Kids, Camp, and Just Joy!

Today I'm thankful for camp!! I was looking back over pictures from the summer and it made me miss it soooo much!! Committing my summer to working with kids week after week was one of the best decisions I've ever made! It was an incredible blessing to be able to touch so many different lives in just a few months. It's so easy with kids because for the most part they just want someone to listen to them, play with them, and genuinely love and care for them. And that's what I had the privilege of doing this summer!

Kids would come (usually for a week) and as counselors, it was our job to put our cell phones up, ignore everything else that was going on in our lives for a little while, and make sure these kids knew that we were there for them and they were our number one priority. Some people thought it was crazy to spend my whole summer getting paid way under minimum wage, where cell phone service was pretty bad, and I didn't have any time to visit friends from school, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat!

I spent my weekdays trudging in the mud trying to pull stuck kids out of a kayak in the pond, yelling "Make sure your safety is on while you cock the gun.", painting faces for our Monday night carnivals, trying to explain how to get an arrow in a hay bale but not being able to successfully demonstrate it, getting pushed into the pool fully dressed (multiple times!), catching lizards, killing snakes, pulling catfish off of hooks, staying up late brainstorming ideas of things to do on rainy days, getting up early to sing songs at 8:00 on hot mornings in the sun, teaching finger-knitting, singing "Do everything without complaining" over.....and over......and over again, and getting told "You're the best counselor ever!" followed by a hug!!!

(Yes I know that was just one giant run-on sentence....I don't really care though! lol. )

It was the BEST summer of my 19 years so far!! I wouldn't trade it for the world!! I am so thankful that I got to spend my summer loving kids! I will never forget any of the precious kids that I met this summer. They all hold a special place in my heart.