Back From Camp

In the hurry to get packed for camp (not sure why there was so much hurry because I only took a backpack with a pair of board shorts and three t-shirts) I forgot to grab my laptop and thus, had no ability to connect and post while away. Our first ever 'Beach Camp' was really fun. Here are a few things that stuck out.

- Every student we took was TOTALLY into it. Nobody gave us grief, complained about stuff or otherwise made the trip miserable. We drove here and there for meals, loaded and unloaded tons of beach gear every day and had a super flexible schedule. Every single student had an amazing attitude. It was actually kinda weird!

- Warm water. The water was about 72-73 degrees which is probably the warmest So. Cal water I've ever felt.

- Lots and lots of surfing by everybody. I think every kid at camp stood up on a surf board. We had several adult leaders who spent the vast majority of their time pushing kids into waves, helping them paddle back out, and then pushing them into another wave. Very fun.

- Our guest speaker. We asked Josh Treece, a former intern and current middle school pastor in San Diego, to speak two times. He was really, really good. He walked our students through the first half of Genesis and managed to hold their attention and give them really good insight into God's original plan, the fall etc. We couldn't have asked for a better speaker for our chapel times.

- A really nasty rash. Probably because I only packed board shorts. No need to elaborate.

- Generosity. We had a raffle at the end of the week at which time we gave away a $50 gift certificate to a surf shop and a new soft-top surf board worth about $200 from the same shop. Grace, an 8th grade girl, won the surfboard while an 8th grade boy won the gift certificate. Ahsley comes from a surfer family and has a garage full of boards and fully understands the value of the surfboard she won. However, she decided to see if the boy would want to trade her new board for the gift certificate. It was awesome. She could have returned the board to the shop and received $200 bucks in store credit, but she wanted to give the board away in return for the $50 certificate. Not often do you see a junior high student trade $200 for $50 just so somebody else can benefit. Pretty fun to watch...No wonder her name is Grace.

- The Junior High RV. That's right, somebody donated a 1988 RV to our ministry about a day before the trip so we took it along with us. It made staying in a caravan super easy. "Just stay behind the slow moving, tan and beige RV and you won't get lost....."