Thursday is when it happens. Every year, like clockwork. Fatigue. After two full days of activities on camp, kids finally hit the wall where they are a lot more tired and a bit more sore. Too much sun, too much ultimate frisbee, too much praise time.
We arrived moments before a rainstorm. Checking in at camp during a storm is no fun, but the kids made the best of it, running off to their cabins as the rains lightened sporadically. We brought nineteen students this year, which is the most we’ve had in the last four years. Camp was abuzz as well, with more students than last year too!
Day two of our trip was a little “more of the same” a nd a little “more different.” The “more of the same” was the group of kids who started sorting shoes for Grace Church’s Shoe Drive yesterday, only this time, the amount of shoes they had to sort quadrupled! It’s such a cool thing to see the donations for all the people in the Cape Coral area. Afterwards, some of those same kids helped to build a rocket ship for the upcoming VBS.
Day two of our trip was a little “more of the same” a nd a little “more different.” The “more of the same” was the group of kids who started sorting shoes for Grace Church’s Shoe Drive yesterday, only this time, the amount of shoes they had to sort quadrupled! It’s such a cool thing to see the donations for all the people in the Cape Coral area. Afterwards, some of those same kids helped to build a rocket ship for the upcoming VBS.
So, being spared the wrath of hurricanes, we decided to help out our neighbors across the coast. We are staying at the church, in a mobile disaster response trailer, and the church is being awesome by providing us food! Before we arrived, the church liaison told us to “be flexible” in the jobs we were going to do. This was extremely important for us to embrace, when Grace Church itself had some major issues just before our arrival, such as a bad roof, air conditioners leaking into the walls, and a major water pipe break in their youth and preschool building! So, our job is now to help out the church itself.
Yet, at some point, the labyrinth ends, and you must exit back into the world that you left.
Not unlike the labyrinth, the kids are getting ready to leave camp.
They’ve been in a place of reflection and contemplation at camp, but now it is time to go.
Screams of fright and delight from the far field? A counselor rambling obscure directions of a megaphone that no one is listening to? That’s right, the day has arrived
Messy Games day!
Walk out to the furthest cabins you can find, then keep walking. Go to a giant field full of blind mosquitoes. Swat them away and then keep walking. Go to the tree line, and there you’ll see it:
the Challenge Course entry sign.
That’s what they seem to be running on today: adrenaline. In their excitement from Day 1, I am sure they stayed up way too late and got up much earlier than they wanted to. After all, new friendships needed to be made, and what better place than a cabin at camp?
No, things are not quite yet back to normal, but hints of days-gone-by began to creep in. The usual stop at a Turnpike plaza, the long queue to register only seemed to annoy the adults because the kids were already having fun. Camp was starting to feel a little more normal this year.
In-person service – 10:00 am
At Temple Beth David,
4657 Hood Rd, Palm Beach Gardens, FL