Day the First

Accessing the Internet for the remainder of the summer is going to be a bit easier than expected, but for the next few days—orientation stuff—could be a little difficult. That's why you, dear readers, are getting two posts at the same time today; I'm making full use of my brief window of opportunity.

I'm not totally sure, given my daily schedule, how exactly I'm going to write or say here everything I'd want to, so I'll try just to give the highlights; if you want deeper examination, you'll have to get that some other way or just wait!

We played a lot of those sort of icebreaker/teamwork type games, which was actually surprisingly fun. Did you know I'm one of the oldest people at this camp? I didn't. Also, there are two big Ohio State fans (at least one of them is an alumna), so God's giving me challenges already. Sigh. :P But a lot of the counselors and staff are from Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas and went to places like the University of Arkansas, Oklahoma Wesleyan, Oral Roberts, and even Northeastern State University, rahtcheer in Tahlequah.

After that we had a talk from Andrew Barrington, who runs the conservatory portion of the camp. He read Hebews 11 and talked about the importance and the difficulty of having and acting in faith. That really blessed me, because it's something that I've been thinking about a lot lately. I'm not exactly one for taking a lot of risks, and I'm really trying to break out of that. For example, today in the car I suggested to Emily and Laura that we pray for the summer and what God's going to do. They got pretty awesomely uncomfortable—since we never do stuff like that—but they thought it was a good idea, so we did! Might sound like a small thing, but it meant a lot to me.

Then, naturally, an awesome guy named Bobby (mostly awesome by reputation, so far) felt burdened to speak to us briefly about the importance of being really here while we're here. He told us that God didn't call us to do anything this summer but be here, and I think that's so important for me to remember. I miss everyone in Ann Arbor, GR, anywhere you guys are...but God wanted me to be here for a reason. It's something I'd been thinking about already with regards to some stuff, and this was a great reminder.

Once again, let me know how you guys are doing...and tell me what you need prayer for! I'm not kidding about that, yo.

Catch you later.