So sorry it's been so long, we've been in full swing with Training Week and it's been insanity!! We have our first thing at 7:30am, then after our nightly worship and socializing, we get into our cabins around 11 or 11:30. I never thought I would enjoy a 16-hour day so much. This week has been incredibly amazing. I've grown a lot and the campers aren't even here yet.
I'll start sort of from the beginning. It's about to be information overload people! Training Week started last Thursday afternoon. We have what we call covenant groups. It's a person on leadership (someone who typically just graduated/about to graduate college) who is in charge of me, a coach. They put us into groups and we each have a leadership person that is our covenant leader. Mine is Laura Goode. She was a coach last year. She's originally from Florida, but went to OBU so we had that common ground last year of going to school in Arkansas. Then last October, we had a girl’s retreat in Mabank, TX so I drove down and picked her up on the way so we spent the whole weekend together. We bonded real well last summer and have kept in touch over the school year. I was SO excited that she was my covenant leader!!!! There are 9 girls in my covenant. I will have to post pictures as soon as I download them onto my computer. They're all wonderful, sweet girls that I'm SO excited to get to know better. Anyway, throughout the course of the week we all share testimonies with our cov to really get to know one another and form these deep bonds. It's so amazing to see how God can take a person on such a journey over the course of just 5 years or so. We all have very different stories, but it's wild how we struggle with the same types of things. One girl lost her dad a year ago May 20th I believe to a random illness that was totally out of the blue. I told my testimony before she did and talked about mom, and how that played a part (and still does) in shaping me. She came up to me after and told me that she really enjoyed it, that it encouraged her, and was uplifting. I wanted to turn around and see if she was looking at someone else behind me. Me? My story encouraged you? Wow! God is good and can use anyone that's for sure.
Throughout training week, we've been going over our "play book" basically our coach's training book. We've been having cov time every morning, going over our Batter's Box for the kids. Batter's Box is our daily bible studies we do with our kids every morning. We go through them as a covenant to make sure that we don't have any questions and to think of good ways to explain things better, etc. We do hi-ho's (work projects...hi-ho hi-ho it's off to work we go) like painting, spreading mulch, cleaning cabins, etc. Camp is looking SO much better than when we first arrived.
We had a guy who is an EMT, fireman, and police officer come give us a crash course in CPR. His name is Craig (not my old youth minister for those of you who were wondering), and he was HILARIOUS! We had to go over a sexual misconduct course because apparently there was a case that just appeared about a year ago about a camp counselor who had sexually molested multiple children 10 years ago! It was just now surfacing though, what a sad incident for those kids (who are now my age-ish).
We went over a few of our theme nights. Every night at camp we have "theme nights" such as Mission Impossible, Hospital Hoop-la, Pyramid Pandemonium, Dancing through the Decades, Texas County Fair, and there's a couple more that I can't think of. We do lots of fun stuff every night with the kids for whichever theme night it is. We did Mission Impossible which is a big mission that you have to run all across camp and do these missions, get a clue to the next mission, and so on. It's a whole lot of fun! One of the girls in my cov missed a step (it's at night) and sprained her ankle. I had to carry her on my back for the rest of the time. It was a sight (she's about my size, I was wearing camo pants, camo headband, and a black tank top, you get the picture!)
Of course, we've been having a lot of fun as well! From about 9-11 every night (depending on the day) we've been having free time. We play in the gym, have s'mores or slushes or coke floats, and just fellowship with one another. It's a great experience to live in such community with people that are my age, like to have fun, and passionate about having a relationship with Christ (otherwise they wouldn't put themselves through this "torture").
My all time favorite part about training week is finding out our "co's". In a cabin you live with 1 or 2 co-coaches, we call them co's. If you're in a certain cabin you have 2 co's, if you're in another type of cabin you just have 1. We found out last night! They had duct taped one end of a string to a tree and written your name on it. Then it was weaved around, loop-d-looped, over and under ALL the other coach's strings. Then the other end of it was taped to a tree with your co's name on it. It reminded me of Parent Trap when they sort of trash the other cabin and it's an insane amount of string everywhere. My co's name is Hannah Walker. She was a coach last year too. Funny story. Last summer, I was real intimidated by Hannah. I wasn't exactly "miss congeniality" at camp because I was afraid of becoming friends with other boys because I hadn't really made any new guy friends since I'd met Mick the previous August. I was nervous that if I made friends with camp guys, Mick and I would grow apart and I definitely did not want that so I was sure to keep my distance. Anyway, Hannah was one of those girls who I didn't really get to know, but sadly I judged. We worked first half together last year but I don't ever remember having a real conversation with her. It's amazing how this week during Training Week all us returners have in a sense joined together. We've been able to break down some walls (like me and Hannah) and get rid of these preconceived thoughts of who we thought another person was when we really had no clue. So to make a long story longer, Hannah and I got to know one another this week better and turns out we're co's! I'm SO excited to see what God has in store for us. We're both full summer. I'm a volleyball coach first half, and she's a sampler coach first half (sampler is for the youngest kids at camp, they go around to all the different sports because it's hard to teach them just one thing for the whole week yada yada). Then we're both GCD (gym, cheer, dance) coaches for the 2nd half. We're staying in the girls quad which is 5 separate cabins all under one roof. I have no idea why it's called the quad when there's actually 5 cabins. Who knows! Our cabin is called Hickory Creek so we're the "Hick Chicks", catchy I know!
Last night (Friday) we went out to Camp Travis for a boot scoot. Camp Travis is like the older version of Sports Camp which is what I'm at. SC (sports camp) is for kids who just finished 1st-6th grade. CT (camp travis) is for kids who just finished 7th-11th grade. Travis is on a lake so they're more of the typical camp you think of with water sports and what not. Anyway, we went there for a cookout, then a worship time, and a boot scoot. People in Texas go dancin'...like for fun. If you don't know how to two step you're out of the loop. I told them that if a guy came up to Arkansas and asked other guys if they wanted to go "dancing" they would think he was weird most likely. They also wear legitimate cowboy boots here too. I brought some of Laura's fashionable boots down here thinking they would suffice. I asked one of my friends if I should wear them or if they would laugh me outta the place. She said not to wear them haha.
Today has been a good day. I slept in until 9:30! I never thought the day would come that I, Rachel Purtee, would be tickled pink to sleep in until 9:30am. I moved in to my cabin with my co, got all my stuff organized. I went to the laundromat (<-- spelling?) and did laundry. I had an awesome conversation with a lady there. She was hispanic and had an accent so she was hard to understand at times. There was a big group of T Bar M people there, and she saw our tshirts with T Bar M all over them. She asked what T Bar M, etc. We had a cool conversation, and she ended up getting the camp web address and phone number because she wanted to sign up her kids for camp. It was a real neat experience getting to ask her about her kids, and explain what our "mission" was at camp with teaching kids about God as well as sports. It's funny, she lives right down the road from T Bar M and had never heard of it. It's cool how God gives us opportunities.
Tomorrow, campers come!!! I'm VERY excited for our first group to get here. We can have up to 13 campers in our cabin I believe. I'm ready to get into the routine of things and get this first week underway. It's always the best because it's totally new and you begin establishing the flow of the summer. Apparently every few years Texas (or New Braunfels at least) has a real rainy summer. This summer could potentially be one of those or it could be dry as a bone like last summer. In my 5 weeks last year we only had 1 day that it rained, and it only did so for about 10 minutes. I hope this year it doesn't rain tremendously. Then we have to move things inside, you have to find different ways to entertain energetic kids, and it throws everything off. Oh well, if it is we can just make the best of it! I'm also excited to coach volleyball. I love teaching my girls and helping them learn. You always hear those who can't do, teach. I feel that describes me pretty well. I wasn't the most athletic or talented player, but I could absorb the knowledge and I love passing that on. Anyway, I will do my best to update as often as possible. It may be that my only time to write is on Saturdays. Letters are still welcome and greatly appreciated. I'll even write you back if you like.
