Summer at Hidden Acres

Now that I have been home for almost two weeks since working at camp I should probably let you all know what happened there. I worked as Senior counselor and lifeguard for seven weeks and it was an awesome time for teaching children the word and way of God

and being stretched myself in new ways. With my first week I was so blessed to have a wonderful Junior counselor who helped me with new ideas and really loved on the kids while I was away lifeguarding all afternoon. These four girls were horse campers and had a great

time!

The second week of camp was a lesson in patience for me. I was in a cabin with 11 girls who were second and third graders and some of them were internationals. This was one of my favorite weeks in that I counseled with two amazing women! I was somewhat one on one with one of the campers as she had a hearing implant and very difficult to put to bed and had a hard time sleeping the night through. She really was a blessing in disguise because I learned how to patiently love her along with 10 others who needed undivided attention. One of my favorite sayings from this week was from an international girl named Carroll said

"I don't know" in such a cute way you could never be mad. It was frustrating with how slow she was in getting dressed and walking places but laughs with her far out-weighed the moments that upset us.

Week three was a week of training these seventh and eighth graders how to become wranglers and learn barn duties. At the beginning of this week I thought it would be hard to get through to these girls because they weren't very talkative and were more interested in their looks then spending time with the horses. As the week progressed they came out of their shell and we had such a good time that they were pushing me into the pond and mud pit. We ended the week with ring bare-back riding and a breakfast trail ride. It was hard to let some of these girls go back to their home life and leave the fun freedom of camp.

Week four brought us to the half way mark of the summer. This week the camp had a half week for kindergarden and first graders (which I had) and second and third graders, which was older camp. All of these girls were such sweet little ladies. This week I was really shown the innocence of faith. They asked questions like, "why did God make the sky blue", "how big is God really", and the list goes on. They really just wanted to play and be outside and it was cool to see how they all included each other since most of them did not know anyone else in the

cabin. There was one special girl who was our "leach" for the week. She always wanted to be

held and needed to be talking to someone. I remember when she picked out her clothes for one day she put on this shirt with a sewn on vest on it and pink scrub pants she wore when she was in the hospital. One of the other junior counselors and I just looked and laughed which wasn't the right thing to do but she was just so cute and we agreed she was quite the character. After these few days were up I had a few days to go home for the 4th of July to be with family and prepare for the last two weeks of camp.

Week 5 brought me to another week of horse camp. This time I had a full wagon of girls and my first campers from out of state. The hard thing about this week was that there were a few girls who were looking to go deep into the word and learn as much as they could and a few were only there for the horse part of it and could care less about chapel and devotions. To bridge this challenge we all memorized different verses of the gospel to make a story and a few thought this would be way to hard and similar to school and would have none of that but they did it! I

felt like a proud mama and then the few who were looking to go deeper asked what books of the Bible they should read during Stop and Drop time and while they were at camp read a few of the smaller books in the Bible. This pushed me to brush up on what was said in those books as they wanted to discuss what was going on. I loved talking about this with these young girls and can't wait to get back to my group of small girls at church to discuss things with them!

Week six, last week of camp was full of middle school and high school students attending camps for volleyball, basketball, paintball, shooting, horse wilderness, english riding, and core camp. These ten girls in my cabin were here for volleyball and had been coming to Hidden Acres for years now. Most of these girls knew the Lord as their savior and wanted to be impacted and changed the week they were here while some were strictly there for volleyball and didn't want to attend anything of the religious sorts. There was one girl who was there for volleyball and was sick during the week but after a personal Bible reading time she chose not to be part of volleyball that day as she still didn't feel well and kept on going with her personal reading time. By the end of the week she realized God can forgive anyone no matter who they are or what they have done and chose to re-dedicate her life to Christ! These girls were so much fun and always had me laughing and teaching them something about life or God's word.

Camp was such a WONDERFUL experience and I'm so glad God brought me here this summer. During the first week for staff training I got a call from radiology school telling me there was a position open for me and I could get into the anatomy class starting the next day. I didn't know what to do because this had been my dream but looking back I made the right decision. Knowing the lives I have impacted and the girls who are now in God's family because they were in my cabin and God gave me the words to say is worth more than any profession to me. If radiological technology is to be my profession God will bring that back into my life again.