This camp that I love- part 1

Once again,
God gave me the oppurtunity to serve at a local Christian camp. This was my third summer working there, and each year I fall more in love with it. Each year I become closer to the other staff, and each year God has taught me different things. This year He taught me patience and taking my thoughts captive (both of which I struggle with) . He placed me in the middle school camp as a counselor (last year I served in the middle school camp as a counselor in training, and loved every minute.) I served along with four other girls, three of which were already good friends of mine, two of those being from my church. The other girl, which I'll introduce to you, became my good friend very quickly.

This is Bri. We became friends pretty much instantly!

We as girl counselors had around twenty campers and were beyond blessed by them! There were also around twenty in the boys part of the camp. Guys and girls had meals, game time, and evening service together, so we all became pretty close. The days were long and tiring, going from about 7:00 a.m.-11:00 p.m. However, they were filled with fun activites and lessons learned. (for the counselors as well as the campers.)


My friend Katie and are ready!

After the campers arrived, we went right into orientation, dinner, camp pictures, tent time, game time... well, you get the picture. Something the campers had to do during orientation was some improv. Let me tell you, it was pretty amusing!



The first, the "Hitch hiker" improv.

This was one a marriage counselor improv. They had to get the marriage
counselor to guess what the what the problem was.
My friend Ellen there was the "wife". We were all laughing hysterically by the end of it.

The next four days went by so fast! Even though each day consisted of something like this:

Wake up, devotions,breakfast,workshop (I'll explain what that was in a moment), life lessons, activity,activity, lunch,rest,swimming,free time, dinner,game,free time, and evening service.

The last night, Thursday night, the teen campers were going to lead the evening service for the
elementary campers. They did puppets, drama, and worship. So every morning from Tuesday-Thursday, they would practice those things. My friend Katie and I were in charge of drama,
along with two guy counselors. Let me say how much I enjoyed it! How much I enjoyed working
with those teens! I'll post pictures of Thursday and how it went later this week.

There is a glimpse of my week at camp. Keep an eye out for more, including pictures!

                                                 Until then,
                                                                  Josie
          






We are in the making

Beauty in the making.

What does that mean exactly? Many of you, when you hear the word beauty, think outward beauty.
Am I right? Well, I tend to do the same. We think clothes, make-up, hair, accesories etc. All of the things that make our outward beauty complete, and of course, we all want to look beautiful.
However, that's not the kind of beauty I'm talking about. No, I'm talking about inward beauty.
Now you probably have all heard this before. Honestly though, does it hurt to hear it again?

It says in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that "He has made everything beautiful in its time."
Wait a minute. Doesn't God already see me as beautiful? Well, that's true. (Psalm 45:11)
But again, I'm not talking about outward beauty. I'm talking about us on the inside,
the spiritual, emotional, the things that need to change, or grow.

"..being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to
completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6)

God is making us beautiful on the inside. I happen to think that is awesome! God is taking the
good, the bad, and the ugly and using it for our it good. He is changing maturing us and growing us, making us into something truly beautiful.

And these words are not just to girls, either! Each one of us are a beauty in the making.

That's what I want to encourage you with and what I want you to remember. So when you
feel like you're worthless, or when God is doing anything in you...

He is.

I hope you find encouragment in this and my posts to follow. Welcome to my blog. :)