The auditorium is dark except for two screens on either side where numbers flash on a blue screen, counting down. 600+ people stand on their chairs, watching the count down early. Music plays in the background, but its nearly impossible to hear over the roar of the crowd. The screen hits ten and everyone starts counting. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. The curtain opens and everyone jumps off the chairs onto the floor. In the same moment the screen switches to song lyrics, the band starts, and lights begin to flash. This is Summer Salt.
Hi everyone. Today was the last day of Summer Salt, and while I'm exhausted, I want to tell you about one of the best weeks of my life. This is part one, where I mostly focus on the experience itself. Some time later, once my thoughts get straitened out better, I'll share what I learned.
First, since this is about the whole week, I have to start with last weekend, leading up to camp. Nothing much happened, except for me almost backing out of camp altogether. I got really freaked out Sunday at the thought of leaving for the week. I almost begged to not have to go. But, I took some deep breaths, and made it.
Now for camp details. Also, more about how the girl who couldn't make it past nine the first night on a youth retreat in February made it at a week long summer camp. I'm gonna start with some of the not-so-fun parts.
Food was the worst part. I eat vegetarian and gluten free, so its already hard for me to find stuff to eat, combined with the fact I'm kind of a picky eater, and the food there wasn't very good. I had packed snack stuff to help with this, but I didn't have much with protein, which led to feeling bad some of the time. I also didn't drink enough some of the time, because I wouldn't think about needing to unless I actually felt thirsty.
Water games also didn't go great. We were supposed to go to them in the afternoon, and we were split into middle school and high school groups for these. (side note: all my close friends and my sister were in middle school) On Tuesday, one group went to the lake and one to the pool. Well, when our chaperone told us that my friends and sister were supposed to go to the lake, and I was supposed to go the pool, I kinda freaked out. I started to go to the pool and they went to the lake, but I ended up panicking and following them to the lake. It ended up being ok, my Bible study leader and our chaperone were both really nice about it. Wednesday I didn't go to games either, middle school or high school, because I felt sick. I think I got dehydrated and overheated, based on the way I felt. Thursday, I did go with my right group, even though I didn't feel great, and it was fine.
Now for some good stuff.
Bible studies were really fun. I absolutely loved my person I was with. I was really scared at first, because I wasn't with anyone I knew well at all, but my leader was so great, I ended up loving it. She was one of the people who helped make camp easier.
The group assemblies were fun too. There were usually two, one in the morning, one in the evening. This is what I was describing up at the top. We sang, and in the morning played games, and in the evening there was a skit, and a sermon from a head pastor at the camp. The assemblies may have been the most fun.
After the evening group assemblies, we would have church group devotions where we'd go over what we'd learned in the assembly. After morning assemblies, we would have a quiet time where we'd do a devotion from our camp booklet.
The other thing I did that was simultaneously my favorite and least favorite thing was the ropes course. I was really nervous about it, as the last time I did anything like that I freaked out. I was in a group with my Bible study leader and all the other people who were really scared. I learned that I am not actually scared of the ropes course at all. That part is fun. I am, however, extremely uncomfortable and anxious around sobbing, terrified people. The only part I was even a little scared of was going down. I had repel myself similar to climbing a rock wall. This scared my because the last time I had done that I hit my head kind of hard. But I made it.
So in this section I want to tell you how I made it the whole week. It was through the help of a bunch of awesome people, and an even more awesome God.
First, my Bible study leader was amazing. She made me feel relaxed, even though I was anxious about a lot that week. Like I said above, I ended up really enjoying the Bible study group time, despite not being with my friends or sister.
Also, the chaperones their with my youth group. Specifically my youth pastor, David, his wife Katie, and Emily. Its been a new experience for me to have youth leaders I can really connect with, but having it here really helped. They helped when I lost my wallet, and stayed calm about the whole thing, which helped me to stay calmer. Katie and Emily helped me talk through and understand some of the lessons better. And Emily was kinda the person that I asked most questions to. She was super nice about everything.
Some of the most important people I had were my friends and my sister. They were awesome, even to the point of telling people things or asking people things instead of me having to. I will forever be thankful for them.
Finally, and I'll go into this in more detail in part two, I had so much help from God. I could really feel Him walking with me through this week. An example, on Thursday I was too hungry to eat breakfast, and I didn't drink much water, so I was really nervous about the ropes course and how I'd feel. But, it all went fine, despite what I thought would happen.
I'm gonna wrap this up here, this is definitely one of my longest posts. If you reading this are one of the people mentioned above, thank you so very much, from the bottom of my heart, for helping me. That's it for now. I'll have something new up Monday. :) Xoxo
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