Freedom is not Free

I decided yesterday that I absolutely love the 4th of July. I've always really liked it, but I think it may be rivaling Thanksgiving for my favorite holiday (I haven't decided for sure yet, only because Thanksgiving also includes playing football).  Here's a quick glimpse into the 4th of July at K-Kountry . . .

8:45 ~ Kamp is awakened by the sounds of firecrackers exploding outside their barns. The greatest thing was having multiple kampers stick their heads out of the barn and ask us if we meant to wake them up. Yes, we did!

9:00 ~ American History WAR-ball. Warball with a twist. American Revolutionary Warball: The British counselors fighting the kamper colonists. Civil Warball: The kamper Union again defeated the counselor Confederacy.

11:15 ~ All American Free Time. Complete with the pool, water slides, water-balloon toss, ice-cream eating contest, blob wars, and Freedom Tickets which could be won a variety of ways and earned kampers a trip down the zipline!

1:00 ~ Picnic on the pool deck. I had my first bratwurst. It was delicious. Complete with apples, barbeque chips and chocolate chip brownies. An all American lunch.

2:30 ~ National Treasure showing during F.O.B. What an American movie, complete with adventure, intrigue, history, and of course some great one liners from Riley ("Albuquerque. See, I can do it too. Snorkel).

5:15 ~ Party at K-Kauai's water-park with an afternoon snack of peanut butter and jelly and watermelon slices.

7:00 ~ All American, all K-Kountry parade. Great American Heros like George W. and Lance Armstrong, and the greatest K-Kountry characters like Half Pipe Harry and the Bumble Bee (And don't forget the Ladies in Waiting, Miss K-Kountry, and Lil Jana and Big Miss).

7:45 ~ Another all American meal: Barbeque ribs, grilled chicken, pasta salad, corn on the cob, and a great salad bar. I again enjoyed a first! My first rib! No big deal, I definitely had some 9-year-old kampers asking me if I was really an American because I'd never had ribs before. I told them it was because I was a poor college student . . . they didn't buy it.

9:00 ~ K-Kountry fireworks. Grab a bompop. Grab a friend. Grab a seat. And sing along with God Bless the USA as we lit up the sky with a great fireworks show.

Whew. What an awesome day. I love that we celebrate the freedom we have in this country. Freedom to do and say what we like, and to believe whatever we choose to believe. As we were heading up to bed last night someone mentioned that "freedom is not free."

This is very true and reminds me of an essential, yet sometimes forgotten, truth.  Jesus paid the ultimate price so that I could be free. Free from sin. Free from guilt. Free from living a life of regret. Free from eternity separated from Him.  While I am so thankful for my freedom as an American, I am even more grateful for my freedom as a child of God! I did nothing to deserve this freedom, nothing to deserve my life. But Jesus chose to love me, chose to give me freedom and eternal life. He loved me more than his own life and paid a great price for my freedom. Praise the Lord! Praying that you are understanding and living in His freedom!!

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free! Stand firm then and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Galatians 5:1

Get off me Fear!!

I have been blessed to be able to be a boat driver this summer. Sweet memories are made out on the lake with these crazy 7 to 11 year-olds. It is pretty amazing to see just how brave some of these kids are. The craziest kids I've had have been Barn 3 girls, who were eight years-old. Its always hilarious to see their reactions when they are thrown from a tube into freezing cold water. It is also amazing to see some of these kids conquer their fears out on the lake.

Just yesterday I drove ski trip for Barn 1. Four little seven year-olds and their counselors piled in my boat and we headed out down the lake.  The first two were dare devils. Flying all around the lake and barely blinking when they were thrown into the water.  And then there was little Hannah. From the very beginning she was not going to go tubing. At all. In fact, she even tried to get her counselors to let her stay at kamp for the afternoon.  Being a former seven year-old who definitely was afraid of everything from seaweed to tubing on the lake, I understood exactly where she was coming from.  Her counselor and I tried to explain to her that it was going to be really fun and that she had nothing to be afraid of. She bursted into tears. She did not want to go and she was going to throw a tantrum before she got on that tube.

I sat down next to Hannah on the seat and had her look at me.  "Hannah," I said, "why don't you want to go tubing?" "I just don't want to go. I'm really scared and I really don't want to." After calming her down a little bit I tried to find out what she was afraid of. I couldn't really get a straight answer, but it seemed like she may have had some not so fun tubing experiences in the past.  I reassured her I would drive very slow, and that she would not fall off. Still not making much progress, I started to explain to her that she would be so glad after she tried it. She didn't really believe me. Then her barn-mates began to tell her some verses and that Jesus was going to be with her. They are also seven. It was so neat to see those little girls encouraging their friend to do something she was scared of. We still weren't making a whole lot of progress, so I said, "Hannah, this is what we are going to do." I told her she was going to go on the tube with her counselor, we would go very slow, and she could count to 60, a whole minute, and if she absolutely hated it she could get off after that.  "Do I have to?" "Yes." Through a little bit more convincing, and promising that she would not fall off, she finally got on the tube with her counselor.  I have never driven anything that slow in my entire life. But Hannah was tubing!! And loving it! She was beaming from ear to ear. And believe it or not, she didn't tell me she wanted to get off after 60 seconds. I don't even think she counted. That little seven year-old conquered a huge fear.

After that run she climbed back in the boat amongst praises of how brave she was and how proud we all were of her.  She got back in and said "yeah, it was fun, but I don't think I want to do it again." Darn. Well I don't know what happened during our snack time, but afterwards we went out to tube again. And she was ready to go again! She jumped on the tube with her counselor and another kamper and once again told me to go slow. We started out slow, but little by little I would pick up some speed. The whole time Hannah was still beaming. Yelling and laughing and having a great time. I finally got up to full speed and was cruising around the lake. She loved it. Every bit of it. Hannah did not want to get off that tube. She rode the whole 20 minute ride back to kamp with two girls from her barn.  Once we got back she told her other counselors, "I rode the longest ride ever!" Praise the Lord. That seven-year-old is now able to conquer her fears.

This is definitely one of the neatest things that has happened so far.  Hannah not only put all of her trust in a plastic tube and a Honda powered boat, but she put her trust in her counselor and in me. To know that she trusted us enough to allow us to help her conquer her fears was the coolest experience.  It gave me a lot of encouragement to realize that fear is simply a method of the enemy to keep us from experiencing all that God has for us. What a great reminder. Stop living in fear. No matter where life currently has you, realizing that your creator made you to be bold and courageous! Rest in that fact today!

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9

Within a matter of hours

As Kamp continues to charge on, I'm really excited to take a second to reflect.

I am so blessed and excited to say that every single day I am reminded of how much God is at work. Every day kids are seeing the life of Christ played out in our staff, and their hearts are being changed. Not to mention the work Jesus is doing in my own heart and life. I ask that you would be praying for me on this journey as I am stripped of myself and strive to live more in His spirit.

Term 2 has changed my perspective. For one thing I am finally believing that Jesus keeps no record of my wrongs. That the little ways I may feel like I am messing up, He is not holding against me. I can rest in his grace and know that I am exactly where He has chosen for me to be this summer, with the people He has placed in my life.  I am continuing to strive towards Him, clinging to Paul's words in Galatians 6:15, that what matters is a new creation. Oh Jesus! Thank you for making me a new creation!

Whew! I just need to take a breath as I recall the events of the last week. It has been extremely packed and insane, not to mention an exciting adventure. These moments of summer come and go so quickly, yet I am so thankful for each and every one! Moments like telling my osages that we are going to unload a warehouse truck when we are really having a special Panera breakfast. Moments where we are dancing crazy at K-life and start a train, only to turn around a minute later and realize that all 250 people in the gym are following. Days when every time I look in my mailbox and find either a dead tarantella or a plastic cockroach. Afternoons where the trash talking between the boys and the girls over how well we know the devo rap is both ongoing and ruthless.  Evenings where the sun never sets, and every person over 18 years old is dressed as a character from a different country manning a booth at the World's Fair. Nights that we sneak down to campout to find that the barn has forgotten to go and we eat all of their smores. I just continually am amazed at how incredibly special this place is. There is no doubt that Jesus blesses this place beyond belief.

Let me just elaborate on a few of these special moments.

Each term we have Movie Night/Staff Cookie night. The leadership team takes all of the kids to the gym and watches a movie (this term it was Emperors New Groove) and all of the staff hang out on the lower fields and eat cookies. After a rotation of being with the kampers I headed down to the lower fields to find some of the staff hanging out and casually throwing the football. Now, lets just be honest here. I about jumped out of my skin in excitement because I love football. And after only a little bit of convincing we played a quick game. And oh let me tell you . . . my heart is so happy that as the sun was setting I got to catch and throw a football, and run into some people. Even if it only lasted 15 minutes.

Now, let me tell you about one of the wildest 24 hour periods that has happened so far. Saturday night a freak storm blew in. What started as a sprinkle ended up to be a downpour with extremely high winds and lots of lightning. In fact lightning struck a 300 year old tree in the church, splitting it in half, knocking it over onto the slough slide, and causing a power outage for all of Branson Kanakuk. With no power we could no longer have K-Life, so we defaulted to 4 scrapers and base drum and sent everyone to bed at 8:45. Thankfully the power came on by 10:30, but God must have known we would need a good night sleep.
The next day we had our osage ski trip. Just me and my amazing osages on the lake tubing and swimming all morning. I was not a very merciful boat driver. I flipped all of them off the tube multiple times (if they tell you they survived "The Missy" they are lying). It was a precious time together. I'm going to miss these girls. We spent the next hour laying in the barn all nursing our sunburns. Ha, no big deal!
For the next hour of what we call Super Sunday we played a version of "counselor hunt". Several of us dressed up as characters and hid at random places throughout kamp. The kids had to help the princess of the forrest determine if we were good or bad. I put on my default skit closet purple princess dress (honestly I go into the skit closet and try to figure out a reason to wear that dress), a hideous green wig, a huge pink hat, and grabbed an octopus. I went down to the slough where we have canoe class, and climbed into a canoe. I was supposed to be bad. I was Ursula the sea witch with my pet Pinky the Octopus. Honestly, I really had a ton of fun.
Then we had the Galactica Spectacula. A party where aliens have landed on the lower fields. We bring all the kids to the lower fields, and just after they get settled a helicopter (yes, a real helicopter) lands on the lower fields. People from NASA (really just leadership people) jump out and tell everyone they have to figure out what is going on. I was working the G-Force station. We piled kids into the boats and drove them in circles and figure-eights with their eyes closed. It was magical.

So to summarize, if you're still reading, within a matter of hours we went from no power, to crazy boat driver making amazing memories with my osages, to sitting in a canoe in a wig and a purple 80's prom dress, to watching a helicopter land on the lower fields, and back to crazy boat driver.
I love this place. Thank you Jesus for this incredible blessing.

Moments of Wonder

What do rappers, high class fashion designers, cave men, and 9-year-olds have in common?

K-Kountry. The Happiest place on earth. 

I have realized in the last 48 hours just how valuable this place is. Some call it revelations, some call it epiphanies, we call it moments of wonder. Moments that make you realize how valuable your time on this earth is. Moments that make you realize that God is bigger than all of the craziness and the scheduling and the ladder of success. That He has created us for a life that is more than this world. More than we can ever imagine.  

So let me just explain how kamp is a place like no other. Relationship form at kamp that are unlike any other. Where people are safe to be themselves and be open and vulnerable with everyone around them.  Where you can be a complete dork and everyone will love you more. Where you can scream at the top of your lungs and no one is going to tell you to be quiet. Where it is consistently encouraged that you are louder, more excited, and more insane than you currently are being. But most of all, where kids, and those of us who still act like kids, see Jesus.  Gosh, there is just nothing like it.  

So let me get to the point here, and let you in on a couple of these amazing moments of wonder . . . 

Staff training week is a crazy time of getting kamp ready for kids to come. There is lots of hard work, lots of training, and lots and lots of crazy memories. Every year we have what we call the K-Kountry Hoe Down. Real square dancers from all over southwestern Missouri come to K-Kountry to square dance with 200 college students. It is the most hilarious thing you will ever see in your life. There is a caller and everything. I mean it is incredible. Dancing around for hours in groups of eight, and messing up every three steps couldn't be more fun. 

The last night of staff training week we call "family night".  The leadership team serves dinner and then we have a prayer walk and K-Life.  Well this year we have the most amazing cook K-Kountry has ever seen. And she wanted to make us fajitas. Oh my goodness. Hands down the most incredible steak and chicken fajitas I have ever eaten in my whole life. And the best homemade guacamole EVER. For sure.  But the incredible part was that we truly become a family on this night. We ate together, laughed together, and auctioned off dances with each other.  And all the while we were serving dinner to the staff while we were dressed up like crazy Mexicans. Moment of Wonder.

Ok, so this summer I am the Osage Mom. The Osages are girls that have just graduated from high school and are essentially like counselors in training. And I get to live with them all summer. They truly are amazing.  So the first night the kids were at kamp I had planned a surprise for them. I got up to the barn and told them to put on socks and tennis shoes and grab a water bottle, and that we had to do something important.  They had no idea what to expect. First they thought I was going to make them work out. Then we ran into some people who told the girls I was going to haze them. So at that point we start walking to the lower fields. And they were convincing themselves that I was going to make them jump in the lake. The lake is literally 45 degrees. It is freezing. There is a dam from a neighboring lake that lets water into our lake almost every day. Our water comes from the bottom of that lake, and it is always freezing. As we walked down to the lower fields they said everything from "I'm leaving right now!" to "I'm wearing all white" to "There is no way you can make us do this". Then they saw the camp fire. And what was the first reaction? "Why is there a fire? What is this?? This is so creepy!!" Hahaha. No worries, we just made smores and bonded. It was a moment of wonder though, at least for me. :)

Well, more to come on my next 2-4 (a 2-4 is what we call our days off . . . cause they are 24 hours). Can't wait to share more moments of wonder with you!

Welcome to Kamp!

Hello. From Branson.
This summer, I am spending 3 months at the Happiest Place on Earth, also known as K-Kountry. K-Kountry is part of Kanakuk Kamps, a group of Christian, athletic camps in Missouri whose mission is to provide kids with an EXCITING Adventure in Christian Athletics.  I'm about to start my fourth summer at Kanakuk, my third at K-Kountry.

Well, right now we are in the middle of staff training, also known as Work Week. Cause thats what we do. Work. And its actually 2 weeks. It has been crazy. Meeting the amazing new staff, hanging out with amazing friends, and getting kamp ready for six terms of 288 kids each. I love it. It is truly where my heart feels at home, where I feel like I am doing what Jesus made me to do.

I don't have a lot to say at this point. Except for the fact that it is not very hot yet, the staff is amazing, Wesley and I have dominated creating a beast of a schedule, Erin and I have water skied in 45 degree water, and "this is a K-2 body". I love it. I think my catch phrase for the summer is going to be "welcome to kamp!". I've said it about 45 times a day already.

Well, welcome to kamp. And I'll be updating every so often, whenever I have a day off. I can't wait to share about what God is going to do this summer at kamp, what He is going to teach me, crazy things the kids do, and crazy adventures I have with this amazing staff.

Let's Go. Welcome to Kamp!