Looking Back

As my time here at camp draws to a close, I have heard two questions many times. One being “are you excited to go home?” and other variations of the same question. The other being “What have you learned during your time here?” and other variations of the same question.

In response to the first, I am excited for the many opportunities that I will have upon returning home. These opportunities take on many forms…some are simply exciting events like youth group, and the opportunity to see friends again. Others fall into the category of challenges to work through, such as transitioning to not working all the time, being in a smaller house with kids who are 10 years older than the ones I’ve been living with, etc. However, I am not by any means excited to leave this place. I am excited about where I am going, but I don’t want to leave…that is an interesting predicament!

I have learned so much in my time here at Grace! I am not sure I can effectively communicate everything I’ve learned here, but I’ll try. From the work side of things, I have learned how much work really does go into meeting the needs of the groups that come in. Groups take advantage of living in a clean facility, but it really does take a lot of work for the buildings to even look presentable! Everything take time to set up and take down, and all kinds of effort! That is something I had not seen before, however, I loved it!

From the non-work side of things, it was amazing to live in so much of a community! The camp staff form a community, or camp family. Many times the interns were all invited over to a staff member’s house for dinner, or we’d go play disc golf after work, see each other at church, hang out and do Tae Bo, throw birthday and goodbye parties, and a baby shower even! And these are the people I’ve been working with…how many other people get to live in such a close community with the people they work with?

From the home side of things, I saw two parents doing their best to raise godly children. When I realized the 4 and 2 year olds had Psalm 23 memorized, I felt the need to do so as well! Their dad reads the Bible to all 3 kids each night before they go to bed, they learn verses together, and he makes SURE to spend time with the kids even when he’s exhausted or doesn’t want to. He sees it as part of his job…not for Grace Adventures, but for God. I saw a lot of disciplining as well. So many times I saw them put their kids in a room away from everyone else, tell the kid they would talk when she had control of her emotions, then mom or dad would walk away until she stopped crying. They always made sure the kids understood why they were in trouble, and when they apologized, they did it specifically: “I’m sorry Gina for when I hit you, please forgive me?” or whatever the situation called for. Sometimes I could tell their dad was very upset, but he was able to control his tone of voice and not erupt in anger. That spoke volumes to me! All of it did!

It was an incredible experience for me to live apart from my family for awhile, to see how another family works and interacts, to explore who I am and what I’m really about, as opposed to what I say I’m about because that’s what I’ve been told. I was able to ask questions, lots of questions. I was also able to be the new kid in youth group. What a powerful experience! I feel so much better equipped now to return to my youth group and impact the people there!

All in all, my time here has been amazing and incredible and there really aren’t words to express how great this experience has been for me.

The time in between

If you ever come to Grace in the summer, when you look out across the waterfront, you see lawn chairs on the sand, a box of sand toys, buoys marking off the swim area, a water volleyball net, a basketball hoop (in the water), a raft, water tramp, 2 life guard chairs, a blob, and docks where all the boats sit.

If you ever come to Grace in the winter, when you look out across the waterfront, you see water or ice. The beach is empty, and the blob tower is all that is left in the water.

What happens in between?

“In between” was yesterday. Waterfront removal day. Jason put on a wetsuit, Ben had on waders up to his chest, Nick, Steph, and I all just had on t-shirts and shorts. Ben and Jason took EVERYTHING out of the water. Nick, Steph, and I had to take the bladder out of the blob shell/deflate the blob. This consisted of us rolling around on the blob and pulling and tugging where we could. Good times…although we got awful wet. The bladder (which holds all the air in the blob) was slimy and gross when I landed on it. Then we scrubbed and mopped. On hands and knees, Cinderella references were made as I scrubbed the algae off of the bottom of the blob. We set up a huge box fan to air out the blob, and later Ben and I crawled inside to mop the inside.

We sorted through the sand toys, pitching the broken ones, pulled slide out of the water and SCRUBBED the bottom. It’s a wonder no one lost their breakfast on that one…the bottom was COVERED with a thick layer of algae that smelled bad and got EVERYWHERE. It took all 5 of us to deflate the water tramp ring, which we decided could make and excellent water gaga pit!

So, the time in between consists of getting wet and dirty sometime in October, having maintenance come help pull docks and the raft out of the water with their machines, and an entire day of work. I appreciate the waterfront a whole lot more now that I know how much work goes into setting it up.