SP Chronicles #6

SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account 6...

It's safe to say that I've made it through half of the summer, because like the rest of the staff here at Timber, it feels like all the pressure is mounting on us right NOW. We're working with over 100 kids which is thoroughly maxing out the camp in almost every way possible, my voice has lost the ability to reach its high register, it's becoming way too easy and tempting for me to blow off these kids, and I am having a serious heartache for home. And to throw another curveball in, one counselor had to go home today because he got sick bad. Basically he's got some kinda virus that makes him faint randomly in the day, and this doesn't go away for a couple weeks. We were all sad to see him go, keep him in your prayers.

It feels like I'm being attacked from all sides, and at this point God decides to tell me to stretch myself even more and expend more energy. He's been wanting me to really find out who Jesus is, and what exactly he came on this earth to do. It's been very interesting to force myself to sit down for 7 minutes and read, to find myself wanting to read even more when I need to go do something else. I have definetely reached my uncomfortable zone, I'll tell ya what.

I just want to go home. The one week I was home I was actually sick, so I was trying to silently recover on my off time, which wasn't very sucessful. It feels like I've been going forever now. It's so bad that when I came to my house I was uncomfortable because everything was so clean. I'm used to dusty mountains, not clean suburbs. But I really want to go home. I love my youth group more than I love this camp, and I'm missing out on stuff with them and other people back home. If I had a choice I'd go back home Saturday, but I know that God's got me here for a reason and I'm not leaving till He gives me the okay.

This whole summer has been so weird, this is the summer of the sickness, the summer of endurance, the summer of transition for the entire staff here, I love it. But now I just want to go home even for a little while, to completely lock myself in my house and recover for three days and then get sent out again on the frontline. I'm just so physically worn out from everything here, and I want a breather so bad. And as bad as I feel saying this, but I don't want to rely on God half the time, I just want to press pause and breathe. But then God kicks me in the bonono and I tell myself to shut up and do my job, and He always makes sure I follow through with it.

I don't even know, I'm just so tired right now. I'm even past curfew, I need sleep. Keep me in your prayers guys, thanks much. See you Placer County people in 24 days.

SugarPine Chronicles, Log Account #5 (Birthday Week)...

So this week has been very interesting. One of those weeks where I had energy but I had trouble letting out of the box. I soon discovered why: the temperature on the mountain was stedialy heating up. As well as being warm, it was humid. And it caught me unawares on Wednesday. As I was putting away the rock wall, I felt a great pressure on my forehead, so I sat down, and discovered I was dehydrated, which was beautiful. So I took in a couple gallons of water that day and made many visits to the restroom as well. Currently I'm getting over a minor cold, I think me being dehydrated took down some of my immune shields and gave me the cold everyone else has at Timber.

BUT, I turned 19 on Friday. And when you're turning one year older on a Friday/Saturday, it's kinda hard not to have a good week. But this one will stand out in my mind for all time, let me assure you. The cook Eddie and me like to mess with each other a lot. We're good friends, but our way of showing friendliness is to be cruel to each other. So Friday at lunch, Eddie came out with a birthday cake that had some beautiful frosting in it. It reminded me of the scene in Hook when they were having the food fight and frosting was flying everywhere, this should have thrown a warning flag in my mind. So as I'm eating cake and everything, Eddie comes out from the kitchen with his own piece of cake that he's eating. Then he walks right up to me as I'm talking, and slams his cake in my face. Now it has always been my secret, unvoiced desire to have cake flung into my face, but I knew that whenever that happened, what was to follow would be crazy, one of the best moments of my life, and potentially something I could regret.

So as Eddie's running away, I come after him, jump on him and wipe the frosting that's on my face, on his face. Somehow my buddy Ben got involved, got frosting on him, and shoved some frosting deep down Eddie's ear. Keep in mind that the whole time this is going on, our boss is taking a break and having lunch down in Oakhurst with her husband, and we are in a building filled with impressionable kids. But in all honesty I didn't care, it was my birthday, I'll have a food fight if I want to.

So when I'm done cleaning all the frosting out of my beard, I come out to find that there has been an encore of our cake fight, this time in the kitchen. The kitchen staff are flinging my beautiful cake at each other. The guys are the real instigators and are having a good jolly time, while the girls are the current victims and vowing vengence on all the guys. At one point one of the girls run out to get away, and I hold her in one place so she gets a chance to have frosting rubbed all over her face too.

Since Eddie's the cook and the instigator of this whole thing, he took all the blame, and I got off scott free. Two reasons for this, I believe: it was my birthday, and I was a victim of this whole thing. I am innocent. All I did was have fun with it :D. And now I'm home, so hopefully I'll be healthy and back to crazy when I go back up the mountain. Thank you Jesus for R&R