i thought i’d write another sample day’s schedule for anyone interested (dad) in the nitty-gritty of what happens here.

• 9.00 am – started for the day. (i got to start late because i’m on for dinner) responded to mailbox club (corres. course for kids) letters, checked el rancho emails
• 10.00 am – morning tea/prayer with all staff
• 10.20 am – responded to el rancho emails, called a potential leader, sent forms to potential leaders, wrote up numbers for ian about past camp, uploaded cross photos, worked with adelle on easter convention brochure, printed off directions for clint on making marshmallow guns
• 12.00 pm - lunch in the staff room
• 12.30 pm – served lunch (pizza, salad, brownies)
• 12.40 pm – dishes
• 1.05 pm – set up equipment for go karts, tested go karts
• 1.30 pm – first go karts session
• 2.30 pm – second go karts session
• 3.35 pm – re-tested go karts, put equipment away
• 4.00 pm – tested marshmallow blow pipes
• 4.20 pm – back to the office, worked on easter convention brochure
• 5.00 pm – dinner in the staff room, fought others to keep my special vegetarian broccoli & cheese bites, didn’t share any
• 5.30 pm – served dinner (rice, beef, broccoli, pumpkin, fruit cobbler)
• 5.45 pm – dinner dishes
• 6.25 pm – done for the day

so there we go. i think that’s actually a pretty fair representation of what goes on around here. i’m in and out of the office, activities, and dishes, with the occasional bout of cleaning here and there. and as you can see, i never work all too hard talk about a cool job.

… i got a JOB!!

i officially got the job! i’m being written a 6-month contract, so from january through july, i will be a paid member of the new zealand workforce as the ministry camps coordinator at el rancho.

the job entails: planning and running ministry camp programs for children, keeping in touch with our volunteer leaders, managing our follow-up/mailbox club, and organizing values programmes for school and church groups that come in.

it’s an awesome job.

so it looks like i’ll definitely be in new zealand through mid-july!

i posted more pictures too. monday was labour day, so we got off early and the 8 of us went for a hike. we are calling it the death tramp. read the captions on the photos for more explanation, but basically, there were signs warning you not to take this trail and we figured, being such expert hikers, we could handle it. thank God no one came back injured.

http://picasaweb.google.com/doesthatcomeingold/OtakiForksDEATHTramp

then tuesday, we were all off together and someone had the lovely idea that we play paintball. it was fun and horrible all at the same time. i played the first four games, but the last two i chickened out on (hence the lack of gun in the “after” photo).

http://picasaweb.google.com/doesthatcomeingold/WhoseIdeaWasItToPlayPaintball

rachel posted pictures today!!!

including some interesting ones i have not posted, such as crossing the pool, neville’s hangi, team-building (the day i broke my collarbone!), how to run the flying fox, and how to clean a cabin!

just an fyi that i have posted pictures recently on my picasa.

Somes Island: daytrip with rachel and christine via ferry to this desolate island in the middle of the wellington harbor. http://picasaweb.google.com/doesthatcomeingold/SomesIslandPopulationSheep 

Rotorua: they call it rotovegas, although we never ever did find it to have anything in common with las vegas. however, it is an interesting place and provided for a wonderful mini-vacation after the long week that was kids’ camp. http://picasaweb.google.com/doesthatcomeingold/RotoruaTheLasVegasOfNewZealand

more photos to come soon. rach and i are trying to start taking some pictures around camp so that you won’t all think we are constantly on holiday

okay, so i’ve given you the basic overview of camp… now to get to some details.

one night, half the kids watched a movie. the other half went on a spy mission. it was awesome.

so step one: the kids were assigned mission teams with spy team captains. then they went to an undisclosed location where they were met by two el rancho agents and watched this important mission briefing on video feed (written by the brilliant jonguy):

A Few minutes ago, while you were all at dinner, El-rancho was infiltrated by a crack group of Genovian Commandos. These highly trained soldiers have set up their headquarters in Redwood and are planning to capture you all and turn El-Rancho into a Military Base. Your Mission, should you choose to accept it, is to infiltrate Redwood, Bypass the guards and all security and steal the blueprints for the New El-Rancho military base. Without these plans, the enemy will be unable to complete their task and will be forced to retreat.The documents retrieved must be destroyed within 1 hour of being taken. No-one is to be allowed to see the plans. Be Warned, these are highly trained troops. A direct frontal assault is not an option. You must enter Redwood covertly under cover of darkness. If you are detected there is a high likelihood of the blueprints being moved to a secure location from which they can not be stolen.You must save El-Rancho. Failure is not an option.

This message will self destruct in 5 seconds.

the el rancho agents gave them a briefing and they proceeded into redwood to defeat the enemy soldiers… they had to sneak in, shut down security by playing a game, answer a quiz to prove they were from el rancho, hide from the guards, drink a special serum to lower their body temperature in order to pass through a heat-sensitive area, hide their entire team in a broom closet, navigate a hall of lasers, rescue a hostage, and FINALLY, defeat the genovian masterminds at a vigorous game of wii bowling. then they went outside and burned the blueprints. it was amazing. the leaders were spectacular actors, the kids loved it. of course, it ran way longer than it was supposed to, but it was so much fun!

so i could go on and on and on about camp, obviously, but i will try to hit some highlights instead.

the hard part: one morning, at leaders’ prayer time, i took a cue from tim davis and basically broke the leaders down. a lot of people had been saying negative things about their preformance — they weren’t showing up where they were supposed to be, they weren’t involved like they should, they were pranking each other….. so we had a little heart-to-heart. i told them that it was hard to be a young person coming in and doing this, and that i needed their support. it was hard. i felt bad. i actually found myself apologizing later to some of them, but i think it made a difference.

the result of the hard part: that day, i really think that there were some changes. a leader had a juice fight with another leader, then apologized to me. a lot of the leaders came up and said things to me. 2 of the girls bought ME candy! they were so sweet, and soo encouraging. all of them. i really, really felt like we were ‘all in this together,’ trying to accomplish the same thing, and that their hearts were really in it. looking back, i wish that i were able to rally them behind Jesus, rather than supporting me… but that’s to be remembered for next camp. anyway, the next morning at prayer time, we gave each other stars, which is when you compliment each other for the awesome qualities or things you’ve seen in each other, and they really had awesome things to say to one another. i felt like the mood, the energy, was so positive that day, and i enjoyed every second of that morning. it was one of those moments you just want to hold on to.

the chat room: after each one of our speaker’s sessions, the kids are invited to come down to “the chat room” if they would like to pray or talk more about the lesson or anything else that is going on in their lives. it was so great to hear some of the questions the kids raised, to see just how many kids would come down to the chat room (a third of the camp was there one night!), and to hear the way some of the leaders responded to the things that the kids were bringing up.

eating without utensils: the last night, i talked to the kitchen staff and got approval to feed the kids their dinner without any silverware — only a teaspoon (that’s a really tiny spoon used for stirring your tea… we don’t quite use them back home). so i went over the microphone and announced that the genovians had taken one last act of vengeance before they relinquished control over redwood hall, and that they had stolen all of the silverware. all that we had left were a few teaspoons that had been locked up in a safe. first, i don’t think i’ll forget the look on some of the kids’ faces when i told them they’d have to eat with their hands or their faces. nathan cheered big time. but i really remember eating with my face, looking around at some of the leaders and just sharing big grins. it’s so funny how something so simple and silly can be so much fun, but it was.

the lessons God taught me: sadly, i don’t think that i will be able to recapture it here, but i learned a lot through this process. the first night, i had an emotional and spiritual breakdown, as i came to the conclusion that i had too far compartmentalized the spiritual and programming aspects of camp, whereas Christ should be a part of everything that happens at camp, not just for an hour in the mornings and evenings. it was just a BIG reminder to me about why i was here, and why the camp was even running in the first place. lots of people can run a camp. that takes planning, creativity, energy…. but sharing Jesus with a bunch of kids, that’s another story. and oddly enough, you start to forget that part, until God works through someone to remind you of that. so that happened too.

well… it’s been over two weeks now since camp ended. i miss it. there are cute kids here now, but i don’t know them. i don’t see them all day, i don’t know their names, i don’t know what else is on their schedule for the day… i miss our leaders. i miss working with the other volunteers on one shared goal.

but that’s a good thing because our next camp is only about 80 days away

october? wow.

what a crazy crazy month it has been.

first of all, camp was awesome. i wish that i had found time to squeeze in some blogging during the camp week, because there are so many stories to tell and so many ups and downs that i won’t be able to capture now… in sum, it was awesome though! i wouldn’t trade that experience for the world.

i only have a few pictures from the week, but you can find them here: http://picasaweb.google.com/doesthatcomeingold/SpyCamp

El Rancho Junior Camp
So 4 weeks before camp was to start, stephen met with me, rach, paul & tim (jon & christine weren’t here yet). He said that he wanted us to have an active role in planning the upcoming junior camp, as he would be leaving el rancho on the last day of the program. He had talked with the other el rancho staff and they had decided it would be a good idea to get the internationals more involved with the planning. Stephen asked what type of roles we were interested in taking on, and if anyone wanted to take a leadership role in the process. I volunteered. As of that day, we already had campers registered, but we didn’t have a theme or a speaker, and we only had about 3 leaders confirmed to work the week.

A few days later, stephen basically says to me, if you’re going to head this up, you need to do so. So from this point forward, i realize that i am not a part of this thing, i am leading this thing, and we need to get moving. It was a bit of a confusing transition at first, but once i knew i had the okay to go, and that i wasn’t really working under his guidance, but actually taking it over, well then i got to work.

we picked a theme. you saw that. i got flyers out quickly and rachel started contacting leaders…. we all got involved in different capacities with the planning. there were some late nights, but things came together.

and then it happened. all of a sudden, it was monday, and the leaders were arriving. that was cool. i think the leaders were all between 15 and 17 years old, and they are awesome people. it was fun to get to know them, and i really felt like they accepted us right away. the first night, we didn’t do much, but stephen was there to do some of the introductions and smoothing things over. clay showed up and talked to the group of us, and then they started a movie and i was able to get some more planning done.

leaders’ training was most of tuesday. it went pretty well. i know that my incessant talking got boring at some points, but we covered a lot of stuff, and i wish that our camp back home had more training like this. the leaders definitely knew what was going to happen for the week, what their role was, and what our expectations of them were. i think the fact that the leaders know the schedule and stuff keeps them ‘in the loop’ and helps show them that they are a valued part of the camp, which is cool

about an hour before registration was supposed to open, kids started showing up! everyone managed to get registration set up pretty quickly though to receive the kids, and i think they were able to get excited from the start. we set up spy agency registration, where they got their handbooks and we fingerprinted them, and we actually had a couple of kids show up in disguises one of the best things about registration for me was that i was able to pop in all the cabins and visit everyone for a minute. apart from the fact that 2 of the boys’ cabins had one too many people in them, that all went pretty smoothly.

then we brought them all together and did our intro talk. it was pretty boring, but it’s a lot of stuff that we are required to tell them in order to keep our funding with this one group. so, i talked. and then clay talked. i think he did a great job from the beginning, and the kids were really attentive to him.

that first night ran really well — a few kids came down to the chat room to talk about different things that were going on in their lives, and then we played part of a dvd upstairs to quiet the kids down before bed.

so the bulk of camp is three full days — wednesday, thursday, and friday. the schedule is nearly identical for each of these days. i will post it now for you to read

• 6:30 am – leaders’ prayer meeting
• 7:00 am – leaders’ meeting
• 7:15 am – kids wake up
• 7:40 am – cabin inspections & cadence drills (cadences are army-style chants that the kids had to preform for cabin points)
• 8:00 am – breakfast
• 8:30 am – morning duties (work details)
• 9:00 am – cabin devotionals
• 9:30 am – worship
• 9:45 am – clay’s session
• 10:15 am – morning tea
• 10:30 am – wide games (big outdoor games)
• 12:00 pm – lunch
• 1:00 pm – activity rotation #1 (flying fox, go carts, rock wall, archery, canteen & waterslide, horses, orienteering, team initiatives)
• 2:00 pm – activity rotation #2
• 3:00 pm – afternoon tea (cookies & juice)
• 3:30 pm – activity rotation #3
• 5:30 pm – dinnner
• 6:30 pm – evening activity (different each night)
• 8:00 pm – worship & session with clay
• 9:00 pm – chat room & snack
• 9:30 pm – prepare for bed

… to be continued tomorrow after i get some sleep.