Camp Report

July is here. My vacation is over. School starts in a month. Boy, summertime sure is short!

TRASH & TREASURES. My goal in the last time I wrote was to get all the news caught up to the time everyone was returning from camp and then write about the camp experiences this time. As I was writing I knew I was leaving something out, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was. Several days later it dawned on me that I had forgotten to tell about Trash & Treasures. How in the world I managed to forget that is beyond me, but I did.

Trash & Treasures is the community-wide yard sale in Cross Plains. It is held the on the last Friday and Saturday of June every year. We've been away on vacation during this time the last couple of years, but this year we were home and got to go. We were there two weeks ago today.

Yard sales and flea markets don't really run in my blood, but I always enjoy this event because you run into so many people you know. I think it took me and Vicki two hours to walk the three blocks or so from where we parked at one end of town to the other simply because we were visiting with so many people.

Jenna and Ben had fun running around with cousins. Tom and Amy Jones are renovating Uncle Paul's house this summer so that can move out here. (This will be more than a summer project for them.) They have a daughter, Bonnie, and two sons, Spencer and Allen, who are each a year or so older than our kids. We usually see these cousins each year at the Threshermen's Show and we're looking forward to having them as neighbors. (This Jones family is no connection to Vicki's brother and his family.) To get back to the point, our kids enjoyed doing Trash & Treasures with these cousins while Vicki, Nate, and I strolled along by ourselves.

We didn't come away with too many treasures. Vicki found some resource books for children's ministry and a quilt to put on the porch swing. I found an educational electronics kit just in case either of the boys wanted to work on a merit badge as boy scouts. I think the biggest find was that both boys wound up with old Game Boys with some PokeMon games. This has been nice for them as both boys have lost iPods to water this year.

CENTRI-KID. As I mentioned last time Vicki and Ben were part of a group of 24 people who went to Centri-Kid this year. They returned to Georgetown College in Kentucky (though this is the last year that college will be hosting Centri-Kid) and I think everyone had a lot of fun.

Each day begins with a worship rally after breakfast followed by a group Bible study and recreation time. After lunch the kids all have two track times. The day closes with another worship rally after supper and some time for each church group to meet together. It's a very full and intense week for the kids. By the second day Ben's voice was hoarse. Ben said his favorite part was recreation (imagine that). He got baseball and Weird Science as track times which he said were fun as well.

MISSION-FUGE. This year was Jenna's first year to go with the youth group. She was part of 54 people from our church and Friendship Baptist who went down to New Orleans.

M-Fuge is a spin-off for the youth focused Centrifuge camp experience but with an emphasis on mission projects. (Centri-Kid is a spin-off of this as well.) Their schedule was similar to what Vicki and Ben experienced at Centri-Kid with the exception of the track times in the afternoon. These are replaced by a mission project assignment. You can actually see Jenna and her roommate, Savannah, as Bro. Bill interviewed them on his phone and posted the video on our church website (direct link to video - http://vimeo.com/25789371).

Jenna had a great time. I think one thing that was eye-opening for her, though, is that not everyone has the best situation at home. I'm not talking about the people she served in New Orleans, but some of the kids that she goes to school and church with. When she mentioned this to me over the phone all I could say was, "Thank God for your blessings. Not everyone has the fairy tale life that you've had growing up."

Joe