Camp is “Awe”some
On Saturdays, we take a break from our regular activity schedules and enjoy some weekend fun. Instead of regular morning activities yesterday, we enjoyed some friendly competition with tournaments. The boys love the opportunity to choose what tournaments they want to participate in, exercising their freedom of choice and building teamwork skills. Tournaments aren’t just limited to sports, and yesterday we had 5 tournament options: Foosball doubles, Pickleball, Magic (a card strategy game), Basketball, and Soccer. Boys who are less into competing themselves can also choose to cheer for their friends instead, and be supportive spectators. Since there aren’t any trips out during the weekend, it’s a chance for the whole camp to participate in games together, and enjoy a day of play.
Something special about this past Saturday is that it was Superhero Day! Everyone came together to play a Marvel vs DC all-camp-game for the Evening Program! The six Infinity Stones (3 gold and 3 green) were lost at camp. As the Avengers rushed in to save the day, the Justice League decided to find them first to regain their original glory.
To play, cabins were divided into the Justice League and the Avengers, which each defended separate halves of camp. The Justice League (DC), defended the north end of camp with the turf field as their headquarters, while the Avengers (Marvel) defended the south end with the tennis courts as their headquarters. The goal was to capture all six Infinity Stones, hidden all around camp, without getting flag belts pulled by the other team!
Today the boys will enjoy sleeping in, and eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts as part of breakfast! At church later today, we’ll be talking about “Awe,” the theme of the week. Every week this summer we’ve had a different theme to shape the nightly Evening Embers questions, and to discuss together at Church. So far over the past few weeks, we’ve focused on Courage, Attitude, and Compassion during June Camp. To kick off this first week of Main Camp, the focus has been on Awe, “a feeling of reverential respect mixed with fear or wonder.” We are often in environments at camp that inspire awe.
During our Evening Embers this week, we’ve been talking about how awe is a very strong feeling of wonder or delight mixed with respect or fear. Awe shows up unexpectedly, waking you up to a new or greater reality than you thought was possible. Something “awesome” is something “extremely impressive or daunting; inspiring great admiration, or sometimes apprehension and fear.” We hope that this summer might inspire awe through the new and amazing experiences that are available to boys at camp. However, the part of the definition about something “awesome” inspiring apprehension or fear can also be true - it can be scary to be away from home for the first time, or to try new things. At camp, boys are never put in danger, but we do encourage them to push their comfort zone as they experience new activities and situations that may be intimidating. Learning to overcome things that feel difficult or scary at first is a great feeling. When you think about it this way, camp is truly “awe”some!
Last night the second half of camp also headed out on their Cabin Overnights. They’re returning this morning and we’ll tell you all about everyone’s overnights in tomorrow’s blog!