Sunday, July 27, 2008

Day #7 - July 18, 2008 (Friday) - Can I get some coffee please?!?!?

Back to waking up at 7:15am. This morning the great tragedy was the door to the main meeting room was locked. Which is where our coffee was. Ouch! With nothing else to do but wait Tim, Kristen, and I sat outside the door. One of the cabin owners came by and said something to us in Slovak, unfortunately no one really understood what she said. We speculated, however it was funnier than helpful! Finally we found out that the key was given to Zac. We hunted him down and he hunted it down... and coffee was had by all!! Once again I added marshmallows to my coffee and it was a nice treat!

Gotta love the camp dance. However now I am exhausted and very sore from all the sports activities so I am not as active as I was other mornings. Breakfast this morning was lunch meat, tomatoes, cucumber, butter and bread. I loved this!! I have vegan'ed this out by removing the lunch meat and butter and replacing that with vegan cream cheese or hummus or some other bean spread for protein and having it for breakfast on flat bread at home. It's wonderful!!

Today in English we did a talent show. Instead of having games for English group time we spent the individual time getting preparing and we had a blast.  None of the girls from our team wanted to go onstage by themselves so we decided to go up as a group.  We made up a group, chat/cheer/thing and performed it in front of the group!  Some of the other groups did skits, songs, dances, and 'EU.'  Don't ask me what EU is, I can't explain it, but its funny!  The last song that was done was Stayin' Alive.  Hilarious!!  The group dressed up and well, you just have to check out the pictures to see how it went!!!

Lunch today was lentil and potato soup... very tasty!!  I want to try this now that I am home... I love lentils.  I love soup.  What could be wrong with that then!!  After soup was ham, potato, and cabbage.  Once again, things I like.

Today, like every other day, I was exhausted!!  So, like every other day, I napped!!  From 12:30m to 3:00pm - did it feel good!!  After nap we had the outdoor games again and it was about this time that I really started to realize that to day is the last day.  Today is the last day that I am going to wake up with this group of people, do this same routine, eat together, dance and sing together, laugh together, play games together, and have huge conversations together.  Here is where I start getting sad...

Today was the nicest day that we played outdoor games and during sports we even got some sun!!  It was amazing!!!  Outdoor games were competitive paper/rock/scissors, dragons, and American football.  For competitive paper/rock/scissors there were 2 teams and each team stood facing each other about 40 years apart, behind a line.  The 1 person from each team ran out and met each other in the middle and did paper rock scissors, whoever won kept running to the other teams line.  The object of the game was to cross the competitions line.  We didn't win (right on par) however it was so fun (right on par)!!

For dragons, all 4 teams played.  Each team had to line up in a row and then you had to hold onto the person in front of you.  The person in front was the head and the person in back was the tail.  They had a rope hanging out the back of their pants and the object of the game was to get the other teams tails, without your line breaking, and without them getting your tail.  And the LAMBS won the first game!!  Rock on!!  The second game got more competitive and the last game was fierce.  I was happy when we decided to change it up and play a new game...  American football!!

Tim, Ashley, and I tried to explain the concept of the game because most of the Slovaks had never played or watched and didn't know the rules!  We had a lot of fun teaching and I even scored a touchdown!! 

Dinner was yeast bread, meat (no clue what kind) and some kind of sauce.  Don't remember particularly liking this dish and I don't remember who I chatted with... sad!!

After dinner Mikja and I chatted in our room until she decided she needed a shower so I headed to Kristen's room where her roommates (Lanka and Lucy), her and I ate Bebe cookies (love them) with chips!!  Makja finished cleaning up and joined us for some snacks!!  

Once we were good and full, Makja and I headed back to the dining hall, where the crafts were still set up, and made bracelets for each other!!  Makja made me a very pretty blue and white bracelet and I made her a beaded white, pink, and purple bracelet (she told me her favorite color is purple).

Around 8:30pm we headed down to the main hall for the night program.  It started out with musical chairs then a remake of paper/rock/scissors called bear/hunter/fairy... you can only imagine!! It was so funny that I fell down laughing while we were playing!! 

After games prizes and VIP awards were handed out.  The VIP's for our team were Jana (the rock star guitar player from the music video) and Zuzka (for her mad sports skills)!! The message was 8 words describing the Bible... or thru the Bible in 8 words... whichever sounds cooler to you!  It was the perfect sermon to end the camp.  

Post-message the eNight team set up stations outside for us to go thru and for me it was life confirming/changing.  Every night I wrote out a thankful for/praying for/struggling with section in my journal.  Here is what I had to say to myself Friday after the stations:

The entire week I have been struggling with leadership.  I know God is working heavily in the area and in other areas of my life.  Today we did stations and eve though I am here to lead, God is working thru me and showing me that I am not in charge, even as a leader... He is.  During the message, I was heavily missing my family.  And I know that part of the reason is that my 'aquarium' took me a long way away from them.  On the first phase of the stations, we had to walk up a hill and think about our walk with God and our own struggles with our walk.  

As I was walking I was thinking about the past year and what I have been giving over to God.  That I have been a believer since I was 9 (that's when I was baptized) however I have been jumping in and out of my aquarium all along.  I thought about how I have messed up so much trying to do things on my own but how God has stayed with me and loved me thru it all.  And he used/is using my bad choices as learning experiences and have turned them into ways to glorify him.  However one of my struggles has been with the concept of being worthy.  I have asked for forgiveness for all the things I have done really wrong in my life however I have held onto what I have done and have worried a lot about it.  From the sermon on Sunday (about 'Truths vs Lies' and letting go of the past) until today I have had a lot of inner conflict with worry because I haven't let go so I haven't felt capable of leading.  Being that the hill we had to walk up was very steep, wet and muddy it was actually harder going down the hill than up.  What entered my mind as I was going down the hill was that it seems that going up the hill should be harder and I symbolized that walk with God (as we were supposed to).  You would think that walking in the direction of God would be harder but walking down the hill (that way I symbolized as walking away from God to the ways of the world) was much harder.  And that fit right in with the aquarium theme.  I felt the Spirit on that and thru the second station, an abandoned pool.  We had to write out our aquarium and what it entailed.  I wrote everything that I had been struggling with on it.  And I started crying.  It was so relieving to write all that out and get it out of me!!

The third station was a campfire where we could burn he sheets of paper, if we were ready.  I have to say it was the most relieving feeling to let all of that go!!  I said a prayer that I don't ever try to pick up that pain/guilt again.  Its in the past.  Its been forgiven and its done.  Its only a lie of Satan that I will believe it should be carried further.

Our last station was on the roof of the cabin.  We could look out over all the other stations as well as the mountains/hills and an huge, beautiful moon.  It was so amazing to see.  I sat there, trying to soak it all in (the view, my feelings, what I have learned).  I sat there until I was too cold and had to come down.  I just a small conversation with God thanking Him for the changes that have occurred in me in the past year and asked Him to keep me out of my aquariums.

While I was crying, I wanted so badly for someone to comfort me but there wasn't any one to.  And I know that was a God thing as well.  In love and comfort I need to turn to him.  Not try to use the guys or people around me for that comfort.  This is a lesson that I have had/am having a hard time learning.

Once stations were complete we had a ton of candy, chips and popcorn to eat, Coke and Kofala (Slovak Coke) to drink, and Stardust (a movie) to watch.  While the movie was going I had a need to be alone (my introverted side coming out) so I went back to the dining hall, sat by myself, and made another bracelet.  It was good to have a focus to think about but something that would allow my mind to stay open.  It was the perfect time alone.

After the bracelet was complete, I headed back to the movie room.  I realized once I got there, with the dark room and people laying out, that I was exhausted.  So I went back to my room and started packing for Saturday.  I knew that without my roommates I would have a hard time sleeping (can you say 'den mother'?!?!?) so I got everything ready to go and then rested until they came in.  Once they were there I went straight asleep... even before they were done getting ready for bed!

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