Discovering My Inner Legolas

Date: Saturday July 23, 2011

Time: 4:40 pm

Location: Taupo, NZ, My bedroom at the Fox’s

This past week was spent supervising nineteen 13 to 15 year-old girls at a kids camp at Lake Taupo Christian Camp. The girls were LIT’s or Leaders in training, so they would assist the junior and senior leaders with their group of younger campers.

Oh, to be 13 at a week-long camp. Your life revolves around whether you get to strategically sit next to the boy you like during meals, wear his hoodie or hat during camp, or maybe even kiss him on the cheek with your friends giggling beside you and wondering if any of the leaders saw (Oh, and help with campers). This was a true story for one of my girls who started “dating” the camp manager’s son during camp. Sexual politics start so young, don’t they?

I did not sleep very well the entire week of camp. Either I was freezing (under my 5 blankets), I was worried about missing my 5:30 alarm, one or both of the girls I was rooming with were snoring, or one of them was periodically yelling in her sleep.

When I wasn’t hearing about the dating drama of my girls, I was downing my second or third cappuccino (thank God for that instant Nescafe machine), leading a game of “ships and sailors,” at a rehearsal for that night’s worship, or teaching kids archery.

“Are we ready to discover our inner Legolas’s?” I’d say. I tell you what, nothing teaches you patience like trying to teach archery. I would demonstrate how to do it, which the kids weren’t listening to and would forget by the time it was their turn to shoot 5 arrows, and have to explain it again once they got up there. They would hold the bow the wrong way, the arrow would fall out of place a billion times, and other similarly frustrating scenarios. Deep breath.

I was keeping track of points for each cabin because whichever one got the most points by the end of the week was named best cabin or team, and I told one of the junior leaders of a group of boys that if he beat me at a shoot-off I would award his team 50 points. I got 5 out of 5 bulls eyes, he got 3. I don’t care if I’m bragging, that’s pretty impressive for someone who hasn’t shot archery since high school.

On Thursday night, as a teaching session was about to start, a helicopter emergency landed on the camps field. Apparently something on the helicopter had broken down with a patient on board. An ambulance had to meet the helicopter at the camp and pick up the patient. This was very dramatic and exciting. Oh, and the kids were very excited by the helicopter being there as well.

Despite the frustration and lack of sleep, this was probably one of the most rewarding weeks of my life. Little lives were changed and I got to spend the week surrounded by awesome and amazing people. Definitely something I would do again.