It has been three weeks so far and I’m relaxing on my third day off since I’ve been here (which also makes it the third day that I have had internet). There is no cell phone service here either, so I either have to hike uphill for half an hour on a day off or go into town to use my phone (which I have done twice so far).
I absolutely love how separate Camp Eagle is from the rest of the world. I don’t miss the hours spent mindlessly surfing the internet or losing half of my day by watching movies. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy finding wonderful recipes, poetry, blogs, etc. during my surfing and I love movies, but this change of pace is SO refreshing. The moon is so bright at night that I have a shadow and when the moon isn’t full you can see the Milky Way almost every night. Even getting dirtier, sweatier, and more tired each day feels incredible. In fact, I’m partially convinced that my feet can never stay clean for longer than half an hour at a time here. Nine months of this is more than anything I could have known to ask for.
So, what have I been doing for the past three weeks? So much!
I arrived at camp at about 4 p.m. on the 20th and after everyone helped me unpack my embarrassing car-full of luggage, I unpacked for a couple of hours and then we all 18 of us had dinner together for the first time. Before dinner, we had been told to put our bag of backpacking gear on our front porch and to take water and anything else we might need for a hike with us to dinner. After dinner, we were given a map of camp and a clue as to where we needed to hike to first. Since there were two other past counselors in the group and a past service teamer (service team is what they call the high school kids who come to camp each summer for a couple of weeks at a time to do manual labor at camp and be discipled), we made our way around pretty effortlessly. We went to three destinations and at each we were read a passage of scripture and asked to think about who God was there, who we are, and what we were willing to surrender. We were all asked to really think about why we had come, what we wanted to get out of these nine months and to really be honest with ourselves and God about what that would mean in our hearts and lives. At our final destination for the night, there were five tents set up and all of our gear was piled together. We had just begun our first trip together!
The backpacking trip lasted three days and three nights and was an absolute blast. Getting us out on trail and out of our comfort zones immediately really helped us to form faster as a group. We did a lot of getting to know one another and group development. It’s difficult to try and get to know 17 different people all at once, so we’re all still getting used to each other at this point. The tension rises and falls periodically within the group and because we’re essentially a bunch of siblings living in close quarters, some storming is bound to happen soon.
For the next week or so, we all worked on getting lifeguard certified and trained and then worked a mountain bike race. I was in the kitchen all weekend and loved it. Working in the kitchen is one of my favorite jobs, especially when I work with the old head cook and a current Walkabout leader, Meredith.
The day after the race ended, we packed up and headed to the little town of Rocksprings, which is about 45 minutes away from camp. We picked up trash, painted a couple of houses, and just loved on some of the kids that lived there. We ended the trip by going to their high school football game.
It has been a blast so far and I’m excited to start classes this week!
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