Hello beautiful friends!
It feels like so long since I've had time to just sit, rest, and reflect on how God has been working in my life these past few weeks here in North Carolina at Camp Crestridge for Girls. Today is my day off, so I am thankful that I am able to catch y'all up with this blog post :)
I arrived here at 4:34 pm Sunday, May 21. I anxiously got off my plane at the Asheville airport and met up with the girl who was driving me back to Crestridge. We waited on another guy who's flight came in a little after mine, crammed all of our luggage for the summer in the back of a camp van, and then drove to Ridgecrest for dinner! I was so excited during that 30-minute car ride to camp, and it was crazy just to think that the whole summer was ahead of me. Once we got to Camp Ridgecrest, we headed up to the dining hall to eat. We walked into the giant log cabin type building, and the first thing I noticed was Judah and the Lion playing through the speakers and a bunch of girls wearing oversized T-shirts and dudes with beards and long socks. Man, did I feel the hipster camp vibes. The staff was so nice and welcoming that first meal. It was a great first night!!
The first few days at camp were for lifeguard/CPR training. It was so intense, but also surprisingly fun! The training was co-ed, so the girls from Crestridge and the boys from Ridgecrest were able to hang out while doing lifeguarding stuff before the rest of the staff arrived. It was really nice to get here earlier before the full staff arrived so that I could bond with a smaller group of people first! My favorite part of lifeguard training was probably practicing rescues at the lake at Ridgecrest. It was so fun! We were all so silly and overdramatic while practicing the rescues. Hopefully, we'll never have to put our skills to use in real life this summer though. ;)
After lifeguard training, the full staff arrived and Staff Week began!! Staff Week included a lot of what we call "beautification" here at Ridgecrest summer camps... aka mulching, raking leaves, and doing other things to make camp look beautiful! I came across a lot of wild creatures while beautifying camp, most of them being spiders and weird bugs with names I wouldn't be able to tell you off the top of my head. But the most interesting creature I came across while raking leaves was this neon-pink-colored-spotted-salamander-type-thing. SO SCARY. These things don't live in Wisconsin, I swear!!
Although the majority of staff week included beautification and policy sessions, we also did a lot of fun stuff! The first night we had a girl's dance party under the pavilion with Christmas lights and s'mores and dark chocolate (PRAISE), one afternoon we had a pool party with the guys, another night we had a dance party with them, and on my one night off me and some friends went to this super yummy Mexican Restaurant two miles down the road from camp called Ole Guacamole. IT WAS DELICIOUS. If you ever are visiting Black Mountain, NC, I highly recommend it!
During staff week, the counselors also found out what village they would be counseling in for the summer and who their co-counselor was. There are seven villages total here at Crestridge, each classified by age group. From youngest to oldest the villages are Chippewa, Chickasaw, Creek, Cheyenne, Catawba, Choctaw, and Cherokee. I was assigned the Creek village, which is 11-year-olds!! Exactly what I hoped for. Eleven-year-olds are so crazy and wild, ask so many questions, and look up to you so much (they're also the best at cabin clean up if I do say so myself). My co's name is Jenny Ortiz, and she is absolutely amazing and has been so helpful! We work so well together and have become such great friends.
My favorite thing (by far) about staff week was the chapel sessions and the worship with Ridgecrest. It was incredible to worship with the great big group of college-aged students that I'd be spending the rest of my summer with serving the Lord. It was just so unifying! And LOUD! Everyone was singing, dancing, and just praising God together. No one cared about what anyone else thought. It was the coolest experience ever.
All in all, staff week was great. It included a lot of bonding, beautifying, and it was like a week and a half of camp for college-aged kids before the actual kids got here.
The little midgets arrived the morning of Sunday, June 4. I was so excited for them to get here! The first day was pretty chill. It included a lot of unpacking and singing! Every Sunday night includes Singspiration and Nibble Nook. What are these things you are probably asking yourself?!?! Well, let me tell you all about them! Singspiration is a worship experience where the whole camp gathers in the chapel and we sing and dance to a variety of songs! My favorite one that we've done so far is called Firm Foundation or King of the Jungle. Ahh! So fun :) After Singspiration, each village walks over to this ice cream shop (Nibble Nook) operated by Ridgecrest conference center. We all get a free scoop of ice cream and then walk back to camp and go to sleep. It's such a wonderful night to relax and have fun fellowshipping with the campers and staff.
My favorite part of camp so far has probably been the village activities. Almost every day, our village has a village activity, and they are such unique experiences!! For example, one of the nights this past week we had a mermaid night. It included a pool party, watching Aquamarine, dyeing our hair blue, chocolate pudding dirt cups, and getting flash tatts (temporary, of course!). It was a blast! One day, we also had slip n' slide wars with the guys over at Ridgecrest. Let me tell you... 11-year-old boys and girls interact with each other in the funniest ways! Each session, we also have a trip day. This session, our trip day was to a trampoline park and afterward, we catered Chic-Fil-A to Lake Tomahawk and had a picnic. It was so beautiful! The view at the Lake literally looked like something out of a Disney movie. Ducks were swimming all around, the sun was setting over the mountains, and little children were frolicking through the grass. :)
So there is just a glimpse at how I've been spending these past few weeks in North Carolina! Don't get me wrong, there are definitely times where I've felt overwhelmed or stressed. Working at an all girls camp is hard stuff! God has been revealing to me the struggle that I have with comparing myself to other people, but I have been digging into His word to see what He says about this issue. One verse that I remind myself of continually is Psalm 100:3, which says "Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture." The part that sticks out to me the most in this verse is where it says "It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves." It is a good reminder that God is making me better than anything I try to make myself be.
Another part of scripture that I've been focusing on these past few weeks comes out of Ezekiel 34. This chapter talks a lot about what a good shepherd looks like. I've been kind of thinking of myself as a shepherd (counselor) to sheep (my campers) this summer. One thing that I've been realizing I struggle with is the selfishness I have with making sure my needs are met before others. Ezekial 34 talks about how a good shepherd feeds his flock FIRST. I've applied this verse literally to my life here at camp by serving my campers first at meal times before I serve myself. We run out of food a lot at the table, so I usually end up getting the salad bar for every meal. Even so, I have been learning what it's like to truly serve others and how this pleases God. He is good!!
Thank you so much for reading this and caring about me. I love you guys! Please pray that God will give me the strength and energy to pour out into my campers these next few days while I'm with them. They leave Friday morning, and another session starts Sunday already! The summer is already flying by so fast. WOW. Almost 1/4 of the way done. I love you guys and will be keeping y'all updated! <3
Best,
Kenzie
