Sometimes when I complete things in my life I go through two emotions. The first is the feeling of satisfaction, and the second is the feeling of relief. This summer's camp season has been finished for a couple of weeks now, and although I have a little feeling of satisfaction and relief from the work done this summer I have a few other thoughts about how this summer played out. I started the summer camp season already a little exhausted. I had just come off of a youth group retreat and jumped right into my full time work at camp. I was only a week away from when the staff started to arrive and had at least three weeks worth of work to accomplish. Needless to say, the work was not finished when the counselors arrived. Because of this I was forced to spend more time working on those jobs rather than being able to transition into my role as the Ranch Camp Director. This lead to a rough start out at Ranch Camp for me. Overall everything happened when it was supposed to, but it meant that every break that I was supposed to have throughout the week didn't happen because I had too much work to accomplish. Fortunately after about week three of camp I was able to get into the daily routine that I was hoping to have from the start. This made life at camp a little better. During this time my parents had arrived to come and help out at camp for a couple of weeks and spend some time with Chelsea and me.
After the fourth week of camp we were blessed with a staff break that allowed my parents, Chelsea, and myself to take a little vacation down in Seward, AK. Seward is a small fishing village in southern Alaska. We camped for a couple of nights there and went on a sight seeing boat tour on the ocean. It was a great chance to spend time with my parents since we didn't have much time to spare while we were working at camp. While my parents were here they were able to get a lot done around our house that we were hoping to get accomplished. My mom painted our bathroom and our guestroom/office. My dad helped to finish the floor and wall protection and install the wood stove that we wanted to get put into our house. It was great having my parents around for a little while this summer. We finished off the last three weeks of camp without many issues. The staff at Ranch Camp was terrific and made my job for the last few weeks of camp very easy. It was truly a blessing to be able to sit back and watch how God was working through their lives to teach these kids.
Back to the idea of emotions that I talked about at the beginning of this post. I ended the summer feeling a little relieved and satisfied, but I also ended it with excitement for next summer. Through my work at camp this summer I have found many things that i would like to add or change about the way we do ministry at camp. This helps to give me a drive going into this fall and the possibility of how different things can look for next year.
The summer camp season had ended and youth group began in the same week. Chelsea and I took a group of twelve of the youth from our community to Anchorage for a youth conference. Even though I was still very tired from the business of the summer it was still a great experience. It helped to give me a little motivation to get started working with the youth again, and a little jump start in my relationship with God which at times got pushed aside in the business of the summer.
Even though we have been working long days, and had very little time to relax ministry has been great. Both Chelsea and I are taking a life a little slower right now having a little time to catch up with each other and gaining our sanity back. We have a busy month of September ahead of us. Chelsea's older brother is getting married September 11th, we are heading up for a late season trip to Denali National Park September 19th, and we are going to Los Angeles September 24th to the 30th for the National Youth Workers Convention. We are looking forward to the things to come.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your support.
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