Out of Control!

First of all, this is a phrase that can be used to describe something as so incredibly cool, it is "out of control!" This is how I feel about my job. I can hardly believe that I get to be here and serve the women's staff all summer! I have been enjoying my time with them, investing in their lives, and spending a lot of time this week listening to all of their stories.  God has been supplying them all with continual energy, enthusiasm, and excitement this first week of camp.

Second of all, I think the Lord is teaching me again that I am "out of control" or rather that He is the one in control of my life and wants to be the one in control of my life. How you ask? Well, right when I had my time off for the week last night, I got a pinched nerve in my back. All of a sudden it started hurting and got worse through the night. This morning it was a challenge to get out of bed and now I am on medication hoping for the pain to go away soon.  This happened to me two years ago at camp and it really was a time where He was teaching me that He is the one in control.  I desire so much for Him to be the one moving and working this summer, so it's been cool for Him to remind me that I just need to trust, release, and surrender to what He wants to do through me this summer.  Such a cool lesson of the day.

Here are some fun pictures from training week!

Lisa came to visit on Saturday!

I brought all the girls to the chapel and had a special time being vulnerable and open with each other on fears of the summer. It was such a sweet time.

Here is our Program staff dressed up to hide around Santa Cruz

for the staff to find us on the scavenger hunt.  Most of

us blended in though, which tells you something about Santa Cruz :)

Beaker, Timon, and Me...haha, scary huh? I was a french goth :)

Rascal (lifeguard) , Plummy (Primary Director), 

Magic (Music), Cheddar (Nurse), and Daisy (Me!)

Fun Happenings: Program staff had to do skits all week. I am not a big fan of being in skits, but since we wrote them we had to present them this week. Haha, the "poncho, jump on it" song skit was my favorite :)

Cool Story: We went to the beach on Saturday and as we were leaving, fireworks started going off at the boardwalk. It was so fun to sit on the beach and watch a firework show.

Prayer Request: Next week we have such small numbers! 26 girls and 31 boys. That means we will have 4 counselors that will not be able to counsel.  We will be sending them up to Conference Center to have to work as dining serving staff for the week. Luckily we will house them here at Redwood. Pray that they will still feel apart of the community and that the Lord will be using this time for them to be bonding together. They are going with open willing hearts.

One week down, a whole summer to go!!

Here is a quick video I took with my phone showing my first night in the cabin :) Luckily the guys came and saved the day and killed them all! Since then, there has only been a few more spiders, one or two slugs, and a few snakes (just kidding, no snakes :)

Things have been going great! Counselors arrived yesterday and we are busy doing Counselor Training this week.  We have a surprise night tonight planned for them to get to know Santa Cruz.  All of us Program Staff will get to dress up and hide ourselves around downtown Santa Cruz.  It actually is a nice relaxing few hours as we wait for them to follow the clues and find us.

For those of you that don't know, my partner for the summer, the Men's Staff Counselor, is Graden. His camp name is Space Cowboy, so I will probably be referencing him a lot.  We are a team this summer and I am already so thankful in how the Lord has been working in our dynamics as the Staff Counselors.

This week we will be training the counselors in ALL they need to know and be prepared for for the summer.  We have a staff of 9 guy counselors and 13 girl counselors.  We woke up at 5:30am and went to the tide pools.  I was challenged to touch an anemone (an amenonenome..hehe) so I did!! Ahh! It was all sticky and made my finger feel numb.  We saw starfish and the end of the sunrise. Then we went up to Pondy (the highschool camp) and had a morning of reflection, alone time, worship, and a hike up to the cross at the hill.  It was such a neat time as a staff.  We ended the time all putting a hand on the cross where we went into a time of thanksgiving, praise, prayer, and singing to our Father.  What a neat time bonding as staff.  I gave my testimony at lunch and it was neat to be able to share with the staff some of what the last year has been like and where I am at now.  

The Lord has been good and is so at work in this place.  Thank you for all your prayers! I will post pictures soon!

Cool Story: One morning I woke up to my alarm. I set it to wake up to "sunrise" setting, which is simply the birds chirping.  I went to go shut off my alarm, and it was not my alarm!! The sun was rising outside and the birds had been awakened! It was the coolest thing because it was way before my alarm was actually going to go off.  Definitely made my day and was a way the Lord was showing Himself to me :)

Prayer request: 3 Counselors are arriving late on Thursday, so they will miss most of the Counselor Training week.  This will mean we will have to figure out time to train them quickly when they get here.  I am a little unsure how this is going to go.