Summer Camps Quarterly

Two weeks down, six to go! After two weeks on the road, I am home for 40 hours before heading out to our next camp. Our first two camps were quite different than normal AIA camps so there were a lot of challenges alongside the excitement:

Week Number One: Camp Aush-Bik-Koong (ABK)

Summer camps in Ontario have had an long-standing relationship with this OVERNIGHT summer camp northwest of Sudbury; we have held our training there, and in return, one of our teams stays to teach soccer as part of their week of sports camp. Though we had our training elsewhere this year, my team still got to make the trip to Sugar Lake to this outstanding camp! We got to experience being camp counsellors leading the campers through daily activities, competitors in the annual soccer and volleyball games (with a new tradition of a basketball game!), and friends to the staff and kids on top of our usual job of being coaches who teach soccer! The ABK campers were older (11-17) than our usual camp ages (6-12) so we had a neat opportunity to share in a different way and get on a more personal level with them.

Check out this video from the week and see if you can spot me and my coworkers! (We taught the soccer players everything they know...)

Me and my 'MURICAN co-counsellor (note her 4th of July cape)

Dressed to the nines for the Banquet!

Week Number Two: Willowtree

A new relationship for AIA camps has begun with an existing Christian day camp in Toronto called Sonshine Camps. They have several sites in the GTA that hold inexpensive day camps throughout the summer in low-income neighbourhoods. We are partnering with the "Willowtree" site near Finch and Yonge for two weeks this summer. Our first week there was an eye-opener! With a group of rambunctious but awesome kids, we spent the week playing sports and games (lots of cops and robbers and man hunt!), learning about God's promises, and loving one another. Because Sonshine camps are an existing program, we helped out how we were able with time during some of the days for us to run some sports games. This actually freed the AIA staff to build better relationships with the kids because we weren't in charge of the schedule for most of the week. It was definitely different, but a great start to a new relationship with these camps! It will be really neat to see the kids' response to the returning AIAers later in the summer. We even got to go on a field trip with them on Friday to Kidstown - a splash pad/water park with a sweet BUCKET!

Kidstown. The water is freezing.

Lesson of the weeks: RESILIENCE - "the power or ability to return to the original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched."

Throughout the past two weeks I felt "bent out of shape" about things that didn't go the way I expected, "compressed" by what I could and could not contribute, and "stretched" in what I could handle. Looking back, I can't say that I held firm to my original "form" as well as I would have liked, but it's been an ongoing challenge for me to learn how to roll with the tides and hold fast to God's promise that HE is in control and has good plans for me throughout everything - even when things aren't looking ideal. 

So, moving forward into the summer, that will be a prayer request of mine - that I can learn to be resilient and rely on God at all times! Please pray with me and for me as we head to Quebec tomorrow to do our first AIA-run camp (instead of participating in a camp that runs summer-long). Pray also that the weeks of camps at Redeemer fill up so that they can actually take place! (July 28-Aug 15. See redeemerroyals.ca/AIA )