Week 3… junior highers… need i say more?

Hello once again! Thanks so much for your prayers; I had a great week. Here at the WILDS we have a term we use to refer to jr. highers that was coined by Rand Hummel. That term is “pre-people,” but we love junior highers none the less. We love their excitement. Rand does this thing where he imitates the greeting he receives from the various grade levels. At 7th grade they’re jumping off the bus all excited jumping up and down and yelling, “Brother Rand! Brother Rand! Brother Rand!” 8th grade: “Brother Rand! Brother Rand!” 9th grade: “Brother Rand!” 10th: “Brother Rand” 11th: “Rand” 12th: *nod head* :P

I had a great week with my junior highers. We toasted our sister cabin again in Scripture memory with one of my guys having said all 5 passages by supper Monday night and all of them with at least one passage before team meeting. My campers made several spiritual decisions as well, the most notable being one of them getting rid of the pornography in his life. Dr. Goetch did an excellent job, and his Friday night message on surrender was phenomenal. It included his own dramatic testimony of his surrender to God. Ask me about it sometime, it’s too long to include here.

Some of you may be asking, so what does a counselor do all day? Glad you asked. Here’s a brief synopsis of a day in jr. high counselor’s life (schedule is different for sr. high):
6:30am - wake up, pray, meet with other guy Bull Moose counselors for strategy and prayer
7:00am - head back the cabin to get my guys out of bed and start cleaning the cabin
7:30am - shoo everybody out of the cabin so i can sweep the floor
8:00am - over half done with breakfast
8:30am - distribute camper’s money and work on Scripture memory
9:00am - Chapel, Willie preached for Jr. high this week
9:30am - Willie’s still preaching about Joseph
10:00am - God and I time, make sure campers are quietly working, spend time in prayer
10:30am - God and I time followup - discuss how to apply principles from Joseph’s life to ours
11:00am - join sr. high on the ballfield for a game
11:30am - coaching camper who returned with the wrong item for the 2nd time
12:00pm - lunchtime! my favorite, chicken sandwiches!
12:30pm - head down to the cabin to get ready for the swim test
1:00pm - swim time! (yes, you have to take the swim test)
1:30pm - following camper down tube slide
2:00pm - time to leave the lake, make sure all campers check out at the buddy board, talk to camper about family situation back home, silent prayer
2:30pm - let’s go tubing!
3:00pm - hmm, no tubes available so make that creek-stomping (upstream, of course)
3:30pm - time to fish campers out of the creek and send them to Christian Life Seminar (yes, you will be cold and wet, but i told you not to get wet before CLS)
4:00pm - ah, break time in the staff lounge while campers are at CLS
4:30pm - finish writing email in staff lounge and head to supper
5:00pm - late camper finally arrives at supper (this was a regular occurrence this week)
5:30pm - free time while sr. high eats supper (no, this is not a good time to go tubing)
6:00pm - get ready for evening game, talk to camper about his personal testimony and spiritual growth (we call this one-on-one)
6:30pm - game time!
7:00pm - “That’s an exclamation point, not an ‘i’! See the line under it?” (coaching camper again :) - this is a new game, i’ll describe the various games in a later note)
7:30pm - shower time! (”2 mins and we turn off the hot water!”)
8:00pm - scripture memory- “if we get all 25 passages tonight, I’ll let you sleep in tomorrow”
8:30pm - service time, walking back to seat after counselor choir number
9:00pm - Dr. Goetch still going strong
9:30pm - counseling camper about right response to authority after service
10:00pm - only 1 more passage to go! (didn’t get it til morning, but i was nice and let them sleep in anyway)
10:30pm - cabin devotions - “The most important thing in life is spending time with God”
11:00pm - Lights out! (seems the cabin across the way is having difficulty… ok, now they’re quiet)
11:30pm - zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZ……

With several more quick prayers and lots of laughter sprinkled throughout. :)

I’ll be on jr. high again this week. Tom “Double-barrel” Farrell’s back for round two! Thanks again for your prayers!