CAMP HOPE 2007

Monday

I got up at 5:00 to finish packing and such. That was way too early. I was grumpy. But then we got in the car and I put on the headphones I was not supposed to have and started playing something exhilerating as we set out, and that put me in a Camp Hopeish mood pretty quickly.

We arrived early, of course, not because we're always early but because for the first time in my life I wanted to be late, and it was cold. Everyone was hugging everyone, even people I don't know. Lindy and Lucy were there, and Caitlyn, and Kacy! It was soooo good to see everyone. We got warmed up with the Tigger song and that pretty much ended all initial ackwardness.

I ended up, or rather forced my way into, the big white van, which is very important for those of you who don't know what Camp Hope is all about. We talked about music and books and occasionally Orlando Bloom. I still hadn't really woken up, but I was pretty happy by then.

We stopped for lunch at the little park in the little town where we always stop for lunch, and it was cold again. It's so funny when we all invade that poor little store. The same workers are there year after year. You can just see them going, "Customers! You know what to do," like in Cars, and then the next thing you know every single kid wants to buy less than a dollar's worth of candy and they are all out of pennies.

I moved to the Suburban after that because I wanted to be with Lindy and Caitlyn, and because they were, well, threatening me. This is where the fun really started, probubly because lunch finally woke me up. I talked too much. We covered subjects from philosphy to chick flicks, and got an incredible ab workout in the mean time.

Upon arrival at Camp Hope we found Carolyn Clay waiting for us! It's funny, sometimes, how you don't realize how much you miss someone unitl you're in their arms and suddenly you don't think you could ever live without them again. While we waited for dinner, kind of half-dead like, you know, Ruben decided it would be a good idea to play basketball. As it turned out, it was. I had tons of fun, for being as clueless as I was.

We had about fourty five minutes of free time between basketball and dinner, so a group of us girls snuck off to explore. We were just walking along this gravel road, talking about dancing, when all of the sudden Anna bounds off into the woods, throwing "Don't follow me!" over her shoulder. Minutes later she bounds back, grabs us, and drags us off through the woods with her. All of the sudden, we break through the trees to find ourselves in this incredible hidden medow, as green as grass can be and compleatly surrounded by trees, with Sunglass Mountain rising up on one side. Needless to say, we decided to dance there.

By dinner it felt like we had always been here. That's the thing about Camp Hope, it exists in this time warp thing so that you think of last Camp Hope as last week, kind of like a return to home after spending a year in Narnia. We talked about things like bug spray and sun burns as though we were best friends with people we had only just met, and really, we were.

Dinner was followed by our first Chappel message, and worship time. Worship is incredible at Camp. I could sing all day, it's one of those moments where you realizie, wow, heaven is going to be like this. Praising God all day long. With a million other people who are really only important right then because they are praising the same God. Mr. Busby was there to lead Worship, which makes or breaks camp for me.

After chappel we played a scavenger hunt in our luggage, which was totally unfair for the guys but tons of fun for us! Caitlyn and I went crazy. We used a light bulb for the letter "I" as "Idea," which everybody knows meant we should have won. (we didn't, by the way)

Then there was Cabin Devotions. One girl that we had all been praying super hard for had been saved over the year. We all cried during her testimony. Other girls had stories, too. It was incredible. It always is. We finally went to bed around midnight and nobody even complained about the misquitos.

Tuesday

I woke up about the same time as the day before. But I really wasn't tired this time, and I certainly wasn't grumpy. Lindy and I went down to the pool to write in our journals before breackfast and quickly decided never to try that again, but it still feels exhilerating to be alive when the air is crisp and the birds are just waking up. After breackfast we sang with Carolyn a little, and I braided the hair of aproximately 15,000 girls.

That afternoon we played dogeball, and I was the last girl to stay in because I hid behind Zach the whole time. But after lunch Ruben took the entire camp up to our secret medow, which turned out to actually be a socer field (we honestly didn't see the lines before), and it quickly lost it's romance. Sports make me grumpy. Then we played water baloons on the court and tried quite unsuccesfully to soak Ruben.

After chappel we played pictionary, blindfolded. It was pretty hilarious. We always spend half of fun n' stuff cheering, just cracking up and clapping our hands off, and by the end of it my cheeks always hurt from smiling and my ears are ringing, and it's the best that life has to offer.

After snack we played spoons, and I was being happier than I've been since last Wednesday... er, I mean, last Camp Hope. It ended adruptly but I was still too excited to cry during cabin devotions, which I think makes me a bad person because it was even more emotional than the first night.

Caitlyn and I talked late into the night, because neither of us were close to being tired.

Wednesday

We began the day with finger streaches and pooh bear. Does it get any better than that? I really did enjoy kick ball that morning. The whole place nearly died of shock when I actually caught a ball in the outfield. I still don't know how it happened. Then we had a water fight. Only about two people got me, but I still ended up soaked. It turned out to be really fun.

We sang my favorite two songs in Chappel. For Fun n' stuff we sang Camp songs. This is highlight number two for me, because I look seventeen but when it comes to these things I'm actually about six. I love watching everybody loose it and get so into songs like Baby Shark or Little Cabin in the Woods. And I love getting into it myself.

After that I played volleyball with some random people for a few minutes (volleyball is an exception, it does not make me grumpy), and when I returned to the kitchen there was a seat saved for me and everyone was in hysterics over nothing. It was perfect. We broke out the spoons and cards again, and when it came time for bed they sent me up to ask for more time. We were given almost an hour extra!

This would be highlight number one. Words cannot describe Wednesday nights at Camp Hope (two years in a row makes it tradition, you know). We did very little actual playing and a lot of posing for pictures and cracking jokes and laughing at nothing, which is the best thing to laugh at because it's impossible to over or under-react to nothing, you can just laugh as much as you feel like. Sam and I kept saying and doing the same things at the same time, and once when we both had the same thought we laughed in unison, shook our heads in unison, and said, "We make a great team," in unison.

Then we laughed some more.

Kacy and I sang softly as we walked back up to the cabins in the pitch blackness, while the rest of Camp was asleep. Nobody cried in devotions that night. I don't actually remember if we got any sleep, but my guess would be no.

Thursday

We still had tons of energy left over the next morning, or at least I did, and I really wanted to go running. Instead we went on a hike up to Goat Peak, and the ride up to said mountain was the best ride of the week. We had all these girls singing disney princess songs and Jacob looking a little sick, but being very gracious about it anyway. We stopped for lunch at the bottom and ate on a pile of gravel.

Almost the whole way up the mountain, we talked about God and the Bible and really big important things, which was soooo nice! We ran into snow on the way, and dove gratefully into it in our shorts and tank tops. The hike was relatively easy, and the view at the top was pretty cool. There's a guy that lives up there, like all the time. I felt very sorry for him, but I also wanted to write him into a story. After taking about a million pictures, we went back and I got to talk to Michaela, which always makes my day even though it had really already been made a long time ago.

When we got back, someone came and told us that the teens would would "be having dinner early, since we've lost the juniors." I mean, there's only like fourty of them. They returned an hour latter sobbing and filthy from a big confusing mix up on Sunglass Mountain in which nobody was ever actually lost, but everybody thought everybody else was lost and it was a big mess. My vote is that we stay away from Sunglass Mountain in the future.

Thursday night is skit night. Our cabin did Snow White, which means I got to be the wicked stepmother and do a very satisfying evil laugh. We didn't win, but who cares? Swish swish, clang clang!

Then Ruben told the story of the three little pigs, which was, er, intresting comming from a twenty-something police officer from Pollman.

Then, because the Juniors had recovered just enough to roast marshmellows and make smores, the teens got to play volleyball in the dark while we waited for our turn at the fire pit. It's funny how you bond with the people you keep bumping into while you can't see a thing and you've got sand in your hair, under your toe nails, coating your eyelashes, ect. But you do. It's the strangest thing.

Then it was our turn at the fire, and we sang more camp songs and did the Dance of the Banana Peal, which is a mystical spirutal ritual conducted in deep secret around Camp fires in the woods. That's how it feels, anyway. Smores make camping official, I think. It makes being dirty and sunburnt and tired memorable and wonderful, somehow. You can't replace it for anything.

Friday

I woke up feeling terribly sick and unhappy and frusterated. I'm not sure what was wrong with me, but in the end we had a great time at lunch and even cleaning up and packing. I felt very loved, because I was being irritable and unpleasent and in response my friends just gave me extra support and hugs and candy corn and such.

Best was getting to talk with the Busby's, who take such a sincere interest in me and really encouraged me. They are incredible people, that's all I have to say about that.

And the ride home was pretty cool, my friends worked it all out so that seven of us could be in one car all together, and they introduced me to the song All Star, which is awesome because now I can instantly transport myelf back to Camp Hope by playing it. It was a bitter sweet feeling, being back home. We made it in around ten oclock. I wanted to cry but I also really wanted a warm shower, if you know what I mean.