The year: 2023.
It was the week of June 12, and teenagers were getting up before the dawn- far before it.
I was one of those teens. I rose at 5 am, excited about the week ahead.
It was cold, but I believed that it would warm up as the day progressed. So, with my backpack and water bottle, I went to church and huddled outside the warehouse. Two buses waited to transport us.
Around 5:30, everyone was getting antsy. We were supposed to be going now. No one knew what the problem was.
Our youth pastor told us that one of the counselors was late. But they arrived quickly, all of us piled into buses- girls on one, boys on the other.
We pulled out of the church parking lot, and the journey really began. Quiet was those first hours, but as the sun rose somewhere in Tennesse, noise began to circulate.
I can’t tell you how many games of rook and catchphrase we played. But around 4:00, we were pulling into camp.
We scrambled to unpack the two trailers holding luggage. Then as we split into the cabins, I headed for cabin number three- the Rope Riggers.
We divided the bunks up, decorated the cabin with green, and headed out.
That night we had our first game. It was a sort of card game where you held cards to your forehead and traded for the correct picture.
It was supposed to have been a three-round game, but we ended up playing five- and tossing three of those because of extra cards.
We had our first chapel with Pastor Tim that night. As he began teaching us about delighting in the Lord, we sat in our rows and listened.
As we all snuggled in sleeping bags that night, I reflected on how it was going to be an awsome week.
It was.
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