Junior Week 2

This past week, I’ve been tired… and cranky.

The weather had some affect on this.  The beginning of the week was just plain hot.  It was even very humid at night, which makes for some bad sleeping.  You feel like your swimming in the sheets.  On top of that, this is the first week we haven’t had lifeguards, so there was no swimming.  Not only could the kids not swim, but now we had to plan things for them to do during the time they usually swim.  All this made it a hard week.

Another thing that made this week challenging was some of the campers.  A few of them were just determined to have their way, and if they didn’t get it they threw quite a big fit about it.  And so I had to move into what someone else here called “teacher mode.”  I had to sit a couple of them down and be extremely firm (I told Adam I felt almost mean).  It was the most irritated I have been with children in quite a long time.

But I was determined to not let the rocky start keep me from having a good time with these particular campers.  The rest of the week I interacted with them in as many positive ways as I could.  And by the end of the week I had won them over.  They told their mom that I was their favorite and that they wanted to come for two weeks next year.  Quite a turn around, and such a blessing!

I have been influenced greatly by Steven Covey who wrote “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.”  In it he explains that we all have a “personal bank account” in regards to all the people we interact with.  It is our job to make lots of positive “deposits” into this account by being encouraging, kind, compassionate, etc.  That way when we have to make a “withdrawal” (have some kind of negative interaction, such as correcting a behavior) we have enough in our “account” to make that withdrawal.  Thinking of it that way has helped me keep things in balance in lots of the relationships in my life.  And it worked with the campers this week too.

I mentioned that we had extra help this past week from a great group of people from Northside Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC.  They came and did so many helpful things from working in the kitchen to playing with the kids to filling in the many potholes on the camp road.  We had a terrific storm on Thursday night with lots of trees down but they made quick work of all that.  They were a great blessing and we were sad to see them go.

And so tomorrow begins Junior Week 3.  God will give us strength for the task, and we will wait with wonder to see what He will accomplish.  “This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.” Psalm 118:23