of Israel as they opted for a king to be on par with the competing people groups and in the process lost their identify as God’s chosen people.  He also related that we also lose our identify with Christ when we entangle ourselves in the relationships and kingdoms of this world. 

In the breakout sessions with the leaders, students were challenged to discuss what their identify is and the characteristics they associate with the identify.  Students readily recognized that our identify is often based on the world’s measuring sticks which change over time but that God’s expectations never change and form a dependable guide for our lives.

Following a time of praise and worship, the new LED strobes sprang into action for a time of aerobic gyration until the last ounce of energy was drained from … the sponsors – kids were still going strong.

With that, hump day was in the can and we realized how quickly the week was passing.  Tomorrow we carpe diem