Oh, Canada-The Camp

(July 29, 2012)

We finally made it to the camp.  A paintball camp, by the way.  For teenagers.  Teenagers who have difficult lives.  Where parents who didn’t struggle with alcoholism seemed to be a rarity.  The kids did different activities in the mornings (canoeing, sports,swimming) and then spent a good chunk of the afternoon playing paintball.  Serious paintball.  Leave huge welts on your neck and arms and legs.  Wear a helmet. Hide in the woods.  That kind of paintball. 

I did not participate in the paint ball wars.  I needed down time, so I chose to relax in my cabin.  This is hilarious as I say it, because it sounds awesome (a cabin by a lake in the backwoods of Canada), but in reality was a small building with no electricity or water with roughly built bunk beds with hardly a mattress on it.  But the views were lovely!

This is the lake where we stayed.  The red roofs on the right are the girls cabins where I stayed with 5 First Nation teenage girls and the daughter of the camp owners.

    

  

This is the archery range and a shot of me canoeing (which I did participate in!)—No swimming for me in that lake though.  Leeches!  YUCK!

   

Our fearless leader being a servant and a shot of the canoe shed that our church built in previous years at the camp:

   

The view I had for my morning coffee.  Best time of the day.

 

   Plum Creek Leaders.

Our whole group.  Ready to head out.

I will say this was a difficult trip.  We ended up getting there only a few hours before the kids came because of our travel troubles.  That made it even harder for me to get into the right mind frame, and figure every thing out (like was I going to take the short hike to the lodge to use the potty or use the hole in the ground just outside our cabin).  I did learn a lot this trip though.  Like I’m not nearly as capable of roughing it as I like to think I am.  And also a lot about the First Nation people and how badly they were treated and how all of that is still playing out in the teenagers now.  My eyes were opened to a different sort of need in a different people group.  I still think of the girls I spent those 3 days with and pray for them.  I am excited about our group going back again this year (though without me, unless God changes my plans before then).  Oh, how we all are in such great need of Christ to be our rescuer and redeemer.  

I am unbelievably thankful for a church who will send a group out to Canada, of all places.  Putting some action to their words.