Week 1: Dealing with the fruit…

Well, the first week of camp along with over 1,000 campers have come and gone. In all it was a great week. I had 8 senior high campers aged 13-16 this week. They were a good bunch of guys. I don’t think I’ve ever had a more responsive bunch of campers. A majority of them made a decision every service, and all of them made at least 1 decision. It was great to see them deal with areas like music, bitterness, obedience, assurance of salvation, and surrender to full time Christian service. My only disappointment was that they really only seemed willing to deal with the surface issues or fruit, instead of wanting to get down the the root of the problem and change their way of living. For example, they were willing to get the secular rock music off their iPods, but not the CCM. Continue to pray for them that the Lord would help them keep and strengthen the decisions that they made this week.

The speaker this week was Tom Farrell as I mentioned before, and as usual he didn’t mince words preaching on what the Bible has to say about sin and mediocre Christianity. I thoroughly enjoyed the messages and they were encouraging and challenging to me as well. I look forward to hopefully hearing him again later this summer. Next week we will have Morris Gleiser, who probably has the biggest heart for teenagers of any man I know. I’m looking forward to hearing him again. I should again have senior high guys.

Let me tell you about a couple of things that went on this weekend. On Saturday afternoon the Bull Moose guy counselors went on a little outing to a couple of waterfalls at a nearby state park. (Evidently we weren’t tired out enough from this week ) It was a great time of fellowship, bonding… and goofing off. Below are pictures of the waterfalls we saw. The little one is called Turtleback Falls. It’s about 20′ high at the highest point and makes a great waterslide (Yes, i speak from experience ) The other one is about 150′ high, and is called Rainbow Falls. Unfortunately for us it was cloudy when we went and we didn’t see the rainbows this falls is known for. It was still an awesome example of God’s majestic creation. There is a trail that goes down beside it that allows you to stand at the top and look down as well as at the bottom and look up. There was also a ledge about 25′ above the pool at the base of the falls that some of the other counselors were crazy enough to jump off of, but i exercised my better judgment as you had to jump out a little ways to avoid hitting the rock ledge at the bottom. I figured at least one person should spot for those jumping All in all it was a great outing.

Turtleback Falls

Rainbow Falls

Tonight we Wilds staff had a required service followed by a special meal of grilled bacon cheeseburgers and banana splits. Willie Partin preached a very challenging message on principles of compassion. He closed with the following prayer from Valley of Vision:

My Father,
Enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips,
supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’
There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son,
made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;
There thy infinite attributes were magnified,
and infinite atonement was made;
There infinite punishment was due,
and infinite punishment was endured.

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in,
trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,
stripped that I might be clothed,
wounded that I might be healed,
athirst that I might drink,
tormented that I might be comforted,
made a shame that I might inherit glory,
entered darkness that I might have eternal light.

My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
groaned that I might have endless song,
endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
expired that I might for ever live.

O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,
All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;
Help me to adore thee by lips and life.
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed,
Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,
mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

As has been my custom in these notes, I’ll be telling you about an aspect of the week in greater detail. This time I want to write about the Fireside service. In case you’re not familiar with it, the fireside service is a testimony service where the campers are given a stick that represents their life that they throw on the fire that represents God, symbolizing their complete surrender to God to be used by him. As Rand puts it, throwing the stick on the fire doesn’t cause a big “S” to appear on your shirt and you all of a sudden become a super Christian that will never sin again, it simply pictures your willingness before your peers and sponsors to be fully surrendered to God’s will for your life, and that as far as you know there is nothing that you have not already surrendered to Him. The main reason I wanted to write about this aspect however is that the format of the service has changed somewhat from previous years. In previous years while a group of campers was throwing their sticks on the fire we would sing songs of dedication and surrender such as “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” “Lord, I Need You,” and “Servant’s Heart.” We’re still doing that this year, but in addition we’ve added the reading of camper testimonies from the week. The testimonies are written by the campers on Thursday and then read by Rand and Matt and Christy Taylor. It was so neat to hear about how God worked in the hearts and lives of campers this week. Evidently this week we had several campers from South Korea. Although their English wasn’t perfect, their testimonies of how God worked in their lives brought tears to my eyes. I’m really looking forward to the Fireside service as a highlight of the week this year.

Thanks so much for your prayers! I can’t wait to see what the Lord will do this week in my life as well as in the lives of my campers.

…that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent.

Staff Training Week: a time to learn…

Staff training has come and gone. And I get my first camper Sunday night (yes, that’s early). Camp is here! As always, staff training week was great. I learned and re-learned a lot from Mr. Ken, Rand, Matt, Tom Farrell, and others. I can’t wait to see what else the Lord has for me to learn this summer.

They switched up the format and structure of staff training week from previous years which gave us a few extra hours of free time and an opportunity to sleep in a little more. Another nice change was we got to have a classic Wilds Funtime! It was the funtime program they do during the school year, so the one we see next week will be different. Even so, there were a lot of great skits (ask me tell you about the vending machine one sometime). I’m hoping some of them will be in the summer funtime. I even got to be in one of the skits. You know the German Musician song (I am a musician, I’m from German land…)? They called up all the third year guy counselors to do that, which includes me.

Probably my favorite part about the week was the evening services. We had a great string of messages starting with Mr. Ken last Saturday giving a general review of the Wilds counseling philosophy. Sunday night Tom Farrell preached on leaving your first love from . Monday night Doc Hay preached on Eded-Melech (do you know who he is? see ). Tuesday night Rand preached on the book of Jude and how he was a contrite, compassionate, confident confronter (Rand’s comment: he was probably a counselor back with Ken Collier and Tom Farrell). Wednesday night Tom Farrell preached again on Jesus’ washing of the disciples feet. Thursday night Rand preached again on how to be a religious robot from . Friday night, Tom Farrell preached once more on being filled with the Spirit from . After the Friday night service we had a guys campfire testimony time. That was a great way to spend an hour and ten minutes or so, just hearing how God had been working in hearts prior to and during staff training week.

The theme this year is an election theme, so the teams are the Lame Duck party, the Red Tape party, and the Bull Moose Party! I think you can tell which one i’m on I’m really looking forward to working with the guys on the team. They did some nice new things with the staff stuff this year. Instead of a collared staff shirt like usual, they gave us two staff T-shirts, one short sleeved and one long sleeved. Also, along with our team shirt, they gave us a team hat. Which is nice since i didn’t have a white hat.

For the weekend, i rode down with a friend to Greenville. I enjoyed seeing my siblings again and we pulled a surprise b-day party for G’s brother who just arrived on campus this week. As i type this, i’m riding back to camp where I will receive my first camper upon arrival. The two shifts this year are Senate and House, which normally end up being Sr. and Jr. high respectively. Well, the roads are getting windy, so I will finish and send this once i get to camp. Thanks for praying.

Some specific requests:
- personal growth in my relationship with and knowledge of God
- that would be able to help my campers grow in their relationship with and knowledge of God
- that I would be able to quickly build strong relationships with my campers
- that I would depend entirely on the Lord and not on myself each day this summer

Hello, I’m a Mac…

Yes, i couldn’t update my blog on my life without mentioning that i’ve seen the light (or least drank the koolaid) and got a Mac.  With the help of some left over graduation and Christmas money, i bought a 15″ 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 2GB of RAM, currently running OS X 10.5.2 Leopard.  I ordered at the beginning of December, and it was awaiting me when i arrived home for Christmas break.  So i’ve used it all this semester and been quite pleased with it.

There were several things I wasn’t sure I was going to like about it, but either the aroma exuding from the package caused me to forget all of that or they weren’t as bad as i thought they would be.  For example, I was previously a ThinkPad user, and was in love with the little red eraser trackpoint and had never had much success with the trackpad. So I was afraid i would have difficulty adjusting to the MacBook Pro’s trackpad.  But i’ve been using it without a hitch pretty much from day one.  It’s much more “intelligent” than trackpad’s i’ve used in the past with only moving or clicking when i want it to.  I love the 2-finger scrolling, in fact it annoys me when it doesn’t work on the Dells in the Media Center

I obviously still use Window$ at work, and I actually dual-boot Vista via BootCamp and VMWare Fusion (once Logos for Mac gets completed that may change…)  I’m still pretty much of an Apple n00b but i’m planning on delving into AppleScript and Objective-C this summer as time allows (XCode is sweet!).  I may also add a triple-boot option of Ubuntu Hardy Heron, we’ll see how it goes…

If anyone else out this is thinking about switching and you have any questions, fire away in the comments.

I’m back!

Wow…. seeing as the title of my last post was “life as a GA” i think that the gap between that and this post (almost 9 mo) tells you more about GA life than the post.  But now that classes are over and exams are finished I’ve managed to find a space of time to update you (all 5 or 6 you that read this) on what’s going on.

As i said, exams are done, and it appears I’ve managed to keep my 4.0 this semester, thanks to Dr. Bell’s crazy “Bell Curve” as we refer to it (cutoff for an A is 84, for a B, 72?, etc.)  I’m told a non-ten-point grading scale is common in grad school, but i’m still not used to it.  Oh yeah, since i didn’t post my customary “here’s what I’m taking this semester” post at the beginning of last semester my classes were Preacher Boys - History and Philosophy of Preaching with Dr. Minnick, Systematic Theology II with Dr. Olinger, and Old Testament Introduction with Dr. Bell (and no, Introduction does not indicate that it is an introductory level course.  It’s actually a technical term that refers to the background and history of the Old Testament, rather than its content. Themes, dates, critical views, authorship, integrity, that sort of thing.)  And as i said, God enabled me to get an A in all of them. Yay!

Work has been busy too.  Although i enjoy my job at the Media Center, at times it does get a bit hectic.  Yesterday, for example, I checked out equipment for faculty and students, did some web design, burned several CD’s, tunneled through a pile of email, answered various questions from faculty and students, continued development work on a new checkout system for materials, and tidied up some in preparation for the end of the semester.  I’m looking forward to the break this summer.

Speaking of this summer, I will again be counseling at the WILDS (i really don’t know we always capitalize it, it’s not an acronym, i guess we’re always excited and shout it) for my third summer.  This year as the camp has a patriotic theme, I will be on the Bull Moose party (white) as the head of the Varmint cabin. All the cabin names are take-offs of states (e.g. Steakus, Nascar-olina, Monsoona, Misery, etc.).  That begins with staff training week at the beginning of June.  Prior to that I will be working for Shank Door / Doors Express for three weeks, after visiting my girlfriend and her family in Canada after commencement.  Got all that? Commencement is Saturday (May 3), then Canada for a week, home in PA for 3 weeks, then the WILDS for 11 weeks, and then back here in BJ-land in the middle of August.  Hopefully I’ll post some more in there between now and then.

Well, this post is more than long enough now, so I’ll put anything else i wanted to say in another post.

Life as GA

Well, it’s that time of year again. Classes officially started today. Of course, I’ve already been down here at BJU since Aug 11, since work started the 13th. This semester brings a new perspective/challenge, as I’m now a part time student, and a part time faculty member. Basically as some of my friends and I have boiled it down… when it’s advantageous for the University for you to be a student, you’re a student; and when it’s advantageous for the University for you to be faculty, you’re faculty. I’m enjoying it so far, and I look forward to what God will teach me through it.

My “faculty” position is a bit unique. Although I’m classified as a “teaching graduate assistant (ga),” I don’t teach any classes. However I do work for the school of education in the Media Center. The Media Center is a multimedia and resource lab on the second floor of the Alumni building. The MC is also in charge of distributing the multimedia equipment (laptops, projectors, monitors, etc) that the teachers use in the classroom. So my job is some kind of a cross between an IT technician, computer lab assistant, and tutor. The way I like to refer to it is “I get to help students and work with computers!” both of which i love.

Anyway, without further ado, here are this semester’s classes.

• Hom 634 - Expository Sermon Preparation - Dr. Reimers
• OT 633 - Biblical Hermeneutics - Dr. Hankins
• CMn 651 - Christian Discipleship (Grad preacher boys) - Dr. Berg (we’ll be going through Changed into His Image)
• Th 601 - Systematic Theology - Dr. Bell (lots and lots of reading)

That makes a total of 9 credits to which I add 27.5 hours of work in the Media Center. At least it’s 9 month GAship, so I have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the summer off

I will also hopefully have some opportunity to work with the teens at Faith Baptist Church, and I’ll probably continue ministering at Shepherd’s Care assisted living center, some too. All in all, it looks like a busy semester… well, that’s normal.

Week 10… and beyond

Well, my summer at the Wilds has come to end. In fact, I’m writing this from the campus of Bob Jones University, and I begin my graduate assistantship tomorrow. But it was an awesome summer! God taught me so much about Himself in so many ways - through the preaching, through my campers, through problems, through the music, through God & I time, and through other staff members. Probably the main lesson God was teaching me was just that He is in control in every circumstance will always give me what I need and not more or less so that I will rely on Him. I had a great cabin this week, 9 guys that all were sensitive to what God wanted them to do and who really wanted to grow. One of them witnessed the death of his grandfather the previous weekend, and was missing the funeral to come to camp, but he still wanted to come because he knew what God would teach him at camp. He made some decisions about how to better spend his time and is probably going to sell/return some of his video game systems. Most of my guys made decisions about being more faithful in their devotions, and another guy made a decision about what he was filling his mind with entertainment-wise. All-in-all they were just a lot of fun, and just enjoyed hanging out together.

Each afternoon the campers have freetime to enjoy the various activities offered at the Wilds. These include the Superslide (a 300′ water slide down the hill), tubin’ in the creek which goes around the ball field, GaZEEball (each camper stands in a hole in a deck and throws a ball towards their goal), a 22 caliber rifle range, a sling shot range, an archery range, Human Foosball (each camper holds onto straps hanging down from the ceiling and kicks a ball toward their goal), the 65′ giant swing, a 30′ climbing wall, the new Wilds Water Wars (high powered water guns mounted on either side of the creek and bridge over the creek - campers shoot each other and the tubers coming down the creek), the creek swing, the Land trolley (500′ zip line over the basketball courts), Frisbee golf, and of course, basketball, soccer, and volleyball. And if they get hot and/or thirsty from these activities they can visit the Snackshop, the Cool Beans coffee shop (which has more than just coffee), and the Kountry Store or Craft Shop, all of which are air conditioned. And as this last week was the hottest of the summer, the AC was very appreciated. The campers have to have counselor supervision at the archery and slingshot range and staff assistance at the rifle range, but other than that they are able to split up and enjoy all the activities without having to be with their cabin or counselor. Of course, as counselors we go with one group of our campers and just hang out with them. One other activity that’s available to the campers but requires the entire cabin including the counselor is what we call The Summit. The Summit is a ropes and wires obstacle course that requires teamwork to complete. The events include a 15′ wall to scale, balance beams, a tire wall to climb, tightropes with and without ropes and trees to provide balance, tire swings, and getting from one platform to another by means of short planks or a rope swing. Each of the events has a unique name like “Monkey Crawl” (tire wall) “Gut Wrencher” (5′ high log hurdle) “Tension Traverse” (tightrope). As counselors, we enjoy making up stories behind the events like “if you fall off, you land in 8,000° lava” or “if you fall it’s 300,000 feet down” or “you’re being chased by wild, ferocious beasts so need to get to the other mountain peak where you can escape by helicopter.” It’s lots of fun, and it’s a great way to build cabin unity and teamwork, and prove to the less athletically inclined camper that they can be successful.

Last Sunday evening we had our Staff Appreciation Banquet. The Dining Hall served a special menu of BBQ Chicken and Hickory BBQ spareribs plus all the vegetables and fixin’s and of course apple or wildberry pie a-la-mode for dessert. Basically, really, really good food! After the meal, the announced some special awards such as the top 3 cabin cheers (introduced in cryptic fashion by Dave Stratton), and the Spark Plug awards. The Spark Plug award is given to 4 staff members (guy and girl op staff and guy and girl counselor) who not only have spend a lot of energy encouraging campers and staff members alike, but through their lives cause everyone and everything to run smoother. The op staff recipients were Bryan Tyler (lifeguard) and Janelle Molecky (girls COR crew chief). The counselor recipients were Joel McAllister and Bekah Rudie.

Although the regular summer season is over, there is still one more week of family camp this coming week with 110 families expected. Also, the Wilds of New England is renting a camp facility and having 1 week of Junior camp this year. The speakers for that will be Rand Hummel and Big Bob Roberts. (Rand is also the director of the Wilds of New England.) Please be in prayer for them as this is a somewhat of a new experience/endeavor. Thanks one last time for your prayers for me this summer and I continue to covet your prayers as I begin my grad studies here at BJ.

Week 9

Well, JBC (Junior Boot Camp) is over, and only one week of teen/family camp remains for me. A week from now and I’ll be back on campus at BJ. Where has the summer gone? Thankfully, it wasn’t lost, but rather it was invested in the lives of 63+ campers that lived with me as I tried to the best of my ability to help them grow in their knowledge of and relationship with God. As I was reminded/encouraged once again just this morning in my Sunday School class, the most important thing is knowing God!

I had a great cabin this week of guys that were sensitive to the Lord’s leading in their lives and very obedient in the cabin. Brother Will Galkin did an excellent job speaking to the JBCers this week (and their counselors) and many lives were changed. Several of my campers made decisions about being more faithful in their devotions and one surrendered his life to be a missionary. Please continue to pray for a guy named Bradley who I believe still has some issues to work out at home. He raised his hand in every service but wouldn’t go back to talk to a counselor. When i asked him about it he told me that they were some personal issues he needed to work out on his own. I know God doesn’t need me to accomplish His plan, so pray that He will continue to accomplish it in Bradley’s life.

One other thing I wanted to share with you was about what some of us did last night after supper. A group of us went down and roasted some s’mores (and to eat whatever other leftover food we had) on the other side of the creek by the rifle range. We ended up having a great time of singing and sharing testimonies of what that Lord has been teaching us through our campers this summer. It was very encouraging and physically and spiritually refreshing.

I’m running out of ideas for these “from the trenches” reports, so if anyone has something they would like to hear about, let me know, and I’ll give you the low down. There is (from a counselor’s perspective) a very important room on the campsite that most campers or sponsors never see. That room is the staff lounge, located right behind the fireplace room. This room is important for several reasons. One reason is that the staff lounge is where all the mail comes. In the staff lounge is a set of “mail boxes” that each counselor tries to check daily for notes from home, from friends, care packages (interpret “food”), and anything else you might expect to receive such as online orders and even bills :-/. Of course, they also contain messages from the WILDS office and notes (and/or candy) from your prayer partner. Another reason for the staff lounge’s importance is that it contains two email stations and has wireless internet access if you have a laptop. Being able to check email at least one other time besides the weekend is highly desirable by most of us, and for those of us with laptops we can also go online and check sports scores, news, IM, etc. during our few moments of free time (CLS - Christian Life Seminar, or Counselors Like Surfing). The staff lounge also has a coffee machine. It’s supposedly the same stuff as at the Hilton, but I’m not much of a coffee drinker. However, I have probably drank more coffee this summer than in the rest of my life combined (about 5 cups). Another important part of the staff lounge are its many bulletin boards. You can find posted your prayer partner for the next week, what shift you’ll be and what cabin you’ll be in. You can find announcements for upcoming weddings, things for sale, and job openings for the fall in various places. You can see what decisions campers have made and what decisions their counselors and sponsors still think they need to make. You can find what your weekend work responsibilities are. If you don’t know who your prayer partner is, you can look through the staff pictures and find out. You can even find out who the few are that won’t be able to be in the staff lounge during the next CLS as they need to be helping out in the session. Yet another “feature” of the staff lounge are the cubbyholes. Each staff member has about one cubic foot of space to store everything imaginable. You can find cookies, computers, cell phones, stationary, pens, pencils, board games, stuffed animals, first aid stuff, money, mail, umbrellas, books, and just about everything in-between in these little boxes. If you need access to something, but don’t particularly want your campers to have access to it, it goes in the cubbyhole. But probably the most important thing about the staff lounge is it’s where you can go to get help and encouragement when you’re wiped out from being around 8 or 9 often frustrating campers all day long. (Yes, i know its hard to believe but counselors do get tired and frustrated. ) You can actually have an intellectual conversation with someone your age! More importantly, you can pray over the needs of your campers. You can encourage another counselor who’s down. You can get encouragement when you’re the counselor that’s down. And on the weekends, it’s a great air conditioned! place to participate in everybody’s favorite activity… hanging out. The staff lounge — probably the best word to describe it is… an oasis.

Well, it’s week 10, the last week. I’ll be working in the teen camp, which is larger than previous years’ week 10, about 750 (we normally have about 850/week during the summer). I’ll be on the sr. high shift and Rand Hummel will be the speaker again this week. I’m looking forward to it. I was kinda hoping to be on family camp this last week, as it’s a little less tiring as you aren’t with the campers 24/7 (they have parents!), but God put me on teen camp, so I know He has something to teach me there. Please pray for me that I would finish this week strong and have no regrets as I head back to school on Saturday afternoon. Thanks so much for your prayers!

Week 8

God is so good, even when we do not understand His ways. This past week was my first week of Junior Boot Camp (JBC) and I enjoyed it thoroughly. I got to act like a total goofball, and the campers still thought I was cool. Please continue to pray for Ryan who is going into 5th grade. He knows he is unsaved, knows the consequences of that decision, knows he needs to be saved, but couldn’t give me a reason why he didn’t want to be saved. I talked to him several times throughout the week, but he left Saturday still unsaved. Please pray that God would get a hold of his heart and draw him to Himself. Several of my other guys made decisions about devotions and TV watching. But in it all, God was/is good!

Well, let me tell you a little more about JBC. JBC is for those going into 4-7th grades. This year the theme is Tank Attack with the teams Red Storm and Blue Thunder. (Can you guess which I’m on? ) The competition is slightly lower keyed than the teen competition, but it’s still a lot of fun. One of the primary differences between the two for the counselors is that all of your 7 or 8 JBCers are with you constantly. In teen camp, during free time your campers split up and you go with some of them. In JBC all of you stick together and do everything together from the land trolley to climbing wall to the craft shop to the lake to everything. This requires a bit of motivation on the part of the counselor to get everybody to involve themselves in every activity because there are always those who do not want to do activity A or B. Other difference in the JBC program (and to be honest, one of my favorite differences) is the songs that we sing. In teen camp, we sing songs from the Wilds song book. In JBC, we sing some of those songs we but also sing a lot of fun songs from Patch the Pirate. We sing old classics like “Wiggle Worm,” “I’m Going to Camp,” and “My Trusty Sword” but we also sing some of the newer ones like “Follow the Map,” “Zip Your Lip,” “Six Billion Reasons,” and “You’d Better Lean to the Right.” These songs pack some pretty powerful Scriptural truth into a fun format, and the kids enjoy doing all the hand motions/noises/standing & sitting as well. Before each service we also would say the phrase “When God (point up) speaks to me (point to self), I will listen (point to ear) and obey (hold open hand out)” and sing our theme song, “Speak, Lord, for Your Servant Hears”. The first verse goes like:

Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.
Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.
I am but a child, but You have called my name.
There must be a special task for me to claim.

Chorus:
I don’t ask for riches, I don’t ask for fame.
I don’t ask that honor be heaped upon my name.
I only ask your presence to ever be the same.
Speak, Lord, for your servant hears.

Another nice aspect of JBC, especially for the guy counselors is that the JBCers stay in air conditioned dorm rooms, rather than the un-air conditioned cabins. JBCers also have a nap time most days and go to bed at 10pm rather than 11 or 11:30pm like the teens, so the counselors can get some extra sleep. They JBCers mostly struggle with areas like obedience to parents, assurance of salvation, and getting along with siblings. They also often have a transparency that the teens lack, which makes them easier to deal with sometimes. And as I mentioned before the counselors can act like goofballs and their campers still love them. I went around most evenings with my hand puppet “Frank” who became quite a hit, with some of the campers coming with their own hand puppets and having conversations with mine.

Next week I will still be on JBC and Will Galkin will be speaking to us. He spoke earlier to the teenagers and was very good. Steve Pettit will be here this week for the teens. Only this week and next week left and I’ll be heading back to BJ. AAAAAHH!!!!! Where did the summer go? Oh well, I’m looking forward to starting grad school too. Thank you for your prayers!