The First Month

I’ve been in Germany now for almost a month. I’m sorry I haven’t updated before this. About a week and a half ago I had a blog post written, but never had the time to edit it well enough to post… and considering It was sort of time sensitive it would kind of be silly for me to post this late.

The truth is that my life has been crazy since landing. I had a day to unpack, repack, and then the next morning I drove out to where we held our annual Easter camp… where there was no internet connection and the only sure way to “call out” was to use a pay phone in the building we were in… translation… for almost the first half of my time here I was disconnected to the world. In a way it was kind of beautiful.

I spent the first few days of my time in Germany helping to set up for kids camp and making “semi-legal” van trips through the German countryside to either pick people or supplies up, sweating the whole time hoping my three months out of the country was enough time to reset the validity of my Ohio license in Germany. In retrospect it wasn’t, but that was always floating at the back of my mind. To quote Junior Bevel from Cool Runnings “Sometimes a man has gotta do what a man has gotta do.” In retrospect I found out it definitely wasn’t legal for me to be driving… oops.

Kids camp went well, overall… It wasn’t my best performance at a camp, but God got me through the tough times – I hate when people make a bland vanilla statement like that. As a former “English Major” it screams “I don’t want to tell you more, divulge my dark secrets, and get into the ‘interesting stuff.’”

So here goes on the interesting stuff. My German definitely got left behind in the States for at least half the camp. The other half of the camp I was sick. I was a counselor for a group of ten hyperactive boys. They weren’t bad kids necessarily, mostly normal pre-teen and early teen energy, not to mention they had about the attention span of an overly caffeinated squirrel. Translation --- my German skills lagging behind and kids with a short attention span: all too often chaos. There were times I honestly felt like a fool sitting or standing in front of the group, and there were honestly times I didn’t even know how to explain what I was thinking in English; that doesn’t happen often. So the truth is I ended up strongly feeling my own limitations at camp whether that be fatigue, a nasty cold I picked up from a camper, the yips during room time.

But like I said, God is good. At times I’m sure despite my weakness he ended up reaching kids with the Gospel. And that’s more important than whether or not I had a “good outing.” And the guilty truth is despite struggling, I personally had a really good time at the camp. Between some really cool campers and having the privilege to be part of a wonderful staff I’d go back, get sick, and struggle any day.

Since then I’ve been back in the office, trying to settle in before the summer blitz comes. Preparing for summer is like knowing there’s a hurricane coming: you know it is going to make landfall, you know you’ll be subject to high winds, and torrential downpours so all you can really do is put up sandbags, board up your windows, and if you can get to higher ground. That’s kind of what my summer is like, the storm of work is riding out on the horizon somewhere and we all know it’s coming. All of us on the English camp team have experienced it, more than once. But again, knowing what happens in the lives of the teens who come every summer make the long days more than worth it.

Saturday...

Its a beautiful fall Saturday, and I'm in the office... Well, it's actually not as bad as it sounds. I'm in the office at about noon since I don't have internet at home. I end up coming into the office for at least a little bit every day to check email, read the news, catch up with a few people, etc. (Obviously in this case update the blog).

So you may be wondering what the average Saturday looks like for me? Well... I spent the morning doing... well nothing of earth shattering importance at home. I slept in until about 8:30, had breakfast, cafinated myself (French Coffe Press = a little bit of wonderfulness) cleaned a little bit, played the piano for about 45 minutes, packed some stuff up to drop off at one of the recycling depots around town, and then headed off to the office (doing some errands along the way). So its not like I'm completely wasting my time now.

I'll be in the office for a little bit yet, but eventually I'll leave to go shopping... I don't have a car, so I'll end up hitting up the three different grociery stores on smaller shopping trips (Easier to carry everything that way... plus I like one store's produce better than the others, one store's brands of drinks better than the others, and one store's dry and frozen goods better than the others... If I can't carry it all at one time anyways why not make 3 smaller trips... plus its great exercise). This afternoon will be spent cooking --- odd as that sounds. I'm having people over on Monday for pizza night, so I'll be home making italian sausage and pasta sauce (looking forward to that... one of the fringe benefits of pizza night is that it gives me an excuse to make a huge batch of pasta sauce... which is in the end a lot cheaper than buying it premade... and I like the end result better anyways).

Then I also need to do some cleaning around the appartment. I did tne first half of it already this week, but its time to clean out my bathroom and bedroom again. No big deal, just needs to be done before it gets bad. I'm also doing "Fall cleaning" which means rather than shaking out or vaccuming all the rugs, I'm in the process of washing them all... which takes a little bit longer than I would like (I have no dryer so they have to air dry, and I don't really have enough space to dry them all at once... plus for some reason things are taking FOREVER to dry in my appartment... clothes takes about 2 days. Not sure why).

Then tonight... Tonight I'll probably curl up on the couch with a nice cup of tea (either Roibus, fruit, or herbal tea... not looking for any extra caffeene) Read a book or watch a movie... or maybe do both.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is... Yeah... Its a normal life over here. Oddly enough as broken into it as I feel right now its kind of wierd to be contemplating going home in a couple of months. I can't believe its only 2 months and some change away. It feels like just yesterday that I got here. I'm really not looking forward to reverse culture shock. Although it will be nice to see everybody again.


**** Update****
Boy genius just realized that today is a holiday... ooops. Should've done my shopping yesterday. No groceries until Monday now. I've actually got plenty of food to last the weekend (not worried about that in the least) Just uh... pasta sauce and meatballs on Monday are going to be a little interesting... whooops. Oh well if after 6 years in food service I can't swing it... Seriously this is where the hobby pays off... :-)

New Post

After a totally uninspired post title and, well, way too long without updating here's a bit of what's going on with me. Life's been a little weird lately. I haven't had internet connection at home in a couple of weeks, so updating from the comfort of my own couch is, unfortunately, impossible right now. And actually, that shouldn't be that much of an excuse as I'm encouraged to use some work time to keep up with supporters (whether prayer supporters or financial) back home.

So what's new: I'm older... yeah, the big 25 was about a week and a half ago, and its kind of a weird feeling. although I don't necessarily feel over the hill yet. I was getting laughed at last weekend when Stephan, the guy doing his year of social service with Janz Team, was laughing at me for being older than a lot of the current soccer stars... Oh well... good thing I never really wanted to be a professional athlete. And I keep telling myself that I've still got half a decade to be in my 20s.

Other than that. I'm working on putting together a new staff brochure for English camp next year, as well as some other projects that need to be done for the camps. I now understand why this is considered the "down time" for English camps. I've still got some serious work to do before I leave, but it all looks... well... managable from here, and its nice not having a ton of time sensitive projects to be working on... just a few.

And in other news, I'm working on a possible new project. Exciting stuff. Unfortunately until a little bit more falls into place I can't say too much more on the blog... aside to say that I'm cautiously very optimistic about the project and am hoping an praying things keep moving forward. Hopefully sometime next week I'll be able to share a little bit more.

Birthday....

So Its my birthday today. I'm not sure which is stranger, turning 25, or being away from home on my birthday. Even in college I ended up making it home on one of the weekends around my birthday to see everyone. That's not really possible here and now though. Its not really "homesickness" just kind of a weird feeling. Almost like the feeling thats starting to sink in that I'll be home in a few months. Really, my term here is almost over and its really time to be making decisions about the "future" (Nebulous, I know).

SO... That all being said, I'm doing well. I'm going to go home this evening, go to some friends' for dinner... watch a movie and go to bed. (I guess if that's my birthday itinerary then I'm getting older).

Baseball = Cultural Experience

I invited the guy who just started his year of civil service with us over for dinner and a baseball game last night --- It was a great cultural experience. We at calzones (homemade) and watched the Indians loose (horribly). But it was still a lot of fun. Its amazing how many little rules or concepts we take for granted in a game like baseball though: tagging up, leading off, infield fly rule... Seriously at the beginning I was explaining everything from Balls vs. Strikes, and how a Pitcher has to go about trying to get batters "out." But yeah... Loved doing it. It was a lot of fun (I told him that if there's any way to get a football game in over here he's got to come over for that... Good news with football games is that with the time change they'd be on Sunday evenings over here... which means... it'd be a nice way to relax for a little while after Sunday evening soccer (I'm a weekly regular there... my skillz are still terrible, but I'm getting better Scored twice last week).

Right

So today my friend Stephan is starting his year of civil service. I'm actually pretty excited about it as he's doing it with Janz Team... which means I get to harass him for the next couple of months!!! Seriously though, I'm really happy that he's here. He was one of "my boys" the first time I came over to English camp in 2005 (I can't believe its been that long). He and his brother are both reasons why I've kept coming back... and I'm just thrilled to get a chance to work with him together on a couple of projects this fall. I'm just kind of dissappointed that I won't be able to be here the whole time he's doing his civil service (I go home to the states in December).

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Ok... So this is not the famed English Camp update article. That's coming. I promise. This is a little bit more mundane than that. I've had this song stuck in my head for about two weeks now. The band came up on my internet radio station, I liked the song I heard, so... like we all do in the age of iTunes, and online music services... I went and checked out some of their other music. Long story short I've had their CD on constant rotation for the past two weeks... and it hasn't let up. So I'm sharing the love, and embedding their official music video from YouTube on my blog. The band's name is Metric ... They're an indietronic group based out of Toronto (Yeah Great Lakes region... even if its on the other side of the border... gotta represent). The song is called "Gimme Sympathy." And to answer their question in the chorus... The Beatles, hands down (2 words on that "White Album")

Ok...

So its been WAYYYYY too long since I've updated it. For good cause --- I think. Things got kind of crazy towards the end of English Camp and are just now, this week, really starting to slow down. There's actually a lot of cool stuff happening that I feel really fortunate to be able to be part of, and things I/We are looking into doing. More information on that coming in a later post.

I really feel its kind of necessary to write a brief post now summing up what happened at English Camp this year, and then later this week writing a longer one (With lots of pictures of course) with more information about the specifics of what happened at camp.

In a word camp was AWESOME. I'm always amazed at how God uses these times for so many different purposes. I would guess that on average about 75% would already consider themselves as Christians. We move a total of about 200 kids through our regional camp program each summer. That means at a conservative estimate about 50 of those kids are not... Our conservative estimates (understand that these numbers are in no way OFFICIAL but come from talking to different directors etc.) have the number of first time decisions for Jesus at about 15... that means about 1/3 of the kids who came not professing to already have accepted Jesus found him this summer. Now I realize that not all these decisions will stick (yes I've read the parable of the sower... yes I'm definitely a realist, and yes I also realize that not all of the kids claiming to already be Christians really are). BUT IF THAT DOESN'T GET YOU FIRED UP TO GO TO WORK... seriously I don't know what would.

Oh... and that doesn't in any way shape or form reflect recommittments, rededications, or any other kids of decision... JUST a first time decisions to accept Christ as Savior. More to come later... (stories... specific stories).

Hopefully in the next few days I'll give a more full picture of what happened at the two camps I was at... Show some pictures, and share some stories.

Sunday

Sunday is secretly my favorite day of camp. Actually I don't think its that much of a secret. Basically, outside of church, meals, and then chapel, the day is "free time" for the campers, which means that we (the staff) get a chance to mingle and just spend time with the kids without constantly worrying about the schedule or or respective jobs. Yesterday was an awesome day for that. We watched a movie as a camp, we hung out, we played Ping Pong... I'm just sad that there's no real chance like that again at camp... and that it comes pretty close to the beginning of camp rather than later on when we all know each other better.

A New Day, Another Adventure

Goooood Morning CAMPERS!!!!

Ok --- I love how each camp is totally different than the camp that came before it. Each staff brings its own culture, and each mix of kids is different. Its part of what I love so much about our camp program --- Its unpredictable, and there are always new challenges.

Camp 2 started a couple of days ago. So far its been interesting. I feel like I've spent less time working with the campers than ever before (which is definitely true). But its been rewarding in its own way. Its been great getting to know the team I'm working as part of - Most of them are from California, and their energy is kind of infectious :-).

There have been challenges as well --- Yesterday we lost a camper. Its not that we did anything wrong. A girl came down with a terrible headache the first day of camp that didn't let up. By yesterday afternoon she was lying in her bed, writhing in pain, hyperventilating. We called an ambulance and took her to the hospital in Loerrach, about twenty minutes away. My friend Anne, one of the translators at camp, and I drove behind her. After a couple of hours of waiting, she was transferred to a different hospital in Freiburg where they could do more tests... Her parents are picking her up today. Needless to say as a camp we're concerned about her. So if you could keep this girl in prayer that would be greatly appreciated.

Also if you could keep the combined English Camp Staff in prayer. I know that each staff member at each individual camp would greatly appreciate the prayers!

Football Was Made for the Rain

(Written on Saturday Night)


But we didn’t actually play football outside today – which was a pity because it was our “Superbowl” theme day. It’s cold for summer, the temperature has been hanging around 60 degrees for a high the past couple of days, you know it’s cold in July when you step outside at three in the afternoon and can see your breath. And it’s been raining – so during activities time, a torrential downpour that started sometime yesterday (Friday) night and had been pretty much going on all last night.
SO --- we didn’t “grunt” and drag a camp full of kids outside to play in the mud (German kids don’t quite like getting dirty like American ones do). So there I was in the middle of a room of German teens teaching them how to play paper football… Its amazing. I haven’t shared any of the academic lessons from high school (I take it back, I helped one camper with math homework once) but the game we used to kill time with during study hall came in handy in a pinch. So we had a massive round robin paper football tournament.
And the verdict --- They LOVED it.

And its days like these that I realize how much I love my job.

Post for 2 Days

(This part was written on Thursday night, at around midnight... internet was down over here on Friday).

So the first day of camp was today, actually by the time this is posted it will be “yesterday.” This is round 8. In some ways the start of camp feels very familiar by now – the awkward first greetings, trying to get through the first round of chapel and room times, trying to forge the start of relationships. However, this is the first time I’m “Directing.”
The truth is: I’m nervous. On the other hand though, God has brought together an amazing staff from all over Europe and North America. And I can say, and be totally honest, that each one of them is deeply appreciated. I’m constantly amazed at how different personalities can work together to complete a whole.
I can’t claim to be any kind of “great leader.” I know my strengths, I know I do have some, and I know my weaknesses as well – in a lot of ways I’m so very glad this staff is around to pick me up when I fall (because I know eventually I will). Directing, at least so far, has also made me keenly aware of just how much each person on a team is needed, from job they do to the personality that they bring to the table.
I feel like I’m writing a really sappy post without an edge, so let me just clear up – I’m absolutely positive that in a couple of days we’ll have some serious issues, not necessarily because of any particular person, or group, but because any group of people who work hours as long as we do, in an already stressful situation is bound to have them. I’m just praying that God gives us all the wisdom to make it through those situations with as much grace as possible, and that the campers can see him through that.



__________________________________________________________________________________________

Ok --- I'm writing this next part on Saturday - so the first full day of camp is over already. We've survived the first wave, and now the grind out till the end of camp 1 is on. That's kind of a negative way to put it. In some ways it always feels like that - conserving energy to try and stay as even keel as possible. But the scary thing is we only have 1 week left with the campers. A week isn't a lot of time.

It hits me harder every year. You start one of these camps and then blink and its over. Its amazing what God does during such a short time. And I'm already dreading saying goodbye to everyone. The community that we work so hard to build in the 2 weeks together as a staff, and then for 9 or 10 days with the campers is over... and you'll never get that same group of people together again. Its gone, relegated to memory, and pictures, dreams and prayers.

If you're reading this. Please pray that our staff could continue to get good sleep, that we'd have wisdom in our interactions with the campers and that we'd continue to serve God in our actions, words, and attitudes.


Steve

And in the red corner we have...

So I've had the theme song from Rocky stuck in my head for the past few days... The best reason that I can think of why is that I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of a colossal boxing match, and we've just finished the opening rounds...

What that means is baisically.... ENGLISH CAMP STAFF GETS HERE TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ok, thats a lot of exclamation points, but I think you get the picture. Its been kind of a brutal, long work week, and I realize my days are going to stay busy, stressful, and long. But the payoff starts tomorrow when we start getting our staff in. I'm all sorts of fired up and ready to go. I'm celebrating my last night in my appartment with some frozen food and a movie... Trying to take my last couple hours of relative peace and quiet and milk them for all that they're worth... cause I won't get much more until August.

That being said, I'm hoping to keep my blog relatively updated while at camp. I won't be able to do much, however I should be able to ge ta few pictures up, as well as a few stories and prayer requests as we go - so keep reading!

In leaving you I'm posting the short version of a video that will rear its ugly head at camp this year --- Yes that's me with a 500g hamburger... no I don't normally eat like that... yest I know I'm feeding into the American sterotype posting this, no I'm not trying to prove it right ;-) (You just gotta trust me on that one)

So there I Was...

In the middle of the English camp office, only one printer cartridge left in my gun... the enemy all around peering out at us through the jungle underbrush ready to strike... Ok so yeah, my life may not be that dramatic right now, however the stress is definitely mounting "office wide" (at least in our department) So if you could be in prayer that we would be able to finish the next couple weeks, and our preparations in them strong that would be awesome.

The blustery, blustery day turned into a blustery, blustery night

Actually, that's not entirely true --- we have had some rain in the past few days (a couple of big thunderstorms at that) but I'm talking more about work. We've basically got about one week to get our ducks in a row and then the majority of the planning is over. After next week we've got a week of setting things up and then staff get here.

So it seems like for most of us working on English camp right now, we show up for work in the morning, work at the office until six or seven at night... go home, and then possibly work more. (ok often work more is more like it). So it actually makes sense that I can't wait for English camp to start, not because I don't like what I'm doing now, but because I really want to see the pay off of it.

Its also strange because some of the projects I'm working on (ie our Adventure Day, which, since some campers somewhat regularly frequent this site I'm going to abstain from talking about more) are both at a place where I really feel they are "coming together" but still kind of shaky for a few reasons that are at least partially out of controll (IE finding people to run the game stations... still a little short there... yes campers thats the only clue you're getting as to what Adventure Day will be like this year :-) If I can wait two weeks to show y'all, you can wait two weeks to see it ;-) ).

Ok - I've got to get going, its a beautiful, if slightly overcast, Saturday. I've got things I need to do. possibly some work, definitely some more house cleaning --- probably scrubbing the rest of the bathroom out today... looking forward to that. But before I do I want to leave you guys with some pictures from a video we made yesterday involving a massive hamburger (Slightly over 1 lb of meat) - you can see a short clip of it on Facebook right now, the rest will be posted after camp.

So the first picture is of our English Camp intern Jenny and I as we prepare to dive into our "lunch" She's eating apples and yogurt... I've got the behemouth.
And there it is - a work of beauty a 500g hamburger. T'was a beast. I'll be honest I couldn't eat the whole thing (nor did I really want to for the record). But it was actually a nice change of pace to have a burger for lunch.

Update

I feel bad -as if I'm blogging because I don't want to work, which in part is true. Don't get me wrong I've got more than enough to do in the next few weeks before camps starts, but its nice to be able to take a minute during the day to do something almost unrelated to camp. It gets my mind out of the shifting rosters, and moving plans that are part of the day to day and hour to hour preparations that we're doing now.

Camp starts three weeks from tomorrow - its kind of a startling thought. Regardless of where our preparations are zero hour is right around the corner. I'm ready for it actually --- that doesn't mean my preparations are done, but I'm mentally ready to be at camp, to be done with prep work, and to watch the pieces that were put in place start moving. Its exciting. That being said its also exciting to see the way the work we've been doing for the past months is starting to gel into a whole.

That being said, the marathon is still on, and I've gotta get back to running.

Projects projects everywhere and not a stop to think

Projects, projects everywhere
And oh my braid did shrink...

And to the best of my knowledge I didn't kill an albatross to get into this situation (If you don't get the joke go read the poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge).

Its actually just the time of year. Its exciting because camp starts in about 3 weeks. Its kind of freaky because all of the projects that I've been juggling for the past couple of months and working on are due. It actually kind of reminds me of the end of a school year - similar work load, similar shuffling of projects... And the bar has been raised - Its actually nice that I can see the effects of the projects I'm working on and know how they fit into camp's master plan.

I just finished off a project that was hanging over my head yesterday, so I am getting things done. However there are a few that are still concerning me (ie making sure everything is in place for Adventure Day... Need to make a huge shopping trip this week for that). So the physical/mental endurance race is on. I'm trying NOT to work today (at all) just so I can keep at least one day of the week work free --- which should help keep me saner longer :-) .

Otherwise life is good - Really work is crazy, but I generally enjoy what I do... And its realy not any more work intensive than the end of a semester of college - and I know that it ends in a couple of weeks. SO I'm looking forward to the craziness of camp!

Pompeii

Ok --- so we've officially moved into the "crazy" part of the year at work. I'm feeling pretty good about it, and relishing the challenges of the month. At this point no news is good news in that I haven't hit any kind of serious hurdle that can't be overcome. There are challenges that I know about (finishing Adventure Day strong is one of them... actually its the biggest one of them) but I'm feeling alright about where I am in my work right now.

SO... I'm going to post something I've been thinking about for the past two weeks. While on the cruise I actually got a chance to walk around the ruins of Pompeii... which is something that I've wanted to do for a long time now. You don't get a feel for how big the town really was, or a feeling for the utter destruction until you've walked around in its ruins and gotten a feel for it. You kind of expect to go in and see a couple of streets of "houses" and whatnot... but when you start walking around you realize just how BIG everything was. How much time and money had to be spent building the temples, and baths, and houses. How many people were living out their daily lives, year after year. And it was wiped out in an instant one morning when Vesuvius exploded... gone. Literally thousands of people wiped off the face of the planet in an instant, buried for thousands of years until "rediscovered."

Back in town

Ok. I feel kind of bad because I haven't had a chance to update in the past two weeks - but there is a good reason for it. Last week I had a chance to take a week off from work and go on a western Mediterranean cruise with some friends of mine. I'm so greatful to have had this opportunity as it basically forced me to take some time, rest, and mentally prepare myself for the onslaught that is the month before English camp. The upside of all of that is that after getting over being tired from travelling, I feel really refreshed, and pretty un-stressed despite the crazy time of year.

The cruise was awesome. We started and ended in Barcelona (go if you ever get the chance... beautiful, beautiful city), then went to Malta (I really want to go back to Malta as well... the prices on everything were pretty afordable, and it was drop dead gorgeous on the island, and very laid back), then three cities in Italy (Naples, Rome, and Livorno/Pisa) where I got to fulfill two of my life's dreams (to see the ruins of Pompeii and Rome), and finally Cannes in the French Riviera.

I'll probably write some of my thoughts on the different cities on the blog in the next week or so and add some pictures as well to get it down. (its a great break from doing work in the evenings), as well as give some updates on what's happening with English Camp prep.

Its hot

If today is a warning of weather to come... its going to be a hot summer. Its in the low 90s, and humid. I'm sitting at my desk, with a fan pointing straight at my face as I'm working... It actually kind of feels like a convection oven. The funny thing is that the heat kind of came out of nowhere yesterday, and its supposed to be back in the 70s tomorrow.