you can sit beside me when the world comes down.

to keep myself from rehashing every other after-reunion post i've written in past years, i'll just link to them here so i won't feel like i need to.
about camp looking dead in the winter but really just being asleep:
http://thoughtfulcampcounselor.blogspot.com/2010/12/hibernatingfamily.html

about camp people being family:
http://thoughtfulcampcounselor.blogspot.com/2011/12/confession132.html

anyways.
on the way to camp yesterday, stephanie pointed out that if the world ended today, she'd be totally happy since we'd all be together.
unlike other years, there's not a single person i wouldn't want at the reunion. i love every one of them so much, and i legitly missed every one who had to miss it. as in, i realized without being reminded that each of them wasn't there and had specific reasons why i wished they were there.
and if sitting in cabin 5 laughing with all of them was the last thing i got to do before Jesus came back, i'd be completely content.
i realized last night that i've laughed more with this staff than with any other. i figured it out because when we were all laughing for literally a minute straight, i could listen and pick out every person's distinct laugh, and i could even imagine all the ones who weren't there. i don't think i've never known everyone well enough to do that.
to copy more of stephanie's wise little sayings, being together really is like a glimpse of heaven.
i know that sounds super corny to anyone who's never been to camp. but in heaven, everyone will love each other, no one will fight, and we'll all be happier than we've ever been, right? that is the essence of us.

and i love them a lot.

a fraction of the hurt.

i'm posting this on my camp blog instead of my real life one because when you say "innocent children," i think of my campers.

i'm not going to go on a political rant; there are so many people talking about gun control and abortion right now, i'm sure my opinion has already been said by someone else.

i'm just thinking out loud, trying to wrap my mind around the fact that 20 kids the same age as my campers are dead today.

20 happy little lives stamped out right before christmas.

now i know this isn't anything even close to what they're feeling, but it's my only point of reference since i don't have any real kids to love.
i imagine that a mom is like a cabin leader squared. i think about how much i love my girls, and i try to imagine loving a kid more than that. but they aren't actually my girls. their moms must love them so much more(this is why for me, camp is not "the best birth control" as some people say; it makes me want my own kids even more).
so i'm thinking about how i'd feel if one of my campers died, in any way, much less like this. and i try to multiply that 100 times, to come even close to picturing what these parents in connecticut must feel, and honestly, if i were in that position, i think i would die. i'd lose every ounce of my will to live and just die on the spot.

no matter what kind of psychological disorder you've got going on, who could look at, as obama so perfectly described them, "beautiful little children between the ages of 5 and 10" and want to see them die? i don't even think people screwed up enough to molest a child could bring themselves to kill one.
and not that high schoolers deserve it or anything, but seriously these were little kids. you hear about teenagers getting shot all the time(which i repeat, is still horrible and i wish that didn't happen either), but not kids. people don't even shoot up elementary schools on tv. it's so unthinkable, we don't even think to make up stories about it happening.

there are so many people hurting in so many ways right now. being the obnoxiously compassionate person i am, i'm feeling a little bit of each of them.

in my marriage and family class this semester, when we learned about family stress, we broke into groups and made lists of normative and non-normative stressors. we'd learned that a child dying at a young age was non-normative, so my group listed ways that might happen. we said things like car wrecks, cancer or other diseases, choking to death, falling down the stairs, and tried to think of really crazy freak accidents that could happen.
not one person in the room said "getting shot at school."
i doubt any parent drops their kid off at school in the morning and even vaguely wonders if they'll ever see them again. your kid's school is such a normal part of your life, a taken-for-granted safe place. i feel like even if my kid was okay, my whole world would be shaken up if something like this happened. i'd start questioning everything. if an elementary school isn't safe, what is?

what about the kids?
the ones who died? they're so little. appreciating life is a granted, automatic thing for them; they haven't yet needed to be taught that life is short. most of them don't understand death at all. they probably hadn't wondered a day in their life if it might be their last day.
and the ones who survived? the shooter only came into two classrooms; were there some who never saw him, but had siblings or cousins or friends who were killed?

what would you even do with that? if you had one child make it out and the other died. that's the most overwhelming scenario i can imagine. being so happy and thankful on the one hand to have one safe with you, while not even knowing what to do with yourself over losing the other.

what about people like me, off at college with siblings at home? i have a brother in fifth grade. i wouldn't want to get a phone call to hear he'd been shot, or even been anywhere where he could have been shot, if i wasn't able to rush straight home to my family. it was bad enough freshman year when i had to be far away and hear the news that my granddad died, and i was basically prepared for that but i still shut down, stopped eating, quit doing my homework and lost my scholarship. so if i got a total shock, like a family member getting killed, much less my little brother? again i think i'd probably die. if not from rapid hope loss, then from attempting to hitchhike home as fast as i could.

where's the hope in this? what's the good that God plans on using all this for? parents whose kids die of cancer can help other parents going through the same thing. kids who get paralyzed can grow up and write books about how they managed to still live a great life. but this is just ridiculous. i know this fits with the plan somewhere, but God's gonna have to get pretty creative here.

if nothing else, i hope this is a wakeup call to parents who don't love their kids enough. the parents of the campers who say they don't want to go home because their parents don't hug them or talk to them or just hang out with them like their counselors do. i hope they start appreciating the little miracle they have.

i wish it didn't take tragedies like this to make that happen.

accidental impact.

tours of camp on mondays are always one of the times for happy reunions with old campers. ask any of my girls from any week this year, they'll tell you i paused our tour at least once(usually plenty more times than that) to go hug a girl from another cabin and tell her staffer to take care of her because she's special. once we get back to the cabin i always tell my new ones "don't worry, if we're both back, you'll get one of those next year!"

but one monday this summer i got a surprise of my own.

i'm standing in front of the admin, telling my girls about the flying squirrel, when i hear a voice screaming "LINDAAAAAAAAAA!" and this teeny little girl who i swore i'd never seen before comes running at me like a bullet with the biggest smile on her face and launches herself into my arms. i hugged her and did a pretty convincing job of acting like i knew her; the usual tricks of using a term of endearment instead of her name, saying i'm glad she's here, all those little tricks(which by the way none of those are lying; i'm glad every camper is there, and i did hope i got to see her more that week because i mean she was adorable). she ate it right up and went skipping back to her cabin, turning around a few times to look back at me, with her face still lit up like it was christmas morning.

that night at dinner she did the same thing as i walked past her table. after she let go i waited for her to turn her back to me then frantically went to the next table and asked one of her staffers(i'm pretty sure she was in cabin 15, so i guess it was bailey) what her name was. from here on out i'll call her B. bailey or whoever it was told me she'd been asking about me all day. i admitted that i didn't remember her at all, and she says "well she's pretty much in love with you. i guess you did something!"

every day that week, anytime i saw B(which wasn't very often because we were in separate units), she'd get just as excited as she had on monday. and she was always smiling. one day she got in line to go canoeing for free time, but we filled up so she couldn't go, and when i told her, she just shrugged and said "oh. oh well!" and skipped off to puppets like it was the most fun thing in the world, not something lame for the overflow from the popular choices. she was always so happy, and every time i saw her i'd get happier too.

on friday morning at breakfast when she came and saw me like usual, i told her that i'd really miss her hugs next week and that they'd always made my day, and she looked surprised and said "really?? you made my day too!"
that afternoon i expected her to be a cryer, since she loved camp so much. but she ran to her mom all excited, came back and hugged me for a long time, said she loved me and she'd miss me. then she left, all with her usual huge smile like she'd slept with a coat hanger in her mouth. which was lucky for me, because seeing her still be her bouncing, happy self made me able to not cry my eyes out over my last one of those hugs. =]

campers like her amaze me. one of my acteens, whose first year at camp was my first year working, told me she'd always loved me when she was little and was glad she finally got to be in my cabin. then i've had other girls who i remembered, but who tell me stories that i didn't remember happening until they talked about them then.

you never know what kind of hat tricks God might pull at camp. things that seem insignificant to you, whether positive or negative, a camper may remember for the rest of their life. i hope i never forget that.

how to love a [camper].

i was going through my board on pinterest devoted to quotes, and i found this, which i pinned months ago but forgot about.
now i know that campers ARE children, so you can follow this list and love a camper that way. but i wanted to make my own special list.

how to love a camper.
always LISTEN.
be genuine.
be who you are.
let them be who they are, and praise them all day for it.
give positive attention.
show them what they're good at.
don't do everything for them. teach more than you do.
make them feel special.
let them make some decisions for themselves.
be gentle. never yell.
be willing to explain things more than once.
laugh!
participate in camp. lead from within an activity, not from the side of it.
play whatever game they want in the pool no matter how many times you played it last week.
allow wacky wednesday.
hugs and nice words should be given out liberally throughout the day.
let them think they're your favorite.
choose them over the staff.
be whatever they need.
answer their questions.
love them the same as you do any other camper.
show them Jesus.
"for a camper is a miracle who will soon become a part of your life."

camp life.

at camp:
i have more friends than i know what to do with.
i'm never ever lonely.
everyone loves me.
i never have to look for people to sit by or talk to because everyone's always looking for me first.
my weekends are all full.
people treat me like an adult, and i get to act like one.
and i'm the happiest person in the world.

that's what i always thought college life was supposed to be. but it's not. take each of those truths about camp and invert it, and you get my life at ciu.

don't get me wrong; i LOVE camp like it is. and it wouldn't be as great if i got what i get at camp anywhere else. but thinking about going back to school, or even home, after this makes me sick.

at this second though, i'm thankful for summer. i'm so happy right now. =]

summer.

where my weekdays are full of Jesus, laughing, singing, hugs, fun times with the sweetest little girls, and knowing that every single minute i'm smack in the middle of God's will. and my weekends are full of more Jesus, more laughing, even more hugs, and ridiculous fun with my friends.
this is the 70 days out of every year that i get to be myself. and they're already flying...but they're already the best i've ever had. =]

all different, but all the same.

one of my favorite parts of working at camp is seeing how creative God is, in that every single girl that comes into my cabin is unique. obviously i know no two people are just alike, but you really really start to understand that here. the best part of it is that the longer i'm here, the more i feel like i should see some repeats, and while there are a lot that i say "she is JUST like so and so from last week," even those are still their own person. it's like there's a lot of types of personalities but each girl is different in it. it's so cool getting to know each of them and seeing what's special about them.

but there are at least two things that are true about every camper, no matter how drastically different from any child you've ever met in your life.

1. every camper is in YOUR cabin for a reason.

God has a plan. and each girl is part of that. there are some who you'll ask yourself "WHY did i get this one..." and there are some who you don't even give a thought to it. but God is going to use you in some way, whether big or small, in each girl's life. isn't that cool?

2. every camper is special.

i know you know this, obviously. yes it's a cliche, but i wish it wasn't because it's so important. i really started thinking about this one day in my philosophy class this semester, we talked about the image of God and how even though we're each made in the same image, we all have a unique way of reflecting that image(from our personality traits to our gifts to anything else). different aspects of God are stronger in different people. and even in a nine year old, you can see these things. a girl who's really compassionate, or a good artist, or thinks of good ideas, all of those are ways they're like God.

a lot of girls will come in not realizing this. they've heard all the time that they ARE special, but so many of them don't believe it. it's so great to be able to show them WHY they're special. helping them understand how God made them who they are for a reason. i won't start telling whole stories because i have too many of them, but it's a beautiful thing to see a shy, insecure girl go home saying she can't wait to go back to school and be herself, or a really smart girl who had thought of herself as a geek and a loser leave camp knowing that people think that's cool about her.

those are the two main ones i thought of. then there are at least four things every camper needs.

1. every campers needs you.

again, God put them in your cabin for a reason. there's something about you that is just what that girl needs.

but she needs you in a simpler, more general way too. you're the one getting her places. you're the one she goes to when she has a problem. you're the keeper of the money bags, the one with the answers, her mom for a week. you're the most vital person in that girl's life for her time at camp.

you'll have at least one difficult camper who acts like they want nothing to do with you. but they still need you, whether you or they will admit it or not.

2. every camper needs to be loved.

some need it more than others. some need it in different ways. but every one of them needs love, whether she's a good little church girl from a wonderful family who shows her every day how loved she is, or she's from a broken home where her mom and stepdad favor her sister while she herself is never told how precious she is.

it's not always easy. and you'll never be perfectly loving to every girl every second. that's okay.

some are easier to love than others. you'll have at least one difficult camper that you just do not like. and that's okay. but you have to love them. you may need to constantly tell yourself to love them, but that's okay too.

if you wake up every morning and make a conscious choice to love every girl in your cabin no matter what, it will make the biggest difference.

again, each one is special. watching and finding HOW they each need to be loved and finding ways to love them that way is one of the best things you can do for them(it's not as much work as it sounds, i just mean little things you might notice. for instance, if one of them is always hugging you, that's probably their love language. a high five or a pat on the back when they do a good job at something will mean the world to them)

if they all go home thinking they were your favorite, you've done a good job. but that's not enough.

not only do we get to personally love them, but we get to show them real love. if all your girls go home thinking "because of how my staffer loved me, i understand better how God loves me" then you've done a great job.

that's what camp is all about, when it comes down to it. just love your girls, and everything else falls into place.

i have a whole post about that in my drafts that i should finish; so that's all i have to say here.

3. every camper needs to feel accepted.

being in a cabin full of girls can be hard for some of them. they want to fit in, make friends, and feel wanted. that starts with you, because if they see you making everyone feel special no matter who they are, then they want to treat everyone like that too.

and i guess really, we get to teach them a lot about grace. just by how we act. being patient with the loud ones who won't hush during rest time, or the slow ones who take ten minutes to put their shoes on. giving them second chances when they don't do something right the first time, like a job in cabin capers or reading out loud in Bible study.

this ties into loving them no matter what. and the finding how each one is special.

4. every camper needs to know God better.

that's probably the biggest and most obvious thing i've said so far. but it's also the most important.

don't take for granted that all of your girls know who God is. the vast majority of them do come from churches, and they've heard about him plenty. but not all of them really know God. and for the ones who do, we're here to deepen their understanding of him.

camp is about God, for God, because of God. we can give our campers the most fun week of their lives and send them home feeling good about themselves, but if we haven't been Jesus to them, we haven't done our job.

so they're all the same in all those ways. and it sounds like i'm contradicting myself to say "here are all the same ways in which they're different" but that's the only way i can think of to get to my next point. =p
(the same things i thought off are more deep, but my list of different things is mostly practical.)

1. every camper thinks differently.

remember this when you're explaining anything. whether it's a simple thing like how to do a job in cabin capers, or something more serious like a concept in Bible study, not all of them learn or understand things the same way.

2. every camper likes different things.

we'll be teaching you a lot of kinds of games for this reason. not all your girls will want to spend their down time in the cabin the same way, so vary the little fun things you do, let different girls take turns picking things, etc etc.

shower time is the best example of this. some will want to be in the middle of everything, others are happy to sit on their bunks and do something quietly by themselves. sometimes going off alone is a sign of homesickness, and you'll want to watch this carefully the first night or two. but once you start to get a feel for all the personalities in the group, you'll see who's naturally quiet and calm, who likes thinking games, who likes fast-paced games, etc etc.

3. every camper responds to you differently.

some are much more open and tell you all day long that you're the best and they love you. but others admire you from a distance. don't think that because one of your girls doesn't talk to you all the time or much at all that they don't like you; they're just different. you(most probably) haven't done anything wrong, it's just their personality.

in another sense, some are more sensitive than others. we have to be really careful how we talk to them; there's so much in our tone that we don't realize. you may not feel like you're yelling, but some girls might think you are. and it's really hard(don't i know it), but you have to watch your sarcasm. they don't always get it, especially younger girls.

this falls in with homesickness a lot. some methods work with some girls but not with others. they'll all take them differently.

4. every camper responds to God differently.

just because a girl hasn't talked a lot in Bible study, liked quiet time much, or made a big decision on thursday night, doesn't mean they aren't learning. some either aren't as open about it or are less mature than others.

a lot of this depends on what they already know or what they've been taught. i once had a girl who thought she wasn't supposed to ask questions about God so she hadn't raised her hand in Bible study at all(but she'd wanted to a lot of times).

don't get discouraged; God is at work even if you can't see it.

but no matter how alike or how different all of them are, we get to love them and have fun with them and get to know them for a week, and it's the best thing ever. you're gonna love it. =]

challenge for the old staff, and reassurance for the new staff.

being new is scary. really really scary. no matter how prepared you think you are, no matter how many years you came as a camper, everyone has at least one period of time where they're at least a little panicked.
we understand. we were all there once.
last year, carrie told me the old staff are one of the most intimidating parts of coming to camp for the first time. i was shocked and asked how in the world did she mean.
but it actually totally makes sense.
-we've been here before. whether it's our second, fifth, or twelfth summer, we're still way more experienced than someone who has no idea what to expect.
-we know each other. there's that lingering thought of "will i fit in?"
-we know about everything already.

so i'm writing this to refute each of these. not denying them, because i mean they're all partly true. but here's why all of them actually play to your advantage as a new staffer.

-we know each other.
yes! exactly! we've had whole summers together. we've seen the good, the bad and the ugly of each other. and that is why YOU are more interesting! we don't know you at all yet. and we want to. not that we don't love each other, but we get really excited about new people. time isn't any kind of factor here; last year one of the new staff became one of my best friends within a week. these things are normal in camp world.
the best part about the camp world is that everyone "fits in." just like it is for the campers, it's a place where all of us get to be exactly what we are and be loved by everyone around us for it. people who would never give each other a second thought in the real world end up best friends at camp. lonely outcasts in the real world are the most popular people on staff. just another reason why camp is the most beautiful place in the world.
camp is like a big, weird, awesome family. every year i've been here, we've pulled the new staff right in and by the end of orientation(sometimes the end of the first day!) we're saying we feel like we've known each other forever. it's so great. so don't worry, it's not like one of those summer camp movies from the 90s where the old staff are all super jerks. we actually want you here.
-we've been here before.
yes we have. which means at one point, we were where you are! we were you once. nervous, full of questions, not knowing what to expect. so since we know how you feel, we want you to get comfortable as quick as possible so you'll love camp as much as we do! please please don't worry about us.
-we know everything already.
okay no one knows evvvverything. even heather smith(who holds the record of nine summers) didn't know everything. with that being said, yes we do know what we're doing, but that makes us the perfect people to help you! we don't expect you to know things on your own, or get annoyed when you don't know what's going on. ask us all the questions you want all day long. we like it; it makes us feel cool and important. or maybe that's just me. ;] half the fun of being a veteran is being there for yall, so don't be scared to come to any of us. we love you and we're happy you're here.

throwing in my personal opinion: new staff are better than old ones. during orientation week, i pretty much don't exist to the old staff because i'm having too much fun making new friends.

basically: it's okay to be nervous, but you don't need to be terrified. we're here for you! you're gonna love it here. =]

who's left?

i was looking at all my staff pictures from each year. and seeing who from each is still here.

from 2008:
me and hope

2009:
me and hope and emily G

2010:
me and hope and emily G and tori and rebecca B and leah T

2011:
me and hope and emily G and tori and kathleen and brittany and erin and chana and AK and carrie and corbitt and bobo

(leah and rebecca weren't there last year except for a week or two. that's why they're only in the 2010 list.)
out of the 91 full time staff i've worked with,78 are gone.
that's a lot of ghosts.
there are some people who stay with me forever. they may not still work with me, but i see little bits of them all around camp. staff house 4. stage left in the multipurpose building. the dock at the lake. the lifeguard stand at the deep end. the cit bunk in cabin 7. the front doors of the dining hall. the volleyball net.
new places get added every year. the cabin leader bed in cabin 6. the unit 1 building. the backstage room.
i'm pretty sure every part of camp makes me think of a different person if i really think...but this is bumming me out and i'd much rather focus on happy things(like going back in FIVE days!!!!!!!) so i'm done with this for now.
but really. no one ever leaves until the last person who remembers them leaves. (which means lucy will be here for the next twenty years)
just a thought.

thank God you're here.

when i was a camper, monday morning at registration always made or broke my week. i had a list in my head of staff who just HAD to be there. the older i got, the better i got at predicting who'd be back and who would have moved on. all i could think about on the drive to camp was which of my important people would be there. as i walked around camp throughout the day, i'd keep my eye out for certain people, and have one of my happy freakouts every time i ran into one of them. but by the end of the day, there were always a few missing.
i found last summer that i wasn't alone in this.
yes, this is another of those stories that begins with "i've got this camper..."
her name...doesn't matter. i'll call her M.
M has never been in my cabin. she's one of those extra randoms who latched onto me for reasons i don't remember or understand. but she's come every year i've worked. and every year, she does the same thing when she sees me. she runs and jumps into my arms and says "i didn't know you'd be here this year!!"
and every year, she's more excited than the last.
last year was the best. it was the last week, and i had seen on the registration list that she'd be there(which had made me happy because i had been wondering if she was coming). so i kept my eye out for her all day, and for once i saw her before she saw me. at dinner time, i was already sitting down, facing the door like i always do on the first day, so i can see anyone come in who i haven't seen already. finally, with one of the last cabin groups, M walks in, and she's looking around frantically, and i'm guessing she's looking for me. i stood up to go see her, and as soon as i did, she saw me and came running down the aisle between unit 1 and 2's tables, jumped on me harder than she ever has(probably because she's obviously a little bigger than the year before), and screamed in my face "i thought i'd NEVER see you again!!!!!!! i looked for you ALL day and i was so sad but you're HERE!" i asked her "where else would i go?" she thought really hard and finally said "i don't know. but i didn't think you'd be HERE!"
when she left on friday, she asked me "will you ever not come back to camp? i figure you have to get a real job someday, so every year i wonder if maybe you got one. that's why i get so surprised when i see you."
and then i realized, i was M once.
i was a smart camper. i may have been an obnoxious one and among the loudest ones, but i was still smart. i knew my staffers were "real people" and that they wouldn't be there all my life. i always wished i had some way of knowing who would leave me each year. and i wondered if they cared. when they decided whether or not to come back, did they think about me? i didn't expect their whole decision to hinge on me, but i wondered if i crossed their mind at all.
so i sat M down, and i told her what i wished someone had told me as a camper. i said "well, i will have to get a real job someday. but for now, i love camp too much to do that. and if i ever think about not coming back, i get really sad and think about my girls that i'd want to see every year, so i don't think about it much."
and after that long speech, all she had to say was "so are you coming back next year or what?"
i told her to come back and see, and she said "well, if i came back and you weren't here, i'd be so sad. so i might not come back if i knew you weren't coming." so i told her i wanted her to come back no matter what, promised she'd have great staffers whether i came back or not, then hugged her goodbye and sent her away before i cried.

every year when i get officially hired and start thinking of all my campers that i'll get to see, i think of M. and just like she does with me, i wonder if she's outgrown camp yet.
i have a feeling that, just like me, she never will. =]

much longer or not half that long?

five years. 48 weeks. close to 400 days. on august 10th, that's how long i will have been at camp.
last weekend i got together with a bunch of camp friends, and we were talking about camp(of course), and hope says to me "this is our FIFTH year. can you believe it?"
depending on the day, i can. sometimes it feels like so much longer. i've seen so much happen, so many people come and go. has it really only been five years?(or for now, only four)
but most of the time, i can't. five years is so long. so few people have lasted this long, and most of them were like 23. but now i'm one of them. is this real life?
seriously. five summers. since thinking about camp always makes me feel young, i always forget how much younger i used to be(that was a really dumb sentence but it made sense in my head so just go with it) until i look at pictures. then i can see it.

this is me when i was a little baby.

okay so i wasn't a baby but i WAS sixteen. if i were cindy i wouldn't have hired me, if for no other reason than the fact that i looked twelve.
i thought i knew everything back then. i had been a camper for five years, i should know exactly what a good staffer is, right?
but i didn't even know what camp was.

this is me when i was a slightly bigger baby.

back in the day when i constituted half of snorgtees.com's business.
i miss you emily T!
that year, i really thought i knew everything. i had been a camper AND i had worked there. there were people older than me who knew less than i did.
but i still didn't know what camp was.

this is me when i was not such a baby but still a kid.

that is one of my favorite MKs ever. me and amber fought over her that entire explore group.
i was finally a cabin leader, finally not one of the very youngest(i was in the lower half, but the top of that. upper middle class?), and finally i realized that i didn't know what i was doing at all. because now i knew what camp was.

and this is me when i was, well yesterday. almost.

and that's one of my sweet campers who is now about to be on staff. (adding to my feeling old! all my kids are growing up, make them stop!)
i didn't know, until it was over, how beautiful that summer was. i learned so much and i learned it all the hard way.

and now, i'm 30 days away from my fifth summer. five is a huge number. my four heroes lasted three, three and a half, four, and four and a half years each. if i survive this one, i will have beaten them. that is big and scary.
i've gone from baby CIT knowitall to actual real veteran. i always knew i'd be at camp for a long time, but i never knew i'd make it this far. i remember the assistant business manager my first year telling me that if i was here at sixteen, i'd be the assistant director by twenty-one. i laughed at that. and i still do; that would be the worst job in the world, no offense to cindy(she understands). if God had come to me on june 2, 2008 and told me what all he would do in the next five years, i would have laughed and been terrified all at the same time.
habakkuk 1:5 is one of my favorite verses.
"...i am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told."
God has already done a lot of those somethings. and even after they've happened, i still don't believe them.
i can't wait to see what somethings he'll do this time around.

i miss my campers.

catherine.
anna beth.
alexa.
kaitlyn.
hannah.
emily.
erin.
erica.
katie.
evey.
cassidy.
avery.
cali.
tori.
kristen.
makenzie.
paige.
madisyn.
trisha.
shelby.
and so many more.
summer please come soon. 43 days!

it's the MOST wonderful time of the YEAR!

camp is so much FUN!
OH my gosh i wanna be there RIGHT NOW.
actually i'm okay. and here's why.
you know how the weeks before christmas are still considered part of the "christmas season" and really that time is pretty much just as great as christmas day?
well, camp in this metaphor is like christmas only it lasts nine weeks instead of one day. and the months before it are like the time from thanksgiving to december 24th. the excitement starts around early april. like now. the weather starts getting warmer. school starts feeling more like jail. you start stalking new staff on facebook, digging around old boxes for your kids books and friendship bracelets and homesickness supplies, drawing up bulletin board ideas in class instead of taking notes(er, i don't do that), and maybe even packing(ok i really haven't started doing that. i have thought about it...but i always realize that having all my clothes in a suitcase for the next 61 days would be pretty inconvenient).
it's my favorite time of year. and that's saying something, because i REALLY love christmas.
today i'm just itching to be with my family, in my home. as much as i love campers(and they are definitely way higher on my favorite list), the staff are the ones on my mind. i love my camp staff. and i am so so CRAZY EXCITED to be part of another one!
if any new staff are reading this: i cannot WAIT to meet you!! yall are gonna have the best summer ever ever ever!!!(if you have doubts about that please come straight to me and i'll take care of you[in the good way...that totally could have sounded like a threat. haha].) in the mean time, i LOVE to pray, especially about camp and people related to it, so if you need anything whether about camp or anything else in the world, just let me know and i'll be lifting you up! i already am, but having specifics is always helpful. =]

steeped in prayer.

[i began this post on february 18th. i was reminded of and ordered to finish this post on february 29th. and i am going to finish it today, which for the record is march 14th.]
[i didn't finish it that day. today, april 4th, i really will!]
i'm getting a head start on this summer.
i've said before that when i miss a person really bad, i pray for them. it helps me not miss them so much and puts my missing feeling to good use.
i've missed camp worse than ever this year. the way i see it, there are only two seasons: summer, and not-summer. and my summer doesn't start and end when school does; it starts whenever i get to camp and ends when i leave for the last time.
it's been a very long, very hard not-summer. and it's not even close to over yet.
anyways i decided to do the same thing with camp as i do with people that i miss. i'm gonna start praying for it extra early this year.
i've been thinking a lot about new staff. whether the ones that are currently applying, the ones still considering it, or those that haven't even though about it yet but God is fixing to call them to it. the little high schoolers who are finally old enough to be like their cabin leaders.
of course there are a certain few old ones who i'm praying God gives a great big push back in the right direction...they know who they are. they are GOING to end up coming back. ; )
but mostly the new ones. we need a lot of them. camp with only 27 staff just doesn't work. i mean, we made it work, but with 32 at the least, you don't have to MAKE it work, it just works. when i was little i remember the brochures used to say "camp is staffed with 38 college aged women..." 38??? we didn't even have that many my first year, and that was back in the days of almost every week being mostly full.
anyways.
i want this summer to be all about prayer.
prayer for each other. for strength, unity, patience, and drama-freeness.
for our campers.
and for ourselves. i'm sure i'm not the only one who gets so pulled into taking care of other people(that is, after all, what we're getting paid for) that i forget to take care of myself. i'm really really challenging myself this year to be more consistent with my own quiet times, and i want to encourage all of yall to do the same! the difference it makes is crazy.
basically, i want us to be 1 thessalonians 5:17ing all summer long. i've had the best feeling about this summer since like december, and i just know God has absolutely infreakingcredible things in store for us. but we need to get started praying!
here's some ideas:
1. me and kathleen were talking, a week after i started this post, about how powerful prayer is, how we underestimate it so much. we decided to pray for God to bring 1500 campers and 30 staff. as of today(april 4th) we have 28 staff! so close! and we have 500 campers, but registration only started like a month ago. we'll be getting a lot more. keep praying, i know they're coming!
2. new staff. for peace(bless their hearts it's so scary! we all were there once. now there really isn't much reason to be terrified, but they're all gonna feel that way at some point), for quick adjusting, and for them to be just as awesome as all newbies always are. =]
3. old staff. that we'd be good examples and big helps to the new ones and that we'd continue to encourage each other.
4. staff unity in general. i know it will never totally be this way, but let's dream big and pray for a drama-free summer!
5. for the campers. new and old.
6. for cindy as she chooses staff and gets other things together. she may not be in the hot sun with 12 campers hanging on her all day but you can't say she doesn't have the most stressful job of all of us.

that's all i can think of for now...ready, set, get on your knees! figuratively of course. =] God has such a big summer planned!!!

a post within a post: relationship vs leadership/why i love my track group.

some people are relationship-y. others are leadership-y.
everyone is a mix of both; no one is strictly one or the other. like the myers-briggs scale. you need to be both, you just prefer one over the other(though some people really are straight down the middle).
now in some cases, one is better or more important than the other.
but at camp, both are equally important.
unit leaders are the most leadershipy. and either cabin leaders or CITs are the most relationship-y...i guess cits. cabin leader does have LEADER right in the name.
in anything, i'll always pick the relationship-y side. even in little things like working in the caf; i'd way rather work the sub bar, where i can talk to people while i fix their food and watch people when there's no line, than be stuck in the kitchen doing food prep.
at camp, there is no way that i will ever be a unit leader. partly because i'm unorganized, freeze when i spend too much time in air conditioned spaces, and hate answering the phone, but mostly because my favorite thing about camp is being with the girls. talking to them, laughing with them, watching them become friends with each other, loving them, pouring into them, hearing their stories, just living life with them for a week. i'm not saying that unit leaders love the campers less than i do, just that i'm better at getting to know them than i am at leading and organizing things for them.
some people come to camp on one extreme, and as the summer goes on, i love watching them grow in the other side. for instance, i've seen crazy uptight leader types learn to chill out and have fun, and crazy fun ones become stronger leaders.
even though i've come into my own a lot more on the leader side, i'll always be a bigger fan of the relationship-y parts of camp.
that's why adventure rec has always been my track group choice, every year both as a camper and a staffer.
quick side note for those unrelated to la vida: a track group is a set of activities that the girls get to choose from, and they get to do that every day. there are five of them. adventure rec is all about team building, super fun games, and the low ropes course.
it involves everything that i love and everything i'm good at. it's all outside, you're always doing active things, and you make close friends with everyone in your group. 
from day one, the biggest rules are 1. always have fun, and 2. always be positive. whether we're playing games, doing trust exercises, or working through one of the elements, everyone is encouraging to everyone else. especially the staffers; we make every girl feel special, even the shyest or least athletic ones. that in itself was half of why i loved it as a camper. and while i've never been much of a debbie downer even as a little kid, i think the ropes course is where i really learned how to encourage people, and determine to make life fun no matter how much it sucks.
day one is all about getting to know each other. we play name games(that involve moving, not just a sit down and say your name and two fun facts about yourself), and then once everyone knows everyone, we go into other ones(mostly different versions of tag. did you know there was more than one? i probably know about twenty).
day two is more games, this time ones that make you work together and learn to trust your group. and we teach them how to spot, so they won't die on the ropes course the next day.(calm down. there's nothing they could actually die on. just moderately injured. and if that's a strong possibility due to the group goofing off too much, we don't let them on it)
day three and four are spent in the woods. every element makes you cooperate with and trust the people around you, and you can learn a lot about someone by watching how they act as you go through each challenge. ps, it's not an obstacle course. it's nine different challenges, five of which don't involve ropes.
adventure rec is what sparked my love of debriefing things. it taught me to see Jesus in everything, to take ordinary things and relate them to life. see, when you finish each element, the staffers have their group talk about what they did. (what was hard about this? what was easy? what did you learn from it? how is this like life? what can you understand about God from this?) different age groups come up with different things. it's amazing what they can think of. every week i have a kid surprise me. i think this is the most important part of what we do. taking every chance we have to squeeze a little more Jesus out of camp. and it's possible with every track group.
as a camper, when it came time to debrief, i was always the one with all the ideas. a lot of times my staffer would have to say "okay, so someone...besides linda...tell me how this is like our walk with God." so coming back as a staffer i hadn't expected to hear much that had never been said before. but i've learned so much from my campers. i get really excited when someone says a totally original idea. that's only happened twice, but both times i was jumping around and laughing.
as the week goes on, i try to learn something about each girl in my group. i love that we have canteen during track group time now, because i never used to have much time to just talk to my kids unless they were in my unit. this way i get to know them even better.
and as i said earlier, i LOVE to help them make friends. here more than any other, they have to get close in order for anything to work. all during the week the girls bond more and more, start working together better, and at the end of the week they've got all these friends that aren't even in their cabin or unit.
not every camper, and definitely not every staffer(we're always the ones begging for help) is into all or any of that, and that's of course okay. but for me it's perfect. and i can get anyone to have fun with it, if for no other reason than the fact that i'm so excited about everything we do. i love everything about it, and when they see that, they want to try everything that much more(you can do that with anything. i'm sure chi chi got the girls in creative arts having twice as much fun).

the best way to celebrate leap day/why do i talk about camp so much?

today i got to go to a church and do a promo for camp. i saw some of my old campers, we sang the songs we've missed so much(ha. ha...okay i have missed them a little bit), and we got them all excited for the summer.
i love my campers. and i love hearing that they're still friends with each other; one of mine from my favorite week of all time told me all excited like that she emailed this other girl in our cabin all the time and they were planning to come the same week again. i made so many great friends as a camper, and i try really hard to help them do the same now, so it makes me happy to see them keeping in touch.
and it's adorable how some of them think camp works. if someone isn't coming back this summer, they freak out and think something terrible happened. or they're shocked when we don't know what cabin we'll be in this summer. they're so innocent and i love it.
i really miss being around little kids. i need more of them in my life; people my own age get taxing after a while.
people outside of camp get bored and sometimes even annoyed with my camp stories. i try to keep shut up about it to them but apparently i still talk too much.
but how is my loving camp and wanting to share it with people such a bad thing? when missionaries go on furlough, does anyone yell at them for being excited about their work, missing it, and wanting to go back to it? no. that would be a total jerk move.
so why, then, is it okay to try to discourage me from counting down the days, wishing i could be with my friends on staff, sometimes putting off homework a tiny bit to have a skype date, and planning months ahead for the summer?
it isn't okay. leave me alone. people like that make me want to go back to camp even worse, so i can be with people who understand it.
camp is not an idol in my life; it's because of God that i love it so much and talk about it all the time. if God told me to go somewhere else, i'd do it. i don't assume it's where he wants me; i KNOW it's where he wants me, because he constantly confirms it. i ask him a lot if it's still what he wants. i'm totally open to other possibilities; just because my first choice happens to be what he wants doesn't mean i'm taking over God's plan or jumping to unbiblical conclusions.
God is my life, camp just happens to be the biggest part of that life. so if i ever say "camp is my life", calm down. that's all i mean by it.
*steps off soap box*
satan is trying so hard to get to me and it's only february. you know what that means? this is gonna be an awesome summer. =]

mondays.

at my school "a case of the mondays" is a good thing. most of us don't have class, so it means a day to catch up on homework before a busy week starts, or just relax.
but at camp, it's the best thing ever.
you wake up to a whole new week, and an empty cabin that will soon be full of brand new campers.
you go to breakfast and everybody's in their staff shirts and everybody's all excited.
you walk out and there are almost always one or more campers(i've worked about 50 camps and i can only remember once or twice where there were no early arrivers).
then the whole day is just full of happy things, new and old. new campers. new missionaries. old campers showing up here and there. the longer you work here, the more exciting mondays become, because more and more returning campers will recognize you(though that has a negative side: it's hard to remember that many. and not all of them were in your cabin, so some you may not even know at all!). everywhere you go, you run into a familiar face. mondays are FULL of hugs.
plus it's chicken finger night! everything is just the best.
i love mondays. i miss them. i want one right now.

#3wordstodescribeme

that's the top trending topic on twitter right now. whenever anyone asks me that, i think of my very first camp la vida interview.
and when i saw that today, and thought that, i realized that it's pretty close to the anniversary of that day. i thought for a second about waiting until then to write this, but then #3wordstodescribeme probably wouldn't be trending anymore so the post wouldn't make sense.
february 18, 2008. i was scared out of my mind, heart beating so fast i can only remember feeling that close to a heart attack two other times in my life, and wondering how i could possibly convince this unknown, scary woman that i deserved to work at her camp.
and i thought, not even thinking to pray for it to happen or wondering at all if it really would, that i really wished i could talk to elizabeth teal right then. i would feel so much better, and she would tell me how great i was, and she gives the best hugs in the world(for real. no one i've met since has beaten her yet).
me and my mom get there, and i'm contemplating telling her to wait in the car, but like the dentist's office, this just felt like one of those places where i'd have a nervous breakdown if i didn't have my mom walk me in. i tell the receptionist or whatever you'd call her that i'm here to see cindy skelton. she says she's with someone, points me to a chair, but i was too nervous to sit down, so as i do in any unfamiliar room, i gravitated to the bookshelves, and read the GA magazines until i heard people coming.
and i look up to see my at-the-time favorite person in the whole entire world, my hero, the person i most wanted and needed to see at that moment, walking out with cindy.
for once in my life, she had to come give me a hug first. i was too busy standing with my mouth open. and even once i broke out of my thoughts and started talking, i think i was still too nervous about everything else to be totally myself, because i don't remember talking very much or very fast, or jumping around at all.
i do remember asking her to cheat for me and tell me some of the questions cindy would ask, and i especially remember her asking, first thing after the initial yay-hi-allthehugs-howareyou-omgimissedyou, what i was there for. and i thought, duh, i'm applying to be you, silly. we've talked about this since i was thirteen?
the room i interviewed in was way bigger than i felt was necessary for just two people; it adds to the scare factor. it was this big conference room type thing, just like what you see in movies where people work in offices. i remember there being an echo...but it may have just seemed like that to me. i felt after every single question like i was bombing it, and i kept thinking, she hired all the crazy people you love, so it shouldn't be an issue if you actually talk and be yourself. but i couldn't.*
now when i asked elizabeth what cindy would ask me, she gave me a general idea but couldn't remember any specific questions, except for, you guessed it: the three words one.
yet when that came up, it took me a while to think of them. but i finally answered loud, happy, and fun.
she gave me a look that over the years i've probably seen a hundred times. it's kind of, surprised, but not in a bad way, skeptical but not in a negative way. it's not a bad look; it actually makes me laugh. i get it when i say things like "i never need to take a break" or "can i pleeeeease clean the dining hall since i'm not a cabin leader this week?" or if i volunteer to run to unit 3 and get the craft stuff when it's 99 degrees out.
anyways. due to my nervous as all get out demeanor, i can see why she'd need some convincing that i'm not a shy little introvert who would hate skit night.
annnnnd you know the rest of the story. i obviously got the job(the letter came on the 29th, which is a special day anyways since it only comes around every 4 years, but now it's one of my favorite days in my whole life. i was as proud of that letter as if it had come from hogwarts on my 11th birthday), and i love cindy. i can make her laugh now. (it's a sign of my being totally comfortable around you if i can make you laugh, that means i'm being myself, and myself is hilarious)
around this time of year, there are new people like 16-year-old me going through the same thing. i should pray for them.

*looking back, i think it was mostly scary because i had assumed for three years that i would someday be working there. now that i was looking the opportunity straight on, knowing it was possible that i might not get that, i had no idea what i would do if that happened. i had no alternative. my whole life was built around the idea that camp would one day BE my life. now, it's even better than i imagined. because camp isn't the center of my life; it's the center of where God wants me, but if he put me somewhere else, i'd be okay.(i mean i'd complain a LOT at first, and i'd doubt it for a good while before finally going along with it, but eventually i'd be okay. i wouldn't be lost and borderline suicidal or anything)

I FOUND MY FAVORITE OLD CAMP SONG EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

i have been trying for YEARS to remember this song. all i could remember of it was "and that's why i'm bananas for the lord". we sang it my first two years as a camper and then it just phased out. but i LOVE this song. there were really fun motions that you do with a partner, which i can't remember, but here are the words. i can't believe i never thought to google it until today.

(sung to the tune of the battle hymn of the republic)
He’s a peach of a savior; He’s the apple of my eye
He prunes away my branches, when my branches get too high
He bears the fruit of the season, for his love will never die
And that’s why I’m bananas for the Lord!
Glory, Glory we’re the branches
Glory, Glory we’re the branches
Glory, Glory we’re the branches
And that’s why I’m bananas for the Lord!