Last weekend, we had a small youth group out here. I worked in the kitchen for the two meals that they were here for on Saturday. After the group left and the dining hall was clean, it was such a beautiful day I decided that it would be a sin to not spend it outside. I had some research I had to do, so I grabbed my laptop, blanket, and a plate of food and laid out under a tree for the entire afternoon. (In the evening, I went for a jog through the woods and also FINALLY made it to the top of the observation tower!) On my laptop, I had to look up a camp in Wisconsin called Covenant Harbor, because I would be there the very next day!
We left camp at 8:30am on Sunday, picked up a few of the other staffers, and then headed east. With only a couple quick rest stops and a lunch break at Wendy's, we made it out of Nebraska, through Iowa and Illinois and into Wisconsin just in time for dinner. The ride itself wasn't anything spectacular (Midwest road trips generally aren't), but there were a few notable points:
1. There was this one section in Iowa that was full of windmills. One rest stop in that area was even windmill-themed! It was really neat to see some trucks on the road- one was carrying a windmill blade and one was carrying a piece of the base. Windmills always look so skinny, but not so when you're driving inches away from a piece of one!
2. Nebraska actually isn't the flattest state in America.
3. Illinois has a TON of toll roads! I've only gone over one toll bridge before- in Hood River, Oregon. Now I don't know how many times I've passed a toll booth.
4. I got to see the Mississippi River.
Covenant Harbor is a large Christian camp in Lake Geneva. We were there for the super-sectional CCCA conference that included camps from Wisconsin and Iowa. Nebraska is part of Iowa's section, but we were the only Nebraska camp that ended up coming! Covenant Harbor had both dorm and hotel-style lodging. The Rivercrest crew stayed in one of the "Triplets" lodging with a few people from other camps.
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| We stayed in the triplet on the left. There was a guys' room and a girls' room, which met in the middle with a small meeting room that had a fireplace and access to the porch. |
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| The Geneva Bay Center. A few of the sessions were held here, and snacks were always served on the bottom floor! |
On Monday morning I went to look at the lakeside and the gazebo (pictured above) before breakfast. Breakfast was good as well. In fact, all of the meals were good, but there was so much available that I can't even begin to describe what I had! Monday morning and afternoon involved a "Headstart" session, and all of us interns and Cheryl wanted to go on a tour of several nearby camps. Jon had planned to go to a marketing meeting, but the power of peer pressure eventually encouraged him to join us in the tour. We toured four different places. The first camp was Conference Point, which was also on Geneva Lake. The long-time Rivercrest staffers actually knew the camp director. I enjoyed the historical aspects of this camp. Camps like Rivercrest had their buildings built specifically for camp, but places like Conference Point purchased the grounds with buildings on them and modified the buildings to make them camp-like. There is an obvious difference, and Conference Point definitely showed it through its uniqueness. One of the unique things was that they had an old, vaulted-ceiling chapel, and they had built an indoor ice rink it it for the winter! I made history at Conference Point as well. After visiting a building that smelled of wonderful wood, we went in a building that didn't smell so good. As we were walking down the stairs, I said "This place smells like Grandma's house". Right then, I slipped and fell down the steps. (Nothing was hurt but my pride, and I was actually laughing as I was falling.) Just minutes later, it started to rain. Mike and Eli blamed me for the rain because it was the "curse of Grandma", which was also why I fell down the stairs.
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| Here are the stairs I fell down! |
We enjoyed some lunch at a local diner (I got a bunch of grilled cheeses; gotta eat plenty of cheese while in Wisconsin!), and then went to "The Abbey". As we pulled in, everyone was exclaiming, "This isn't a camp; it's a resort!" In the camp world, we always play the game camp vs. resort. Usually we call places "resorts" unless they are truly rustic camping, but this place redefined our term "resort", because it ACTUALLY was a resort! Although the rain had stopped, we were all still wet, and we imagined that the pointy-shoed tour guides inside would look down upon us campy people, afraid that our simplicity might be contagious to their guests who spent hundreds of dollars per night to stay here. Although I will never be able to stay there and really couldn't find any aspects of the place that we could carry over to Rivercrest, it was pretty neat to see the amazing rooms, the luxurious spa, and immaculate dining. However, we were all pretty happy to leave this place. Not just because it was too ridiculous for us, but also because we were starting to get tired.
Our final destination was Inspiration Ministries, which is a ministry for handicapped people. The tour started at their thrift shop. We then went through the housing building, where we got to meet some of the residents, see their pool, meeting room, and dorm hallways. We then went over to their camp property. Unfortunately, because of the expenses associated with providing a camp to the handicapped, they will be unable to have a summer camp this year, but it sounds like they had a great outreach up until this point. A camp for the handicapped is different than a traditional camp. For one thing, you can't have stairs or bunk beds! Other than that, it was a simple camp. We had seen one of the independent living residents riding a bike through the camp that was powered by a hand pedal. At the end of our tour, he showed us his bike. It turned out that he was a paraplegic that miraculously had learned to walk by the grace of God. He also competed at an Olympic level. After this, it was time to head back to Covenant Harbor.
As tired as a was from a full day of touring, I had to take advantage of touring Covenant Harbor as well. They had some really neat facilities, and it helped me to become better oriented with the camp, which I knew would be helpful for the rest of the week. Like Conference Point, Covenant Harbor also had historical aspects. Although most of the buildings were built for the camp, the grounds were originally a manor. Although the mansion has since burnt down, there were still some original buildings. (Our triplet was actually right next to the carriage house, which is where we played mini golf and nine square.) After that, we all met back up for dinner, and then headed to our first session together. The keynote speaker of the week was Ron Hutchcraft, whose ministry deals mainly with the Native American population. This first session, as with all subsequent sessions, dealt a lot with missions. Here were the important points from this session:
1. Rescue the Dying- Go where they are
2. Mobilize the Rescuers
After the session, some of us tried out the indoor rock climbing. That was pretty neat; it didn't require any belayers. After we were sore from that, we decided to get even more exercise by heading to the Carriage House and checking out Nine Square. Nine Square in the Air was invented by a youth pastor as a game for his youth group. It was such a hit, he now goes to conferences such as this one to sell his creation. It was a really fun and addicting game; you can check it out here: http://www.9squareintheair.com/. I'm really glad that Jon decided to buy a Nine Square set for camp! When we all eventually got tired of the game, we headed to the Geneva Bay Center for snacks, and then went to bed.
Tuesday was a very LONG day. It started off with breakfast with the rest of the Rivercresters (except for Jordan, who was still getting over the flu). Then we all split off into the different seminars that we wanted to attend. Eli and I chose to go to a seminar called "Protecting Children is Everyone's Business", which was about child abuse. It really changed my perspective. The speaker was Chris Minor from Kamp Kanakuk. A few years ago, Kanakuk faced some problems when their director at the time was arrested for molesting two boys. Instead of trying to cover up or ignore this, Kanakuk worked to become one of the leading experts in child abuse and protection relating to camps. I got some startling statistics about who is most likely to abuse a child, how inaccurate most camp screening processes are, and how many children are abused compared to how many abusers are convicted. We also learned practical ways to really cut down the possibility of child molestation. For example, many camps are so focused on not letting any intruders in, but strangers only make up 10% of abusers. Since 90% of abusers know the child, camps should be more careful with their hiring process and not allow opportunities to arise where a camp employee would be in a situation to abuse a child. One scary problem is that "groomer" abusers (the most common kind of abuser) has many of the same characteristics as an ideal summer staffer. Counselors meet their kids, gain their trust, fill a need, and have one-on-one time. Abusers do the same thing to make a child comfortable, and then they sexualize the relationship and maintain control. This was definitely an informative seminar and really got me thinking.
There were two sessions that I wanted to go to for the next seminar. I knew Jon and Mike would be going to the LeadNow seminar and I know that they take good notes, so I decided to go to another seminar with Eli (we ended up going to all the same seminars on Tuesday). This seminar was by Lee Maize, who works for CCCA. This seminar was about his testimony. He grew up extremely abused physically, sexually, and emotionally. When he was six, a church provided him with a scholarship to a Christian camp, which literally changed his world. Although he still had to deal with the abuse at home for most of the year, the couple of weeks he got to spend at camp during the summers gave him hope and an opportunity to just be a kid. It was also the only time he could have three meals a day, didn't have to worry about being abused and had godly and positive role models.
Needless to say, it was a very heavy morning that really messed with my emotions. So after a hearty lunch, Eli and I headed off to the funnest seminar offered: High Ropes! I tried their "Leap of Faith" twice (I couldn't convince Eli to go for some reason), and then we went through their high ropes course. The high ropes were actually pretty scary. It was forty feet off the ground, and once you got to the top, you no longer had a belayer. Instead, you had two "tails" attached to your harness, and you got permission from a ropes instructor on the ground to move your tails from wire to wire one at a time. I thought it was pretty difficult, not to mention terrifying, so I took the shortest route from the entry point to the exit point. I went across a swinging section, then across a web, and finally I got to the zipline, which was definitely the best part (WAY better than the Rivercrest zipline!). After that was free time. I had been thinking about playing laser tag or going on the outdoor climbing tower, both of which were only offered at this time, but I was so tired that I just went back to the Triplet and relaxed for awhile. Eventually the rest of the Rivercrest staff met us at the Triplet, and then we went for a walk into town. There is a really great pathway that encircles the entire lake, and it was really nice to walk along. We passed some gorgeous mansions, observed some HUGE flocks of cranes flying in the sky, and had fun at several of the little shops in town. We didn't explore too long because we wanted to be back in time for another great dinner!
After dinner, we went to the gym for another general session by Ron Hutchcraft. Oh, I should also mention that there was a worship band there called The Least of These. They had great music, and they were friendly to boot! Anyway, Ron started off teaching us a Chinese term. It's pronounced "Cha-Boo-Doh" and means good enough. That's been a really helpful phrase ever since I heard it: Am I putting all my effort into my work for the Lord, or is it just Cha-Boo-Doh? Anyway, here are the important points from that session:
1. There's an enemy trying to stop you.
2. There's a God who should amaze us.
3. There's a mission that should drive you.
This was a great session that summed up the importance of the seminars I went to that morning. It was really impacting to me, and I actually had to stay up late that night trying to process everything. By applying these points to the earlier sessions, there is an enemy (child abuse) trying to get in the way of my ministry to children. There's a God who has miraculously saved tons of children from abuse, or has given them healing like he has with Lee. And the mission of preventing child abuse and treating children that have experienced crisis situations is that mission that should drive me.
We wound down the day with prayer, Nine Square, snacks, and standing in the gazebo looking over the lake reflecting the night sky. I really can't believe that everything that happened on Tuesday happened in one day; it was a real game-changer.
Wednesday morning, I decided to go for a quick walk along the lake, in the direction opposite of the town so I could see some new scenery. There were a bunch of nice mansions that way too. It's amazing that Covenant Harbor can offer such an amazing camp so close to the town. (Unfortunately, that also means that they'll never be able to purchase more property because that would cost millions at least.) I decided to go to another seminar hosted by Lee Maize that morning. This seminar was also about sexual abuse, but it had some differences from the first seminar I went to. This was focused on both children AND adults, and focused less on prevention and more on healing for those who have already been victimized. Again, it was very heavy stuff. I'm really glad I have all this information (after all, awareness alone is an effective form of abuse prevention), but all the seminars I went to (except for high ropes), dealt with abuse and left me with a heavy feeling that took awhile to shake.
Since everyone had gone to different seminars that morning, we all met up at the final general session, but only got to share a few notes before it started. It turned out that I was not the only one who really got a lot out of this time. Cheryl, Mike and Jon all got good information that they could use working at camp, and Eli re-discovered his heart for witnessing to the natives. Ron's final session was titled "Camp Jabez", and gave us these three keys for enlarging our territory:
1. A life-changing impact
2. A life-saving station
3. A life- life after God's heart
After a quick brunch, it was time to leave. Although we hardly stopped at all, the long and boring ride seemed even longer and more boring. We stopped at a place called Culver's for burgers and ice cream. The longtime midwesterners knew and loved the place (Jon knew about it, but he had never gone before), but Mike and I never even heard of the place. It was good, though.
The past couple of days have been slow. So much information and game-changers were packed into the few days in Wisconsin, it was work just to readjust back to camp. One of the things Jon saw at Covenant Harbor that he wanted to immediately implement at Rivercrest was posting some signs around camp with our mission and core values, which he asked me to design. I started working on that on Thursday, and went I went to the website to copy the mission, I noticed that it was riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors. I edited it and sent the clean copy to Jon. He came to me later and thanked me for doing that, and I think I somehow accidentally volunteered to edit the ENTIRE website, which, as I looked at the content, is worse than I thought (and there are more web pages than I thought!).
On Thursday evening, Jon's kids, Alyssa and Dominick, came to our place and asked us if we wanted to watch them launch a rocket. So we went out to the field and watched them launch a rocket several times. That was really neat; I haven't done that since middle school technology. It also encouraged Eli to buy a rocket once he gets his tax returns, and knowing him, this will call for some crazy modifications as well. (That same day, he also modified one of his Nerf darts so that there would be a tack sticking out of the end! I'm really glad that he decided NOT to shoot me with that one!) To give you an idea of what he's thinking of doing, here's a video with Eli and Jeremiah's contraption a few years ago (I decided to show you the one where they DON'T set their neighbor's field on fire):
And my only idea was to go to pick up some Nerf dart tag darts and Wal-Mart that night so we can actually see if we hit each other during our Nerf battles. Hmm.
In closing, it's been a long, crazy week, but God has definitely been working through all of it!
(Pictures taken from http://www.covenantharbor.org/)
