Revenge of Camp Stories: Monday, July 19.

I sleep fitfully, as is not unusual for my first night at camp.  I'm itchy, and every skin-twinge might be the brush of a mosquito's wings.  My bladder eventually drives me to shuffle across the hill to the bathhouse, thumping my temperamental flashlight to life.

All morning I am spacey, too dull-witted to write.  I don't want to be antisocial, so I find conversations to park myself at the edge of, saying little, while my mind drifts.  Later, I'm not the only sleepy one as we listen to the entire book of Mark read aloud by a rotating cast of narrators.  I have to laugh (internally) as I rein myself in from dozing midway through chapter 14, where Jesus is chiding his best friends for falling asleep when he needs them most.  Alas, that would've been me.  "Could you not keep watch for one hour?" he asks, and Mark hardly takes longer than that to read through.

Five people (all girls) sign up for my five-day class on World Travel & Missions.  I am tremendously relieved.  Last year my class on Journal Comics got me three students the first week, none the second.  Though I enjoyed that extra free time, the fail didn't help with my insecurities about teaching.  I'm lining up guest speakers and have finally, the day before starting, managed to visualize my first lesson activity (yeah, prep has never been my strong suit).

Campers are split up into permanent teams for chore assignments and group games.  Each team has a male and female staff member attached to it, responsible for making sure everyone is present and involved.  Last year Jeff (now camp director) was my fellow team leader, and he was so on top of everything that I could often just sit back and enjoy the ride.  This year, an enthusiastic but frequently oblivious college student is my partner, which forces me to have my act together.  This is a good thing (I frequently remind myself).

The latter part of the day echoes memories of old routine: rest period (ahh, blessed naptime), group activity, free time (shower!), dinner, a dodgeball game enhanced with water balloons and the "Death Star", time to clean ourselves up, and evening devotional.  This one's outside, around a campfire, with a skit performed by some of the staff.  The skit involves a young man who is telling his girlfriend how much he loves spending Sundays with her, attending church, praising God, reading the Bible, etc.  "You're my Sunday Girl!" he tells her affectionately, but then inadvertently mentions that he spends Mondays with a different girl, who balances his checkbook and gets his finances in order.  She appears, followed by Tuesday Girl who has just leveled up her fifth World of Warcraft character, Wednesday Girl who likes to veg out and take naps with him, Thursday Girl who likes sports and exercise... you get the picture.  The obvious message is that we should put God first every day of the week, but I am so delighted by the idea of this fantastical romantic arrangement (my roster clearly needs to include a chef, a sailor, a musician...) that it's hard for me to pay attention to the lesson that immediately follows.

The speaker has a lot of hard-earned wisdom to share, but his emphasis is on staying out of trouble by avoiding the big-ticket sins.  I feel strongly that this should not be the core of the message we communicate here, and I disagree with the way he uses fear as a motivator ("I don't think you guys really believe in Hell," he says at one point, as though if we all just believed in it better, everything would be all right).  And while I think the morality of violent video games is certainly worth discussing, he sounds out of touch to me when he warns that they desensitize gamers from their own mortality.  The gamers I know all have a pretty healthy sense of self-preservation.  But frustration with this particular speaker is not new to me, and I grit my teeth, smack at mosquitoes, and wait it out.  It'll get better, I tell myself.  It has to.

My fellow Merry Breezes counselor, Lorraine, wants to do a confessional cabin devo at lights-out time.  I am wary -- as a camper, there's no way I'd open up on the second night -- but I agree to go along with it if our third cabin counselor, Natalie, agrees.  She does, and I am amazed: nearly half the cabin has something to share in that darkened room, something they're running from, something that's holding them back.  For myself, I can't figure out how to describe my struggles with any coherence ("Hey kids, ever heard of acedia?"), but I conclude the session with a song and prayer, and we tumble into our beds where, mercifully, sleep is not long in coming to me.