First Week Here!

Hello everyone. After almost a week of being away from my computer, I finally have it back and have a few moments to update this.
I arrived at camp Sunday afternoon, feeling a little hesitant to say the least. I didn't know where to go, and if I were closer to home I probably would've turned around and gone back. But I knew that those thoughts were not from God and that God had lead me here for a reason, so I wasn't about to abandon the plan He has for me here. After talking to Austin for awhile, I felt a little better and got enough courage to go inside and actually meet everyone and get started. From there we had a staff meeting where we discussed the week ahead, and I met everyone. Then I moved my stuff into Cabin 4, where I stayed last week. Erin was my co-counselor showing me the ropes this week. She served here last year too, so she definitely knows what she is doing. But I still felt pretty lost at times. As most of you know, I am a very planned person. I like knowing the where, when, why, who, and how of everything taking place. This week was definitely not like that. God has clearly been testing my trust in Him because I can't rely solely on my plans anymore. After a few days I did begin to feel a little more comfortable. It was also hard to get adjusted because this week was the last week of Project 1. So that means most counselors had been there for 6 weeks and are leaving today. Because of this, most of the counselors wanted to spend time with their friends who they'll be leaving and not seeing for awhile. I totally understand where they are coming from, and it's not like they did anything overt to make me feel excluded, but it was kind of a bummer because I couldn't really begin to establish any relationships. Though I did get to know some people a little, and they were all really nice.
Because I didn't really begin to make close friends, I'd have to say the highlight of the week was working with the kids. On Tuesday we went into Cincinnati for a NACC convention. There we helped children from a program called Whiz Kids go through the activities they had planned for the first half of the day. It was a nice warm up of sorts for the kids that were coming to King's Domain later that day. We had some time between the convention and getting our ride back to camp because of a bus shortage, but it was okay because I got to know some of the Momentum people better. Momentum is a program for junior high and high school students to help out at camp as junior counselors. They were so helpful the whole week, especially for someone like me who was just starting out. So it was nice to get to know some of them before the week really got going.
Once the kids got there, it was pretty busy. Four of the girls in my cabin had already been to camp two weeks previous, but that was helpful because they knew where they were going better than I did sometimes and because they were pretty well behaved. It was so great to see them learn about God's love and choosing life. I feel so blessed to be able to serve here and give these girls the love they need.
Once the campers left, we had a celebration lunch with the Momentum kids, then cleaned out our cabins and moved in the dorm. We went to Niwana's for dinner. Niwana is our cook at camp and she was having a get-together for the 4th of July, so we got to go. It was so much fun. Good home cooking. There were these three older men just going to town on their acoustic guitars. It was great. I love watching good guitarists pick, it's great. I also ended up joining in on a volleyball game they had going. I didn't play really well, but it was still fun. After dinner, the girls baked desserts and chatted. I was excited that I got to bake; it's a form of therapy for me, I swear, haha. It was also encouraging to hear their stories from the past 6 weeks, even if I wasn't there to experience them, because I know that God has great things planned for my time here too.
I'm trying to upload pictures to facebook, but facebook isn't cooperating, so they might not be up today. I didn't take many the first couple days that the campers were here because I was still getting used to everything, so there aren't that many,
Overall, I can already feel my relationship with the Lord deepening. My time in prayer and in the Word has been so much more regular and God has really given me the passion I've been praying for.
I'm excited for the next week. I get to meet a lot of new people, see a couple cool kids from OU that are coming to be counselors, and actually be officially "trained."
Well, I think that about covers it!

In Christ,
Audrey