Beginning a New School Year

The beginning of a new school year is always exciting. I think I like it most because it is a clean slate. No matter what has happened in previous years, now you begin again. It can be whatever you make of it. It is a chance to try new things, relate to new students and also revisit the things you know work and enjoy teaching most.

We've just finished a week of inservice. Most of it was outstanding. It has lead to many interesting and challenging conversations throughout the week. Here are a few highlights:

Kim Ellis spoke on Monday about students in poverty. I had heard some of this stuff before, but it always hits home. It reminds me that the students I serve (even though they are very smart) have issues related to growing up in poverty or from being surrounded by people who are in poverty. They think differently about things than I do, and I need to be aware of their perspective. It was also interesting to hear from teachers who came out of poverty to be the first person in their family to graduate high school, then college. It reminded me of the impact teachers have on lives.

Tuesday we had Mark McCloud who gave a great presentation about classroom management, procedures, and building appropriate meaningful relationships with students. He was so dynamic and all his material was very practical. He engaged every teacher in the room from the first year beginners to the veterans like me. He made us all proud of our profession and eager to greet our students when the first day comes along.


Thursday we had a couple of fairly typical inservice sessions and then had the community celebration in the evening. Steven James performed several stories for the crowd and a free meal was served. It was an enjoyable evening.

Today we heard from all the central office staff and I have to say they are a top-notch group of people. They work so hard and care so much about excellence. Phil gave a brief talk, and I was so proud of him. We wrapped it all up with Steven James once again. He did a great job instructing us on stories and how important they are in engaging our students. I love storytelling, so everything he did today was right down my alley.


All in all it has been a really interesting and stimulating week. It's not often you can say that about inservice. Special thanks to all who made it happen.

Now let's get to work!

Last post from COTW

This is the lodge where we ate all our meals. It was filled with campers each day. The system they have worked out for setting up, serving and cleaning up after each meal is a sight to behold. Quite efficient!

I got to speak a couple of times for chapel. I used the wheelbarrow as an illustration of how we have to give God control of our life. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path." Proverbs 3:5-6


It's all about trying to be sure the kids feel the love of God. We tried many things to help them have a fun week. I don't know how you could be a kid and not have had fun. I got to help them blow bubbles for one of their activities. They thoroughly enjoyed it.

Jacklyn, Crystal and I had a wonderful time serving the Lord at Camp of the Woods. We are all ready for the next trip. Who's coming with us?

Monday, July 19, 2010

A new group of campers arrived today. It is hard to have as much enthusiasm for this week’s work as last week’s. I can’t imagine how it would be to stay the entire summer. But we worked hard to make the game time we are in charge of a success. It was a warm day today so we were able to set up a couple of water hoses and some other water activities and have a very enjoyable afternoon out in the sun. There is no lifeguard this week so they are not allowed to swim in the lake this week. If we have another warm day, we may allow them to go wading.

I was scheduled to help with the Amazing Race part of the activities this week. I was supposed to accompany a team around as they competed. However, my hamstring injury continues to bother me, and I had to bow out of that job. It was disappointing.

As I sit here looking out over the lake, I continue to be amazed by the beauty I find here. The “heavens” definitely declare the glory of the LORD. There are several canoes rowing toward home. The kids here are enjoying the activities. It has been a good day.

Weekend Fun

They really know how to relax on the weekend here and show everyone a good time.
Saturday we watched as they shot off the "potato gun."

Sunday afternoon someone came with a boat, and I went tubing for the first time.

After I got in the water and actually went off the high dive. Not bad for the "elderly."



And the best part was that I didn't get any leaches on me. Yes, I did say leaches.

Weekend

This weekend we get to rest. It is much needed. The campers require a lot of energy and we need to be recharged. We will have the same responsibilities as we had last week, so it will again be busy.

We are going into Dryden this afternoon just to get out and see some other places. We plan to eat dinner there.

Another activity that we did this week was to spend some time blowing bubbles. I've done this with my kids at school, so I knew it would be fun for these kids too. I have a recipe for some extra good bubble juice, and it was a big hit with the kids.


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The little boy in the picture is the one who made the "elderly" comment. He's a sweetie in spite of it.

Friday

Friday, July 16
One last day with these campers. The week has flown by. It has held blessing upon blessing for all of us.

One of my responsibilities for the week was to run a specialized activity. The campers can choose from things like paintball, archery, canoeing, rock climbing, crafts, and other things. My activity is called navigation. It involves using different things to help you find your way to puzzle pieces that I have hidden around the camp. We have used directions, riddles, compass, maps and GPS to find our way.

In the end all the pieces form a picture of Camp of the Woods. At the end I tell them that God is using Camp of the Woods to navigate in their lives. Everyone has seemed like they had fun doing it.


Wednesday it rained and that caused some disruption in our schedule and made for quite a sloppy day. We still had to do as much of our activities as we could so we spent the day pretty wet.

Wednesday night one of the families that were working here this week got news that a car wreck had killed close family friend. They all left early Thursday morning, and that has caused a good deal of changes to the schedule here. I know Crystal had to take up some of the slack. She spent most of Thursday in the kitchen, and I know she was very tired last night.

Last night in chapel I got to share my talk about making bowls and how God works in our lives like a craftsman making a beautiful and useful piece of art. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, and I was very happy to share.

We are all looking forward to a good rest over the weekend.

All in a Day's Work

Monday, July 12
Here I am again in Sunset Country. It is gorgeous! The weather here has been unbelievably nice. Highs around 70, lows in the 50’s. Sure beats the heat and humidity in Tennessee.

Camp has begun and we have a full house of about 75 eight to eleven-year-olds. They arrived at 10:30 and the place has been hoping ever since.

Jacklyn, Crystal and I have a wide variety of assignments as support staff. Today we have cleaned the staff bathrooms, and I do mean CLEANED the staff bathrooms. You should have seen the list that we had to do. We have to do that again on Wednesday and Friday.

We all have assignments in the kitchen too. These chores include setting tables, drying dishes, serving food and putting things away after the meals. Crystal also has to make gallons of koolaid and lemonade for meals, and she has to sweep and mop the kitchen in the middle of the day. She has been a busy girl.

Jacklyn has been assigned to run a lot of the games. She is doing great and enjoying that.
Our biggest challenge is in the afternoon. All the campers cannot swim at one time and so we have to entertain about 50 kids for almost 2 hours. It is going to require a lot of creativity on our part. I hope it goes smoother tomorrow than it did today.

Their favorite game is Canadian Beaver. It is extremely rough but they love it.

It has been quite a day and I’m glad it is done. Tomorrow holds some new chores and new responsibilities. We’ll see.

On the Road Again

I have been too busy to post anything here for a while. I wanted very much to blog about my history trip to DC but the conditions we were under made it unfeasible to do that. I may yet post some of the more interesting facts I learned from my travels. Being away has also made many other tasks more expedient than reading and writing so they have fallen by the wayside.

Now I am planning to be gone another two weeks. I will be returning to Canada to work at Camp of the Woods. This time I will be taking two gals from my church with me, Jacklyn Pope and Crystal Queen. They are both excited to go, and I can't wait to see what God has planned for us as we go. These are two dear girls, and I am so looking forward to spending time with them. We aren't exactly sure what our duties will be but we are ready to do whatever is needed. We leave Friday morning and plan to cross the border Sunday morning, so keep us in your prayers.

As soon as I get back I will have to start inservice at school. Then I guess I'll have to stay put. In total I will have been gone 6 out of 8 weeks of the summer. That's a new record for me.

Phil is excited for me, but this will be our longest time apart ever. He is out of town right now and I will leave before he returns. Three weeks apart is a long time!

I hope that I will be able to post things while I am gone, but I don't know how much time I'll have. Last time I was there, there were no campers. This time there will be lots of kids and different duties. We'll just have to see.

Keep us in your prayers. God is so good to give us this opportunity to serve Him.