June 25th, 2008 - Day 5

5:10pm
I am sitting on the deck of the pool, relaxing in the sun, feeling great in my swimsuit. Today was really...well, it felt really busy, but it was really not anymore busy than the other days.
It was a theme day today, luau. First half of the day I made lunches (supervised by Carmen...in all honesty, she's sort of been getting slightly on my nerves...she's pretty bossy, and she talks about herself nonstop) and played Capture The Flag with the kids and Brede, Garrett, Ian, and Logan. It was fun. I was on the team with Brede and Garrett, and we lost most of the time but it was still fun. Brede is really good with kids. Once nearly every one of our members was sitting in "jail" and Brede said, "Okay everybody, let's scream for Garrett, he'll come rescue us." So we screamed, "Garrett!" "Louder!" "Garrett!!!!" "Louder!" "GARRETT!!!" It was great. The kids have nicknamed Brede "Mohawk Man."
Jeff pulled Beau and Ian up for the skit today. They were flowers. :) Deb was the wise flower keeper and Beau was her flower, well-flourished and beautiful. Carmen was the foolish flower keeper and Ian was her flower, withered and decreped. It was so funny.
Then after lunch, Clayton and I did a trivia game and made fruit shish-kabobs with the kids. It was great, but the last group (the older boys) tried my patience so much. Wouldn't listen to anything. Anyway, our tent almost blew away (it's an old broken tent, and between groups Clayton patched it up with duct tape and kabob sticks), and we had to redo a lot of trivia cards because they kept blowing into the lake. But it was still enjoyable.
Oh, and did I mention it was supposed to reach 94 degrees today? It didn't. It reached 105, and that was in the shade. It's still about 95 now. Very unbearable, but we survived. No one's passed out. We're all staying hydrated.
One of the main counselors, Tanner, ate with us for dinner. He looks like he's 18, 19 years old but he's actually 15. He asked me how old I was, I told him 15, and he honestly thought I was joking. He said, "I seriously thought you were at least 20." Funny. Tanner's a homeschooler too. He's really cool.
Btw, a touching expression earlier during lunch. Cameron was really hungry so he had two sandwiches. He ate one, then a girl came up, upset cuz she forgot her lunch (the kids have to bring their lunches). Cameron gave her his uneaten sandwich without hesitation, even though he was still hungry. It was sweet.
So...
The one thing Illinois has that I wish Nebraska had: flies that DON'T BITE!!!

11:24pm
Devotionals tonight were so cool. We did a lot of singing and a lot of praying. In fact, we had 3 different rounds of prayer. The first round, anyone who felt led could pray for specific needs this week. Then we sang a couple songs. Second round of prayer, we all got on our knees in a circle, grabbed hands, and had to pray out loud for the person to our left, that God would reveal what needed to be prayed about. Beau was to my left and I prayed about skit lines (we're performing a skit in Bible lesson tomorrow and Beau's really nervous), his homesickness, and I felt like there was something inside that he's dealing with. (It was funny, after that prayer our skit rehearsal went so much better). Then we sang a couple songs again. For the third round of prayer, we took quiet time to cry out to God and pray about ourselves, about the things we knew we were having a hard time with. It was great. God was so obviously felt tonight.
My legs look terrible from mosquito bites. The entire side of my left calf is swollen from bites. Carmen was really concerned and put cortozol all over my legs. They feel better already and the swelling's gone down some, but not much.
I was staying in the guys' room during the evening and I got cold, so I wrapped one of their sleeping bags around me and put my head down on a pillow. I began to drift away. I heard voices, then they faded out completely, and when I woke up again, Clayton told me I'd slept for an hour and a half.
It felt good. :D