home for the weekend

well i have been on the internet twice in the past 3 weeks and didnt have time for much else than checking my email so here goes a post of a thousand emotions.

what can I say its been a roller coaster, started off with staff camp which was a awesome way to connect with each other so that we could be a solid unified unit, it was filled with TDA's (team development activities), worship and prayer times, but at the same time my dad was in the hospital and i didnt really know how to feel. so the weekend was filled with fears, failures, and growth.

first week seems like forever ago to me, but maybe its because the last 24 hours have seemed to last a year. we had quite a few kids for a first week, we had a small staff but a good staff and God sure showed us that he was in control, giving us wisdom and energy to deal with kids and teach them more about Gods amazing love.

second week was good mixed with bad, more of a struggle though. there was almost too much staff, communication is really hard when you have almost twice the staff you had the previous week, I was blessed with a awesome cabin and we had alot of fun in it. i really stuggled with loving all the campers, there were a majority of them that were awesome and 1 or 2 that liked to give me trouble so i really had a hard time loving them. i felt depressed after because i knew i could have done a better job of connecting with them.

third week was awesome until friday. we really didnt have alot of kids so you could really connect with them, these kids were so crazy moslty just the girls and I loved it most of the time, sometimes it got a little ridiculous and i had a hard time showing compassion. i was support staff so that meant i got to do all the fun stuff like work in the tuck shop, check cabins, teach 4 skills, and clean bathrooms. this was probably the most solid week of staff, the speaker was awesome steve bock, and we all had a pretty good time. it was hard keeping the energy up sometimes and it usualy left us feeling a little depressed.

friday was forsure the most trying day of camp ive had this year, it started like almost any other day this week, got up had staff meeting, checked the cabins during breakfast, got back ate breakfast, taught 2 skills got back to the lodge for chapel then i saw jay boaz i asked him how he was doing he had a sad look on his face and said ok i guess, and then he asked me how i was doing I said pretty good, then elmer told us we were going to have a quick meeting, i notice that some people werent sitting around our circle so i had a bad feeling, thats when we heard the news that Katelyn Friesen, 18 years old had passed away in a car accident this past night, some of our staff were very close to her so they had left to be with family. I didnt really know her very well but i used to talk to her quite a bit on messenger when i was in like grade 9. still i felt connected to her mostly through friends and family so I dont know it was pretty hard on me, mostly just thinking of people who knew her better and feeling deep sorrow for their loss. i dont really remember most of the day, i remember barely being able to get through the worship time, and the little 8 year old girls having a blast of a time chopping a log with a dull hatchet in outdoor survival. a long lonely drive home it was also very quiet because my cd player wasnt cooperating with the rough highway. i got home and literally 5 second later the phone ringed and it was jeremiah, with some more bad news. my other best friends fiancees brothers wife gave birth and the baby died.

as I look at this week ahead of me I am not sure if ill be able to give God my burdens and get past it. i am praying for the Friesen family as well as the Brant family who was at camp on friday and was very close with katelyn especially janette. I pray that they would be able to grieve and grow closer together and closer to God through this. I cant even really think of camp right now, we are still looking for a speaker and a nurse for next week i think, someone has jumped in to take janette's vacant spot at camp. i also want God to be close to the klassen family pray for josh and leah klassen and the rest of the family as they are devastated that there little baby has died with no no apparent reason.

-chad