Climb every mountain....

I've been trying to update this as much as possible to keep you all informed of what is going on in my life, however it's been hard to find the time!

I am liking it at camp, I've made some friends and we stick together a lot.  I am starting to like the people that I work with.

This week has been an eventful one.  It was challenge week, which means that we get to know our jobs and what we'll be doing.  And teen staff probably has one of the funnest jobs.  This week, while everyone was working, we got to play on slip and slides and squirt each other with water guns, and I got belay certified (which means I can hold people up on a rock wall), and we climbed a mountain, which was probably the biggest thing to happen this week.

Climbing that mountain was rough.  We not only climbed it, we slept overnight on it.  It was 36 degrees that night.  I slept in leggings, sweatpants, two pairs of socks, a t-shirt, a fleece, and a hat, which I pulled all the way down over my nose.  I tried to make sure only my mouth was open to the elements.  I still got bug bitten (who knew mosquitos could survive in 36 degree weather?).   I had only a thin foam pad between me and the rock I slept on (we literally slept on a huge boulder).  We had a tarp over us to keep the moisture out, there was no real tent.  Needless to say, I didn't sleep very well that night.

The mountain had a 4000 foot elevation, and the trail up was about 2 miles, so we were going up roughly 2000 feet every mile.  The first night, we went about halfway, from the bottom of the mountain to the campsite, and the next day we reached the summit, and went all the way back down.  Although going up is hard, because you're exerting a lot of energy, going down is scary, because it is so steep, you could fall and break your ankle, arm, head, neck at any time.

I went slow.  I was always the last one, and I felt bad that I went so slow because I was holding everyone up, but at the same time, it was the first time that I had ever done anything like that, so they were encouraging.  Liam, my boss, said that he was proud of me and that I should feel accomplished because I completed the mountain.

That was the big thing that happened to me this week.  Guests start arriving today, so we have a day off, and tomorrow the real work starts!  Our first day will consist of a mixer (with the slip and slides), and then the chapels and other things happen on Monday.  I don't preach until week 3, but I will be working on finishing my sermon this week.  I have off on Tuesday, which will be nice, and will give me a lot of time to work on my sermon.

Something you can pray for this week:  that the ministry that we do will be effective, and that our first week goes smoothly.  And that we as staff continue to bond and be able to work together.