Week 5: More fun with junior high

Well, it’s hard to believe the summer is half over already, or maybe i should be optimistic say it’s only half begun Can’t wait to see those of you that are coming this week! I had another great group of guys this week. One of them was the younger brother of a camper i had back in ‘05, the first year I counseled. The interesting thing about that is that last year i had the younger brother of the other camper in my cabin from that church in ‘05. I guess they like putting that youth group in my cabin. (both of these older brothers that I had in ‘05 go to BJ and ride our bus to and from for Thanksgiving and Christmas). This week I also had two guys each from two other churches that i know about from school (Dr. Chuck Phelps former church in NH and Gordon Dickson’s church in Findlay, OH). And to top it off i had a camper whose parents are missionaries to Austria. They all made good decisions and desired to continue to grow spiritually.

This weekend (yesterday) I volunteered to help out with the CIT activity. I was assigned to help out the cook, so I helped get the food ready and run it out the picnic area then assisted him as he grilled the burgers. When the food part was over and followed everybody up in the woods and helped out with the CIT game (capture the flag with flour bombs). My job was to pick up any flour bombs that were thrown but didn’t explode (duds) so that the CIT’ers couldn’t pick them up and “re-use” them. It was a lot of fun and we had some great food! Next weekend is the WILDS Summer Prayer Partner banquet at BJ, so I’ll be headed down to Greenville for that on Saturday, and hopefully pick up a copy of Dr. Berg’s new book which comes out tomorrow (Monday).

Well, i keep talking about the games so I guess I’d better explain them The first game we always play on Monday night is a WILDS classic: Big Ball! In Big Ball the object to to hit, push, propel, pummel, etc a 3′ (girls) or 4′ (guys) ball across your team’s line on one side of the field. If you hit between the flags in the center of your team’s line you get 5 points and anywhere across the line is 2 points. Tuesday morning we play two games, Circle Soccer and Clean Sweep. In Circle Soccer, a brand new game this year, one team stands around 1 half of the circumference of a circle, and another teams stands around the other half. In the middle are three offensive and two defensive players for each team. The guys standing around the edge are goalies. A point is scored when the soccer ball gets past the goalies without going over their heads. If it goes over their heads then the scoring team loses a point. Clean Sweep is a relay race. There are 7 lanes of runner for each team, and when the whistle sounds the first guy in each lane runs to the middle of a the field to retrieve an item. The items they can retrieve are footballs (5 pts) black bands (3 pts) frisbees (2 pts) and tennis balls (1 pt). They can only retrieve one item at a time. Tuesday night we play another brand new game called Scrabble Scramble. In Scrabble Scramble a random sentence is read out from the sound car (like “Owl sips frothy limeade” or “His seal ate my wildflowers”) The campers are separated into 6 different fields that play simultaneously. At each field, the first three campers in line for each team are quickly assigned a letter to retrieve, (like O - W - L). When the whistle blows the campers that make up the first word run out to the middle of the field where there is a pile of tennis balls with letters written on them. When all the campers in the first word have found their letter and showed it to the ref, they sit down and the campers that make up the next word go (S - I - P - S). Whatever team finishes the sentence first wins and gets a point. We play 6 or 7 rounds and which ever team has the most points wins. Wednesday we only play one game, the classic WILDS game, Cat-In-The-Hat. In this game, each camper is seated in a circle of buckets by cabin (one cabin from each team comprises a circle). There are about 30 circles. The campers are assigned the character of either Mother, Sally, or Fish. Rand then reads the story, The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. Whenever he says one of those three characters those campers have to jump up and change buckets with another person who has that character. If Rand reads the whole phrase “the Cat in the Hat” everybody has to get up and change buckets. But since there is one less bucket than there are campers in the circle, one guy is always left in the middle. If you’re stuck in the middle, your team gets a point and the team with the least points wins. Thursday morning we play a game called Tally-Rally Baseball, also known as 3-Ball Baseball or Run for Your Life. In this game three guys get up to bat at once and they throw, kick, or otherwise propel out into the field the following three items: a football (guys) or a kickball (girls), a frisbee, and a tennis ball. Once they throw their item they start running around the bases. 1st base is 0 points, 2nd base is 1 points, 3rd base is 3 points, and if they get all the way home they get 5 points. But if they are in between bases when the balls make it back to the bucket at home plate they don’t score any points. Thursday night we play a game a night after the service called Big Ball Volleyball. We play with 3 nets kinda positioned like a “Y” and 3 big balls. Each team is in one segment of the “Y” There are no out-of-bounds as long as the ball crosses the net inside the poles at the end of the net. If the ball touches the ground you get a point, and just like in regular volleyball, points are bad. Team with lowest score wins. Tired yet? Don’t worry, there’s only one more game. On Friday morning we play Tag-a-lot, another WILDS classic. This is another multiple field game. On each field there is a row of buckets spaced like this (pretend the o’s of the 8’s are buckets)
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8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 8

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(basically sets of two buckets placed back to back with a little space in between each set). One team is seated on the buckets and the other team is lined up at one end of the field, ready to run. The team that is seated on the buckets (team A) wants to tag the runner from the other team (team B). Team A starts with one runner that has a baton, he is the tagger. You can only tag a runner from team B with a baton. When the music starts, team B sends out one runner. His object is to keep from being tagged and he can run anywhere on the field he wants except around the ends of line of buckets. The tagger (team A) has to stay on the side of the buckets that he starts on. If the runner (team B) is on the other side of the buckets the tagger (team A) has to pass the baton to someone seated on a bucket on the other side. When that person gets the baton they stand up and become the tagger, and the former tagger sits on the bucket where that person got up from. Of course, if the runner (team B) is smart, he’s run back through the buckets to the other side, and then tagger has to pass the baton back across and so forth. Each time the runner (team B) is tagged by the tagger (team A) then team B gets a point and the lowest score wins. When the song ends team A and B switch places and the game continues. It’s kind of complicated to explain but it’s a lot of fun to play. So in case any of you teens see this before you guys leave, that’s what you have to look forward to.

I’m on the Sr. high shift next week, so I may have some of you in my cabin. We’ll see. As you know, the speakers this week are the brother combo of Matt and Mark Herbster. I’m looking forward to it! Thanks for your prayers!