Last night, I bowled.  Despite bowling poorly and narrowly escaping asphyxiation from nearby smokers, I had an enjoyable evening.  At one point, a conversation turned to the remarkably universal practice of waving, shouting or wiggling oneself at a just-released bowling ball in the attempt to make it move where you want it.  A friend confessed to me that as a child she would actually pray for the bowling ball as it rolled down the lane.  Is that a good prayer to pray?

I suggested that that was a fine prayer to pray.  After all, God delights in hearing his children bring concerns to him – even ‘inconsequential’ ones.  When we pray, we express our trust, and that pleases the Lord!

Further, God is sovereign and his rule over the world includes bowling pins.  Sound silly?  Perhaps, but not nearly as silly as the idea of a God who ignores his children because “bowling is silly.”  [Another thought came to me as I thought further on this: bowling pins matter to God because we react to bowling pins, and our reactions matter to God.]

This morning I read the story of Abraham’s prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah in Gen. 18.22-33.  If you come to that passage with a “real Christianity means always praying precisely the words of Scripture in perfect conformity with God’s will and in complete submission to God” perspective, you might be disappointed with the way Abraham prays.

God openly tells him about Sodom’s coming destruction, but Abraham doesn’t bow and say how wonderful and mighty God’s justice is.  He actually asks God not to do that judgment, but to “do right” instead.  And if that “contradiction of God’s Word” isn’t enough, Abraham goes on to bargain with God through five more rounds of “what if” and “please don’t.”  Abraham doesn’t pray like a seminarian or a powerful pulpiteer might.  He just keeps begging God’s mercy.

And God is pleased.

There is no strict comparison of Abraham’s prayer with “an exclusive emphasis on spiritual needs in the Pauline prayers” or any condemnation of his almost-badgering petition.  The prayer is simple – too simple by today’s standards – but it is a prayer that God answers.  God patiently listens while his chosen servant Abraham pleads for mercy on his foolish nephew.  And when Abraham makes his final request, God says, “Yes.”

Theological precision in prayer is commendable.  Studying the prayers of the Bible and sincerely repeating their words and thoughts to God is helpful.  But there is no substitute for humbly bowing before God and persistently pleading for his mercy.  The simplicity of a child’s trust is what delights God’s heart when we pray!

“Camp Joy! Camp Joy! You mean much to me!”  So says the Camp Joy theme song, and so I say now.  Camp Joy does mean much to me and will continue to mean much for years to come.  “Why are you writing like you’re leaving, James?” I hear you ask.  Well, because I am.  Through a number of aspects of God’s direction, I’ll be leaving the camp staff in the next week.  My plans for the future are to return to BJU to earn my Ph.D. and serve the Lord in a career of Christian higher education.  But now, the joy of moving forward in God’s plan is mingled with the sweet sorrows of parting.  I feel that it’s fitting for me to reminisce a little and to publicly thank the Lord and the other camp staff for what I’ve gained here.

I remember “meeting” Camp Joy – May 2005.  The summer I counseled was the first time I’d ever been to Camp Joy and the day I arrived, I was as far out of my comfort zone as I had perhaps ever been.  Some kind people showed me where my cabin was and got me settled in – and one of the best summers of my life began!  Through that summer I had the unbelievable privilege and joy of seeing God work in my campers’ lives. I know, I know, everyone who works at a camp says that kind of thing – but it’s true!  Praying with one boy as he asked God to forgive his sins and save him, counseling others as they expressed repentance from their sin, and best of all by far, praying with my own brother after an evening service as he dedicated his life to full-time Christian service!  I cannot express that joy in words now.

I enjoyed that summer so much that I came back a year later – not as a counselor, but as “program staff.”  It was a summer of stretching and growth.  I had to take some rebuke and correction as the full-time staff helped me understand my role and the leadership/example that they wanted me to display.  I made some lasting friendships with many of those counselors and grew much from counsel and accountability with them as peers.  And of course, as program staff, I was the brunt of more than one joke about playing all day and driving golf carts.  Oh well, as a wise man once said, “ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.”

And then another summer at Camp Joy – now on the full-time staff with responsibilities in the areas of program, website and computer maintenance.  Then 8 more months on the full-time staff through school camps and church retreats and work crews and teens and juniors and … everything!  I think the best way for me to think back over the last year is to thank the other members of the full-time staff, the brothers and sisters with whom I ministered here, the friends who made me feel like family, the people that God surrounded me with during my time here.

• Thank you, Pastor and Mrs. Hatchett, for your faithful prayers, your consistent example, your sweet kindness and your Christlike love.
• Thank you, Scott, for your vision for Camp, for pushing forward despite difficulties of all sorts, for serving in the strength of your youth and for pouring your heart into the ministry.
• Thank you, Todd, for your tenderness, for your hearing ears and caring heart, for your example of patient forbearance and for your creativity and good humor.
• Thank you, Lee and Cyndie and Rachel Otis (and OJ, too), for the faithfulness of your ministry, for your sincere servant-hearts, for your hospitality and for your free smiles and easy laughter.
• Thank you, Dave, for the friendship you showed through my first months on full-time staff, for the steady hand and endurance you put into your work, for being willing and available to lend a hand in my amateurish shop projects and for your testimony of selfless love to your family.
• Thank you, Jim, for your eagerness to turn to the Lord in prayer, your whole-hearted reliance on Him, for your readiness to bring Him into every conversation and for many hard-fought foosball battles.
• Thank you, Stephen, for the friendship we’ve had since the days of roommate-ness, for your humility in exercising your gifts, for your excitement for souls and for more than a few hairs-cut.
• Thank you, Nathanael, for the trips hither and yon, for putting your hands to work with the skills God gave you, for our fellowship as roommates and for all the dishes you did after I dirtied all the cookware.
• Thank you, Rebecca, Valerie and Katie, for your friendship, for your ministry at church, for laughing a quite a few undeserving jokes and for doing your best when you weren’t sure why.
• Thank you, Jonathon, for bringing an eagerness to your work and a self-sacrificing spirit to your ministry, for your helpful attitude and for your joyful countenance.
• Thank you, Mrs. Fuller, for your years of service, for your faithful walk with the Lord, for your mounds of ready knowledge about any subject I asked about and for the wonderful legacy you are leaving your children and their families.
• Thank you, Papa and Mrs. Sammet, for your sacrifice in donating your summers to Camp, for your high personal standards and desire for excellence, for taking the time to correct me when I needed it and for your words of encouragement and support.
• Thank you, Abraham, for your thoughtfulness, both in the sense of concern for others and the sense of really applying your mind to compare situations and circumstances with Scripture, for your discernment and sincerity and for teaching me that squirrel is boney but tasty.

Really, though gratefulness to the people I’ve worked with is good and appropriate, my truest expression of thanksgiving is to God.  Thank you, Lord, for leading me to Camp Joy, for sustaining me through the pressures of ministry, for faithfully loving and keeping me each day, for giving me godly friends and co-workers and for teaching me more of Your perfect faithfulness and my utter dependence.

My time at Camp Joy has been part of God’s plan for my life and I desire that lessons that He has been teaching me here will continue as He molds me to Christ’s humble likeness and prepares me for future ministry and service for Him!

Since I’ve last sent an update, we’ve been busy (well, when are we not busy?) here at Camp Joy!  Right now we’ve got a dozen or so men from New Hampshire helping with our hillside cabin project (photos coming soon to a CJ Album near you!) and they are doing a great job!  They’re putting cedar siding up, installing drywall, building stairs and pretty much anything you could think of – what a blessing they are being!

We’ve had some really good retreats lately – March ended with our first ladies’ retreat with Mrs. Cindy Melius.  Granted, I wasn’t too terribly involved in that retreat, but from what I’ve been told, the messages were a blessing, the activities were enjoyable and the ladies left Camp Joy having been ministered well to.

Then we worked for a week (I spent a lot of time on summer skit preparation) and got ready for the next weekend retreat: Singles for Service.  We were a little nervous about this one – coming down to the day before, we had less than 15 campers registered.  But the Lord provided and between last minute registrants, walk-ins and late walk-ins, we had close to 30 people at the retreat!

Then we had a teen work crew – about 30 teens from the youth group at Community Baptist Church, South Bend, IN, came to help for a couple days.  I had a crew of 3 young men who helped me rake leaves.  One of them (Matt) was quite a trooper – he stayed on my crew the entire time (another one got sick and one switched crews), including the 3-4 hour “rake in the rain” party on Tuesday afternoon.  Did anyone ever tell you that wet leaves are heavy?  Wet leaves are heavy.  With the volunteers, we also got some deep cleaning done in the lodge, some painting and deep cleaning in the kitchen, organization in the shops and warehouse and a lot of assembling for our Scripture Memory kits.  They did a lot of good work.  This particular group was significant for me because I worked at that church 4 years ago for a summer as a pastoral intern.  I was pretty surprised to see how some of them had grown, not so surprised to see how some of them had not grown, and tickled to watch the light-bulbs go on above several heads the first evening when they realized, “Oh yeah, I thought he looked really familiar!”

Then our second ladies’ retreat – this time with Mrs. Pat Berg.  What a group – over 200 campers at the retreat!  We had to stay on our toes to keep all the activities, services, and especially meals going on time.  It was definitely a weekend to serve in the infinite strength of God and not of ourselves.  He gave grace and the weekend went well – what a exciting time it was to have such a full camp again!

And now, here we are with the New Hampshire volunteers.  This coming weekend was scheduled to be our Teen Extravaganza retreat, but since hardly anyone registered, we had to cancel.  Please pray that next year’s Teen Extravaganza will be a full camp – it is particularly focused on evangelizing lost teens, and we would love to see the Lord bring in a full camp of souls to hear the gospel preached!  What a joy it would be to be a part of that sowing and watering work as we pray and rely on the Lord to send increase.  So go ahead and start telling all your friends about next year’s Teen Extravaganza (probably in April again) and pray that the Lord would bring 200 campers to that retreat!

Summer hiring has been going well – the Lord has provided staff more quickly than in previous years.  Right now, we’d appreciate your prayers for a sound-booth worker and a couple guys to work program/team-leader/counselor.

Greetings from the sunny south!  I’m on “Spring Break” now – spending time at Bob Jones University being refreshed by the good preaching, catching up with old friends, spending quality time with my “little” brother and realizing how much I had at school that I didn’t value till I was gone.  That’s right – all those Artist Series (for “free”), the great library, meals cooked for you, quality faculty who excel in both knowledge and and love for God and their students, and a number of blessings that I miss dearly.  Those of you at other good schools probably know what I mean, but if you don’t, ask the Lord to open your eyes to the blessings He gives.  I am very thankful for what God led me through during my undergrad & graduate school years – and I am very much looking forward to returning to school to earn my Ph.D. in a year.  This week has been a solid reminder from the Lord to develop the gifts that He has given in order to serve and glorify Him as well as I can!  And I hope that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you have the same attitude of thankfulness for what you’ve been given and a desire to develop and grow to serve God better.

Some of the services here have been particularly helpful and challenging.  Dr. Thurman Wisdom (retired BJU faculty) preached an excellent message on investing in your inner life – desiring a closer knowledge of God’s presence and pursuing that closer walk with Him.  Craig Hartman (Shalom Ministries, NY) preached a powerful illustrative sermon about Azariah, Mishael and Hananiah and their willingness to die a painful death instead of dishonoring God by bowing to Nebuchadnezzer’s image for mere moments.  Visiting Mount Calvary Baptist Church for Wednesday night prayer meeting was a great encouragement as Pastor Minnick preached a message on prayer.

Other highlights included great fellowship with both peers and professors as the Lord confirmed some aspects of His leading in my life, quality time with my “little” brother Andrew, and the acquisition of a number of excellent books at greatly discounted prices.

Well, time has passed since I started this “epistle” and I am now back in Wisconsin re-acclimating to cold weather.  That week of SC spring weather spoiled me and got me prematurely eager for warm weather!  I left Greenville on Saturday morning and drove from warm and sunny to cloudy and snowfall.

Camp is going well.  (Since this is my “Camp Joy Update,” it would be appropriate to talk about Camp a little bit.) It has been a month since I’ve sent one of these letters, so there’s a lot to catch up on…  After returning from Tweakage, we had the weekend off, then spent the next week preparing for our Junior Winter Retreats.  We had a good group of counselors from MBBC and BCM for those retreats and good numbers of kids – for the first retreat, Bethel Baptist brought about 100 children!  The retreats were, as usual, a mixture of junior-aged silliness, minor child-like “injuries,” clear and simple preaching and lots of energy!

After two junior retreats, the following weekend was our spring Men’s Retreat – Pastor Tony Miller was the speaker and the Lord used him effectively!  Many men came face to face with their need to grow and change, and two lost men prayed to receive Christ’s forgiveness for sins!  We had been specifically praying for those two men and it was wonderful to see God answer that prayer!

This last week was Bible Conference and a week with no retreat.  Right now, we’re readying ourselves for the first Ladies’ Retreat with Cindy Melius.

A lot has been going on during the weeks – summer preparation, building, planning, etc.  I’m under the gun now to finish the teen God & I booklet, and skit time.  We had a few volunteers take all the metal panels out of the giant maze – we’ll be rebuilding it with a new pattern for this summer.  We’re also adding towers to some of the corners – for water guns or something like that.  The cabins on the hillside are coming along well – we have volunteers nearly every weekend and sometimes during the week to help us finish those cabins before summer.  The office is a busy place as Rebecca and her occasional helpers prepare counselor packets and staff manuals and keep up with the normal pressure of phone calls, retreat registration and other secretarial duties.

We sure do appreciate your prayers here – keep watching the CJ Photo Album for updated retreat and construction pictures!

At least, that’s what I’m hoping for soon…  Right now I’m stuck in Milwaukee Airport because of thunderstorms in Atlanta and snow in Milwaukee.  Eventually I hope to end up in Fort Worth, TX.  Mr. Scott and I are heading to Southland Christian Camp (Ringgold, LA) for Tweakage – that’s when all the Christian camps get together and trade ideas and hopefully learn some new cool things to bring home and improve our own camp.  The weather report says it’ll be 60 and sunny at Southland, but we’re not quite there yet.  Lord-willing, the airlines can move us up to an early flight and get us to ATL, where we’ll try to connect with our flight to Ft. Worth and spend the night there, driving to Southland (near Shreveport, LA).

We just finished up a few very busy weeks at Camp Joy.  Feb. 4-6 was our Youth Pastors Retreat – we didn’t have a huge camp full, but the youth pastors who came benefited from the ministry and we had a great week together.  I was asked to lead two workshops: one on “The Tech-Savvy Youth Pastor” and one about Online Social Networking.  My notes from both workshops ended up as the first two posts in a series called “Christians & Technology.”  Thursday was our day off and Nathanael and I went up to the Pettit National Ice Center to ice skate on an Olympic team training rink for a few hours.  Blister notwithstanding, that was a lot of fun!

That weekend we had a great Husband & Wife Get-Away – registration of over 100!  It was our largest couples’ retreat in quite a while.  Then I became more sick.  Yes, I had been struggling with something cold-related for a week, but Saturday night, it got worse.  I was trying to focus on preparing my Sunday School lesson, but I was being plagued by a fearsome case of optical snot.  My eyeball-cruddy factories were producing mucus at breakneck speed and I could hardly keep my eyes open to look at my screen (much less focus my mind through the discomfort).  But the Lord allowed me some relief and He enabled me to finish my lesson.  Monday and Tuesday, I was given regular doses of “colloidal silver” to fight the infection or whatever.  It worked really well.  Cold and flu symptoms have been common here at camp: Stephen, Rebecca, Val, Jonathon, me – it’s really going around and staying close.  Please pray for us all to get well and stay that way!

Well, that Tuesday night was our Valentine’s Day Banquet.  We had quite a skit.  Scott set it up like an impromptu business meeting to hire a new staff member – and several of us came in (in costume, of course) to apply.  I was (I regret to say…) Ernie Geek.  Slicked-down hair, plastic-framed classes, suspenders, bowtie, pocket protector – you name it, I had it!  Stephen was Tom Tempo – a constantly (almost annoyingly incessant) singing music director.  The staff wives were themselves trying to earn a little shopping money, and Jonathon was Sergeant Cutter – a (somewhat) rough & tough Army officer.  Oh, but none of us got hired – Todd did – in a gorilla suit!  If I get the video, I’ll post in my Facebook profile!

Then another all-too-brief day off, in which Nathanael and I went to Delavan for sundry shopping stops and we ate a lot of soup, salad & salsa at Chili’s (Bottomless Express Lunch) for not a lot of money.  We were full and happy!

Then we had a private family retreat from a church in Illinois – about 60 people.  We had lots of fun in the snow – tubing & tobogganing and sky-gliding!  I ran the children’s services – 8 kids between the ages of 3 and 10 – so much energy, so little attention span!  Much thanks to Robert Hatchett for providing chalk talks in the evening and to Valerie for some crafts in the morning – my job was songs & sermons – I never knew there were so many ways to sing “I’m in the Lord’s Army!”  But finally, these happy campers left too, and we were down to clean-up and rest.  Well, some rest.  The girls’ house was being painted, I had to make 60 copies of a CD to share at Tweakage (which took till 9pm even with Rebecca’s help!) and prepare a Sunday School lesson.  Again, the Lord was kind enough to give me grace to get the lesson done.  I sure am enjoying teaching through Ecclesiastes now!  With the trip this week, I’ll be a couple days slow in posting the audio file (for those of you who listen to that), and next week, we’ll have a missionary in SS, so I won’t have a message to post.

Well, we’re (Lord-willing) boarding our flight in 15 minutes, so I’ll catch you later!

Yes, we’ve had weather and plenty of it!  Camp Joy has seen plenty of variations on the “cold” theme – heavy snow, light snow, slushy snow, snowy slushy, slushy slushy, snowy snow, melted snow, melted slush, spring-like breezes, more snow, frigid cold and wicked cold.  And soon it will by July and 100 degrees!  Through all this snow, however, the work keeps going here at camp!

That Music Conference that I had mentioned last update was a great retreat!  What a blessing and encouragement – praise the Lord for so many who came to hear and absorb solid preaching and sound music philosophy!

After that retreat, we had our Annual Meeting on Jan. 22 – a board meeting, then a meeting with pastors and members of many of our association churches.  Scott had me deliver a presentation on our website and email ministries – how we are growing and expanding those outreaches.  This put me in the rather awkward position of needing to change clothes in the bookstore because the men’s quartet uniform was somewhat different from the coat and tie that were appropriate for a presentation.  All in all, it was a great day – lots of preparation, but what a sigh of relief to have it over!  And as always, the Sheltons cooked yummy roasted beef and shrimp and other such delicacies for all the important grown-ups.  :)

Having the meeting on Tuesday meant that we had Saturday off (like normal working-class citizens) – and having a retreat scheduled for the following weekend meant that most of us took Monday off – so we got a three-day weekend!  What a great time to rest and read and to go Cabela’s and enjoy some time “off the clock!”  Oh, and all that time without a retreat also meant that (you guessed it!) it was time to remodel the Fireside Room!  “Oh no!” you exclaim in chagrin and disbelief!  “Not the beloved beautiful Fireside Room!”  Yea verily, indeed and forsooth: the beloved beautiful Fireside Room!  Now, it is … (drumroll, please) … reddish brown.  I know, I know, it sounds kind of different, but it really is neat!  Quite a change from what we had previously, but much improved!  We had a couple volunteers, one of whom is a professional home designer, come and help with this project.  We also drastically changed the table closet wall (the one by the pool table – where that goofy “bored game” closet was) – it now has a real door, a couple serving windows, rough-hewn wood (weathered red paint), and a metal awning – it is the new “Snack Shack” and has the quaint look of some kind of old shed – actually, my first impression was that it reminded me of that place on the old Disney cartoon “Tailspin” – the restauranty thing that the bear and his plane stay at.  But you’ll probably have to see pictures to understand what I mean – and those pictures will be (Lord-willing) on the CJ website very soon – in one of the news posts.  And the Dining Hall – brown walls, tan ceiling.  And the girls’ cabin hallways: one brownish red, one grayish blue.  And a whole bunch of new decor – wowee-doodles!  What a needed and welcome improvement!

Then the next weekend was a private winter teen retreat – one youth group came with a little more than 50 campers.  They had a preacher who, besides preaching, told jokes during his sermons.  [Disclaimer: Jokes and sermons do not always mix; and the funniness of any joke repeated hereafter is not to be construed or misconstrued as an endorsement of any or all of the position known to all as "Funny Preaching."  Furthermore, the ethnicities and genders and hair colors of any and all of the characters in the jokes are not to be taken as a blanket criticism or approval of any specific ethnicity, gender or hair color.  All the opinions expressed by the characters in the jokes are solely those of the aforementioned characters and not of the administration or author of this email.  The author's position on such issues is well-known and public.] He did tell a few funny jokes – most of which I am allowed to repeat.  For example: A Jewish pilot began his pre-flight checks on his airliners.  Because of a last-minute schedule change, his new co-pilot came running onto the plane nearly late.  This co-pilot was Chinese.  The pilot was immediately in a bad mood and completed his check in a huff – with an obvious chip on his shoulder.  Several minutes into the flight, he broke the awkward silence with a terse outburst: “I don’t like Chinese people!”  After several long seconds, the Chinese co-pilot puzzledly asked, “Why don’t you like Chinese people?  What is not to like?”  The Jewish pilot’s answer was gruff: “You Chinese brought America into World War II by bombing Pearl Harbor!”  “Oh, no!” replied the Chinese co-pilot, cheerily.  “You are all mixed-up – the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, not the Chinese!”  “Bah!  Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese – you’re all the same!” muttered the pilot.  Several more awkward minutes crawled by before the Chinese man spoke again: “I do not like Jewish people.”  “What?!” replied the angered pilot, “How could you not like Jewish people?”  “Well,” said the co-pilot, “Jewish people sank the Titanic.”  “Are you kidding me?” asked the pilot, “Everyone knows the Titanic was sunk by an iceberg!!”  “Yeah, yeah,” was the reply, “Goldberg, Steinberg, Iceberg – you’re all the same!”  I laughed a great deal.  Also funny were the goat joke, the cannibal joke and the chili joke.  But time and propriety do not allow me to type them all here.

For this retreat, Stephen & I had to set up the dreaded Arena.  [Imagine scary suspenseful music here.] The Arena, for those of you who aren’t familiar with it, is very hard to explain, and consequently, very hard to set up as well.  Suffice it to say that it took us about 25 man hours to assemble the whole thing; it’ll take us 15-20 to take it down, and the campers only used it for an hour.  Hmm.  That’s nothing like taking less than 10 man-hours to set up and tear down an activity that 150 campers use for an hour!  Well, the teens sure enjoyed it!  And to tell the truth, I did too.  Few things are more satisfying than watching teens with poor upper body strength fall off of the zip-line trolley that spans the gymnasium and land flat on their backs in a pile of mattresses!  And then to shoot air cannons at them while they’re down – pure delight!  Maybe if you’re lucky, I’ll get some arena photos on the CJ website as well…

Then we slept for a little, went to church, watched part of the Super Bowl (or all of it, for us privileged few) and got up this morning to get ready for the Youth Pastor & Wife’s Retreat.  Sunday was a good day – it was Jonathan “Boogy” Fuller’s 5th birthday – what an adorable little boy!  I was privileged to attend his birthday party during the afternoon.  Well, actually, I was in the basement in Daniel Lopez’ apartment trying to nap when Jonathan was given a plastic bowling set – to use on the hard wood floor!  Um, no nap.  So I called the house line, wished him Happy Birthday and then told him that I was in his basement, so he came running down to invite me to the party.  I tell you what, Pastor Fuller has a great family!  No, the kids aren’t quite perfect (not even Boogy!), but they are a wonderful bunch of kids to spend time with!  (I speak sincerely!) What a blessing Kettle Moraine Baptist Church has in that family!  And then after church, Nathanael & I went over to watch the Super Bowl – which they had taped.  So we watched the entire thing – with no commercials!  Wow, what a way to watch football!  It was a great game, except that some one had apparently taken all Brady’s blockers and put sleeping powder in their Gatorade.  Poor guy – no one deserves to get sacked that many times in one game!  Oh well, I was saddened when the Patriots lost – I’ve got a brother who is a big Pats fan, so when my Bears and my second-favorite Colts were eliminated (in week 7 and in the playoffs, respectively), I was pulling for the Patriots.  Oh, those fateful final 30 seconds!

So anywho, that’s life at Camp for a few weeks!  In my free time (I speak more wishfully than accurately here), I’ve been preparing and teaching Sunday School lessons for the adult class at Kettle Moraine Baptist Church – I’m teaching a series on Ecclesiastes.  The first three weeks were spent in introduction – all the important background information that sets up the essential framework for reading and understanding the book correctly.  Next week, I’ll start going through a number of important themes in the book – following threads through a tightly-woven tapestry.  All those lessons (audio files and hand-outs) are available on my site under the Sermon category.  I’ll keep posting messages and notes each week for those who are interested.

I have been quite remiss not to have written for so long (it’s been since… Nov. 7 – oops) and this update comes with my profusest apologies for allowing so much to go by without keeping in touch.  I am indeed sorry.

Where have we been in the last (gulp) two months?  November: the Mother/Daughter retreat and some empty weekends including the Thanksgiving holiday.  Mother/Daughter was great; we had lots of, um, mothers … and um, daughters here and they did many … motherly and daughterly things.  All was well.  We male people stayed mostly out of the way.  Thanksgiving was good – went home, spent time with family and oh yes – a funny story.  A “comrade and maybe even relative of mine” (hereafter abbreviated CAMEROM) and I were heading back to WI after the turkeys had been sufficiently consumed.  As we drove along I-90, aforementioned CAMEROM looked out the window and said “Hey, isn’t that ‘some other friends of ours who also shall remain nameless’ (hereafter abbreviated SOFOOWASRN)?”  And sure enough, in the van we had just passed rode SOFOOWASRN!  Well, CAMEROM wanted to wave to SOFOOWASRN and who am I to stop an exchange of friendly greetings, so I drove even with SOFOOWASRN’s van while CAMEROM waved.  All was well until … CAMEROM wanted to stick his head out the window and wave.  The wind moving past a vehicle on I-90 is moving at least 70 mph – plus any gusts that may come across the vehicles.  I heard something hit the rear window behind CAMEROM and heard CAMEROM exclaim, “Oops!”  His glasses had blown off and were 1/2 a mile behind us on I-90.  I replied to CAMEROM, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”  It is of course, all SOFOOWASRN’s fault.

Then came December – and snow!  I have said many times (during winters in South Carolina), “I sure do wish I could have a real winter with snow.”  I am now satisfied.  I don’t need snow for another 4-5 years, I think.  It’s been fine – except trying to drive through it.  Daniel Lopez & Abe & Nathanael Troester (younger brother of the famous David Troester) and I have had to make a few trips through the snow and it’s not been particularly relaxing.  The driver is tense, and when the driver is tense, all the passengers fear for their lives.  Except for the one time I fell asleep – passenging, of course, not driving!  But sledding is fun!!  ‘Specially on ice.  :) December had more empty weekends except for a Ukrainian congregation retreat and Winter Teen I (after Christmas).  December also had Tuba Christmas!  For me, anyway, not for the rest of the staff.  Camp sent me to a church in Sandwich, IL (yummy!) for a promotion trip (I promoted camp; camp didn’t promote me) which was at the church of a guy I used to play in BJU’s Tuba-Euphonium choir with.  So I went down on Saturday, went to rehearsal with Jon & his dad and we played Christmas carols at a bank and at a mall.  About 50 of us – tubas and euphoniums (baritones).  It was beautiful.  :) Really brings a tear to my eye, you know.

Abraham moved back to Alaska in December – he’s helping his dad in the church there, taking care of music and some other things in the church, and waiting for his lovely bride to come from Ambassador and be wed to him.  He was a great roommate and I miss him here, but I’m glad for him to be able to serve up there in Alaska where the Lord led him.  Nathanael Troester moved upstairs and is my new apartmentmate – he’s also a good friend and great guy to work with.

Jonathon Fruin moved to Camp too – he’s kind of maintenance/kitchen staff.  He’s filling the role of retreat dishwasher and fire-keeper and then helping with projects and warehouse organization during the week.

Teen Winter I – 14 campers came.  Kind of discouraging – I mean, it takes just as much time to have a retreat with 114 as it does with 14.  But God is good and He worked during the retreat – one young man prayed to receive Christ as Savior, and a young lady made good decisions about some sins in her life.  We had some great snow too!  During our outdoor activity, a bunch of good packing snow fell – so the game ended in a snowball fight.  :) We also had an indoor activity that culminated in a competition between two campers trying to find gummy snowmen in a big bowl of flour.  The winner was Matt!  (Yes, that’s “Matt getting towel-whipped” from Joel Steven’s Facebook Video fame!) He found 42 of the little buggers in 3 minutes!  And he burped with flour gooeys hanging from his mouth – what a way to celebrate the victory!  :)

Then there was the staff reunion, a time of fun, food and fellowship, replete with laughs, photos, bowels, nearly all night vigils, and snow-mo-bugging!  If you came, thanks – it was great!  If you didn’t come… shame, shame – you had better come next winter!

Then Pastor & Deacon Retreat – lots of good fellowship, great preaching and all the wonderful things that make Camp Joy what it is!

And next, Teen Winter II – 47 or so campers for this one.  Do you remember the letter about Lake County’s school camp?  Of course you don’t; that was 4 months ago and no one really reads these letters anyway, so I’ll remind you.  They were very spiritually needy, and as a result, we had our hands full with discipline and crowd control issues.  They were 15 or so of these campers.  It was heart-breaking to hear the preacher give clear invitations and to see many teens sit in their seats instead of going back to do business with the Lord.  But there were some who tenderly responded and praise the Lord for them!

Now we’ve got our first try at a Music Ministry Conference – it is a small start, but it is a WONDERFUL retreat.  I mean this whole-heartedly – each of you needs to get in touch with your music pastor and tell him that this retreat is a huge blessing and a great help to music pastors.  Pastor Harding has been doing an exemplary job preaching on music: God’s view of the arts, understanding Biblical music standards; and the workshops have been down-to-earth and practical!  Wow – I like this retreat – it is a real winner!  So, go email or call your music pastor (yes, you) and tell him what a blessing this retreat will be to him when he comes next year!  (Of course, I understand that some of you are from Australia or Canada or Greenville or some other far off place and it wouldn’t be practical.  Those of you who fit that category don’t need to be quite so dogmatic, but please at least suggest it.  :)

Well, that brings us right up to the very present.  What next?  Annual Board Meeting next Tuesday, church teen retreat the following weekend, junior winter retreats the two weekends after that, etc, etc, etc.

Wowzers!  It’s been a few days since I sent an update – or a few weeks maybe…
We’ve done a lot here at camp since I last wrote – ok WOW – Sept 21st?!?!?  I apologize severely to all of you who have been on the edge of your seats dying for an email.  To the other 99% of you, I just move along and type this thing – as well as I can remember back anyways…

Let’s see, after that one really bad school camp ended, we had a different school camp.  It wasn’t so bad.  They were from Minnesota.  That’s all I remember.  Hm.  Well, anyway, movin’ right along…!  Oh wait, that weekend was the “Victory Baptist Ladies Association.”  A hundred and something ladies show up for their annual meeting and giant slumber party (yes, that’s right – us guys did not go near the lodge after their service was over ‘cuz they were having a PJ party till 1am!) and they had fun.  Their “business meeting” was funny – they kept having motions and seconding motions — but they never voted on anything!  Women – ha!
Next (Oct 1-2), we had a short school retreat – a school from M’waukee (that’s Milwaukee for all you out-of-staters who insist on pronouncing all the letters…).  They had some FUN during the night game! :) Their principal brought a varmint call – they put this box in the woods (that trail I would hide on by the office along the driveway) and had a remote control for it.  So he and the evangelist sat over by the new craft shack and pushed the button when cabins got close and it would make this wicked awesome “ginormous mountain lion in severe heat” noise and the kids (and teachers) would get real scared.  So then, I went running up into the woods to “get that cat” and when he hit the button, I’d come running out screaming and jump off the driveway and roll down the hill toward the craft shack and they’d get even worse scared.  :) Fun!
Then we had a day off, then a men’s retreat from Marquette Manor Baptist.  They had fun.  That’s all I remember about that one too.
The next week I went to BJU (yes, I survived 14hrs in a van with Stephen Rains) (yes, he survived 14hrs in a van with me) – and I saw many of my faithful readers on the trip.  It was wonderful to see you all again – thanks for having me over!  :) And the week ended a little different from expectations – my grandmother passed away that Tuesday, so we brought Andrew home with us and Stephen & Mr. Appel dropped us off at home for the wake (Friday) and funeral (Saturday).  Praise the Lord – I got to “say a few things about Grandma, read some Bible verses and pray” as my aunt Teri asked me to do at the wake – and give the gospel in that time.  Most of the extended family over there is Catholic and it was awful to see them grieving with no hope.  Please pray for two of my cousins (Aaron and Giovanni) – they were both sincerely broken-hearted and looking for more than the priest had to offer.  I gave them both tracts and my cell number and I’ll probably be getting in touch with Aaron soon – he’s a student in M’waukee – just an hour away from me.  Normally unsaved funerals aren’t the happiest times ever, but the Lord is good to give opportunities to spread the gospel through those times.
After I got back to camp, we had the Young-at-Heart (but old most other places…) Retreat – Mon-Wed.  What a sweet bunch of “campers” – it seems so odd to call someone’s grandparents “campers!”  They loved their time here – jigsaw puzzles, sky glide, Valerie’s amazing toilet paper pumpkin crafts, a train ride field trip, and plenty of time to fellowship around the fire in the fireside room!  What a joy to serve them!
The following weekend was the CJ men’s retreat with Dr. Talbert (father of that dynamic duo – Ethanini and Micah Talbert).  It was a busy retreat, but the services under Dr. Talbert’s insightful preaching from Job were very refreshing!  And I got to give him a ride back to the airport – an enjoyable time of fellowship.
The next weekend (we are now all the way up to Oct 25-27!) was the Homeschool & Parenting Conference.  I shall forgo any homeschooler jokes and just describe the retreat.  :) We had a couple services a day and a couple workshops.  I did a couple workshops on model rockets – one building and one flying – that was a blast ;) … once we hooked up the igniters to the jeep battery, it worked great!  Abe & Nathanael took the families on a hike around a marsh near Rice Lake and Mr. Todd taught a colored pencil workshop.  Oh, Nathanael is David Troester’s younger brother – he now works full-time here at CJ as our maintenance guy.  And he’s doing a fine job too!  He’s turned 1/2 of that Basics Room into a decently live-able apartment!
Next, we had some days of normal work projects and stuff, then the Grace Baptist Church of Lockport Men’s Retreat – they like guns!  And preaching!  They had plenty of both, that’s for sure!
And now this week, we have the Pastors & Wives Retreat – a small private camp organized by my old church – about 15 pastors from churches ranging from Ohio to Iowa and their wives.  What an incredible group of people!  Almost 1/2 of the pastors had been in the ministry for over 30 years, some of them just one or two churches in that time – what a testimony of faithful service!  They are such a great bunch to have here – they don’t need much activity, they get really good food, they go to bed early and wake up at a reasonable time, they’re friendly and godly and wonderful – this is, by far, my favorite retreat of all!  They could stay all year, in my opinion!
Well, they leave tomorrow morning – then we have the Mother/Daughter Get-away this weekend.

Yes, of course, there are some amusing stories from the past month & a half.  Like… I shot a raccoon… in the head.  He was going through my trash at 1.30am.  He was big – real nice pelt, too!  I did get the tail off.  The full story is in a facebook photo album for you to see over the holidays :) I don’t feel like typing it all over here, but if you reply and ask, I’ll give you a full detailed account of the incident.  (But for the record – I killed a coon that’s twice the size of any rooster I’ve seen – with just ONE shot!)
The blower motor on the furnace in the apartment Abe & I share burned out on Monday morning.  I noticed the smell in the morning, but couldn’t pinpoint the source till later.  So we slept with no heat.  Then on Tuesday, Nathanael took the motor out, Dave Glass got us a new one in Janesville and Nathanael put it back together – like I said earlier, he’s doing a great job!
Um…  That’s about.  Oh, Valerie and Stephen and Nathanael and Mr. Todd and I scanned our faces tonight.  That Mr. Todd – he’s such a bad influence on us poor impressionable young people!

Well, have a good one, all!  Stay out of trouble, don’t forget to tell your mom you love her (if you can), and keep us in your prayers!  Thanks for your patience and for reading this whole thing!

Not to sound down, but I sure am glad that this week of camp has ended – it has been quite an ordeal!  Not to say that it hasn’t been profitable – the preaching was direct and strong (Ben Klaus – some of you long-time CJ staff may remember him as a counselor) and there were some students who desired to please God.  But both schools who came have very open enrollment policies – and therefore, high percentages of unsaved students.  One school’s student body was very much a city crowd – unused to rules and unwilling to respond in many cases – very steeped in the inner-city counter-culture.  The other school has a large number of foreign students – a number from Poland, some Hispanics and quite a lot of Korean students.  They have a difficult time with English (compounded in some cases by an unwillingness to learn) and didn’t understand preaching or competitive activities very much.  Behavior control was quite an ordeal – there was literally no time we were allowed to let down our supervision.  The week was very taxing on our staff here.  It is from the Lord’s hand – we grew and were forced to trust Him more.  And He may very well have big plans for these students.  One of the young men from Korea is a 21-year-old escapee from North Korea – he escaped once, got saved, went back to witness to his family, got thrown in jail, escaped again and came to America – his goal is to get a GED and try to go to Maranatha in a couple years.  What a powerful tool he could be in the Lord’s hand!

The week came with more than its fair share of interesting stories.  I can’t really call them amusing, because most of them are about camper misbehavior.  But amusing or not, here they are…

Monday – it seems so long ago – did they come in the morning or afternoon?  I better look at my schedule…  Oh yes, one school arrived around 10.30am and the other a little after noon.  Let the fun begin…  The inner city crowd arrived first – we got them situated in cabins.  Boy, was I optimistic!!  These kids seemed so needy – they could all get saved this week!  The foreign group arrived later and we got them settled as well – off to orientation!  Mr. Scott was with his wife at a doctor’s appointment – so I did orientation – told them not to break stuff, not to date this week, obey all teachers and staff, go to the island in a counter-clockwise direction inside the no-wake buoys and all that good stuff.  Little did I know how many deaf ears my words fell upon…  That afternoon we played Spoke Tackle – we ended the game when two spokes nearly started a fist-fight.

Monday evening – first service w/Pastor Ben Klaus – he preached the gospel to them.  After the service, you could hear the racket from the deck for quite a distance.  They were having fun apparently…  Oh yes, before the service, Mr. Appel called me to let me know that there were some girls headed to the Catacombs with mischievous looks – so I went in and found at least 8 students in there (mixed group).  I told them that it wasn’t open now (the only reason they had gotten in was because someone had broken the board with the bolt right off of the front door) and that it was NEVER open for mixed groups anyway.  “But we’re just in here with all our friends” was the reply I got – as they came out in pairs from different directions…  I shouldn’t jump to conclusions – they were probably having prayer meetings…  I spent part of the evening re-attaching that board – not with screws this time, but with bolts.  Any camper who breaks it loose now is quite a beast.

Tuesday morning – not too eventful.  They’re in 2 chapel services and the breakfast dishes were light for me in the dishroom.  Which was good – I needed the time to do the last-minute Sword in the Stone re-set scramble.  Oh yes – bagel safety lesson: “Always split your bagels before you toast them.”  I demonstrate and place my bagel into the toaster.  That means that my bagel is ready to go before any campers can mob the bagel bar – I shoulda thought of that weeks ago!

Tuesday afternoon – Big Ball Dominoes.  Remember, the foreign students can’t (or, won’t) understand instructions.  Kids keep standing behind the dominoes and getting smushed when they get bowled over by the big ball – you’d think that the survival instinct would get them to stand someplace else – guess not, though.  Teachers say, “A lot of kids seem to get hurt.”  Stephen replies, “Well, we’ve been playing this game every week for about a month now and not had hardly any injuries – of course, we’ve never had this many kids ignoring directions all at one time.”  Teachers are unable to refute his stellar logic.  We end the game early when it appears that a fist-fight is about to break out…

Tuesday evening – um, kind of uneventful, if I recall correctly (although I don’t recall much from that far back…).  Our dilemma for the day was that a camper took the key out of one of our skid-loaders and we haven’t seen it since.

Wednesday morning – bagel safety lesson #2: “Remember, kids, don’t put cream cheese (or butter, or jelly, or anything else) on your bagel before you toast it.”  Yes – that was necessary!  They did that on Tuesday.  Again, I demonstrate by splitting a bagel and putting it into the toaster with NO cream cheese.  A girl raises her smart-alecky little hand and asks, “Did you wash your hands?”  I reply, “Yes – but I’m going to eat that one myself!”  Again – no waiting at the bagel bar.  During breakfast announcements, I get the campers’ attention by telling them about the night game and how great it is – and then I make it conditional: “If we’re going to play the game, we need to see a day of good behavior.  I need that key returned, you need to follow instructions and behave much better, and don’t leave trash all over the place.  Oh, and if we have behavior problems during the game, we’ll stop it right there and go to bed early.”  This results in a day of noticeably better behavior.  Certainly not angels, but at least we could end Baton Tag on time with no fistfights!

Wednesday afternoon – Baton Tag – those who understand the rules play and have a great time.  It is quite a struggle to get all of them to play and get involved.  During Gen-Rec, we have horse rides scheduled.  We’re not quite ready for trail rides, but someone announced them and all the campers wanted them.  So last minute, I get Mr. Todd to cover Sky Glide brake for me and I go help w/rides.  Well, Mr. Scott is there, and he goes on the first 2 rides – oh, almost forgot – Western Boy bucked Abe off.  We decided not to use him that afternoon – Western Boy, that is – we kept Abe. :) I go along on the 3rd ride – I haven’t ridden for at least 8 years, but it wasn’t any trouble at all – Prince behaved just fine for me and it was a good ride.  Abe and I are probably going to ride tomorrow afternoon for a while – I’m looking forward to getting more comfortable on the horses and being able to help in that arena when I can.  After that I do brake for guys’ Sky Glide.  Couple big guys – I got my work-out.

Wednesday night – I keep them in suspense about the night game right through the evening service.  When I paused between hymns for announcements, I announced, “and we still need that key back.”  Then I get 3 camper hands in the air.  “Oh good,” I think, “They have information for me.”  No, they don’t.  One guy says, “My money’s missing.”  Another guy says, “Someone took all my shirts.”  A girl says, “We’re playing that game tonight, right?”  I say, “Not till I know about the keys.”  Grumble runs through the crowd – I say, “Hey, I told you that this morning – you’ve had all day to solve the problem.”  And we go on with more songs.  We on Program Staff are getting everything ready and making sure that we can run the game.  I talk with Scott during the service, we discuss the story that came out that one boy – we’ll call him “Charles” (since that’s his name) – played around in the skid-loader threw the key back at the seat of the machine – losing the key.  The administrator has talked to the boy and gotten a confession, so we decide that’s good enough to play the night game.  All is readiness – including Valerie being a substitute counselor for a teacher who is too old to play the game.  Some campers, as you might have imagined, have a VERY difficult time holding their cabin rope the entire time.  I made sure that Stephen announced during the rules that bandits (Abe and I) are also refs and that our word is rule.  I got quite a kick out of catching some camper away from their rope, getting between them and their cabin and spraying that camper continuously while calling “Where’s your rope? Where’s your rope?” as the camper runs the opposite direction and can’t figure out why he still has my full and undivided attention while the rest of his cabin laughs.  I am going to REALLY miss the night game when school camp is over!

Thursday morning – I had a sneaking suspicion that after behaving so well on Wednesday (relatively speaking), Thursday would see the release of all that pent-up naughtiness.  I was right.  By lunch-time, we had a camper with a badly broken wrist in the emergency room.  He’s fine now.  On a side note, while he was in the hospital, after about 4 morphine shots for the pain, he told his principal, “Now I’m actually having fun at school camp!”  Poor kid.

Thursday afternoon – sometime on Thursday, several fancy plates in the Coffee Shop got broken – about $90 worth.  In the afternoon, we played Checkmate.  Oh wow, did I learn a lesson!  That game was confusing enough with “professional” counselors and ordinary campers.  With half the group not listening, half the group not understanding, and half the group neither listening nor understanding, the game was chaotic, to say the least.  But the silver lining on that cloud: they were too confused to start any fist-fights!  After the game, Abe took some kids out to the woods for paintball, bless his heart!  They all came back early when several of them got mad at each other for shooting each other (duh, why do you go paintballing?  I must have missed something…) and they took off their masks and were shooting each other.  So… they all came home early.  The program record for this camp will say “Never ever take these kids paintballing again.”  Or some facsimile thereof.

Thursday night – as I led singing in the service, I thought I detected a better spirit in the group than previous nights.  I paused on a few occasions to call their attention to some phrase or verse that really highlighted God’s incredible goodness or their incredible need.  They were attentive and respectful.  No records of mass conversions, but I hope and pray that the seeds planted and watered this week will someday prove fruitful as God gives increase in these students’ lives.

Also Thursday night – my dad was driving in the area and stopped by to visit – that was a fun surprise – wish he could have stayed longer, but it was close to 9pm and he was still 2 1/2 to 3 hours away from home.

Late Thursday night – after lights out and quiet, the guys in the cabins were not quiet.  It sounded like several were running around and perhaps wrestling as well.  I was up reading (it’s about 11pm by now) and on several occasions, considered putting my book down for a minute and going outside to holler at ‘em.  All of a sudden a very loud teacher’s voice rings out – “What are you kids doing??  Get back in the room right now!  Get back here!”  That took care of the “campers outside” issue.  I was told later that he continued to tell the campers that they were doing wrong once he got them back into the cabin as well.

Friday morning – can we go one morning with no craziness?  Nope, ‘fraid not.  As they were loading their vans and getting ready to go, one of the teachers looks out and sees his school’s 15-passenger driving out of the parking lot – with the trailer.  He yells, “Hey, who is that?  Tell him to stop!  What’s he doing?”  Sure enough, it was a student behind the wheel.  Then the student proceeds to back the van up – and he’s obviously got no experience backing up a trailer!  The teacher calls out, “No, no!  Tell him to STOP!!” and then watches the van & trailer moving toward some other vehicles and mutters, “oh no.”  The student stopped (thankfully!) and returned the keys to his teacher.  He’s probably looking at a few demerits when he gets home…

Whew, they’ve left and it’s all over for now!!  We don’t have a retreat this weekend – which is good – we’re gonna need our rest time!  Please pray for all of us staff as we serve here – that we would seek the Lord’s strength and serve in dependence on Him each moment.  Pray that we won’t take our eyes off of our spiritual goals and purpose – even for a second!  Pray that we will labor with patience, diligence and skill.

You may have heard about Miss Tina’s cancer – the results from Monday’s biopsy came back and the doctors want to perform surgery to remove the spots on her lower eyelid and on her arm on October 9.  That’s all I really know – I think that displays of your concern, care and prayerful love would be greatly appreciated at the Hatchett house.

We’re looking forward to next week – we’ll have Woodcrest Baptist Academy from the north side of Minneapolis here – I’ve been told that they’re a pretty good group to work with.  After last week, this will be a relief and joy for us here, I think.  They’ll be arriving between 3 and 3.30 on Monday afternoon and staying through lunch on Friday.

Well, I better head back to my room to rustle up some grub – have a great weekend!

Yes, it’s time for another “Mr. James Camp Joy Update” brought to you by Mr. James.  This week we had North Love (Rockford, IL) Christian School – a little over 100 students.  They’re an energetic bunch, to say the least!  Despite a 6:30am Rise and Shine every day, they haven’t slowed down or quieted down much at all!  We’ll have to try 5:30am next year… as long as some one else is early man!!  They’ve had good testimonies during the services and the preaching has been direct.  Although this has been a somewhat rowdy school in the past, it is encouraging to see evidence of God’s work in the hearts of some of the campers!  Their ThursPM campfire was over 2 hours of good testimonies and would have probably gone longer if it hadn’t been for the late hour!

Amusing Stories from the Week:

Monday afternoon – they arrive just on the tail end of some rain.  So these energetic campers make a “bucket brigade” line down the sidewalk and pass all the luggage along to the girls who are waiting under the awning at the lodge.  They sure finished quick!

Tuesday afternoon – they have an interscholastic soccer game against a Christian school from M’waukee.  North Love has their Varsity team playing, the other school has every guy in their high school on the team.  Final score: 15-0… (Or something like that…)

Tuesday PM – I’m in the bookstore and I pick up the Winnie the Pooh jack-in-the-box and walk around showing the students.  For some reason, they all jump and get startled when Pooh pops his fuzzy little head out the top.  But anywho, the funny part is that I (jokingly) told one boy that he could buy it and go around scaring all his friends.  He asks, “how much is it?”  I told him $24.95.  And then he actually starts thinking about it – and he decides to buy it!  I’ve been playing with that thing since I first worked here in 2005 and I NEVER expected it to sell.  Next time, I’m going to set up the “Noah’s Ark PlaySet” on the floor and see if I get any takers.

Wednesday afternoon – it comes to our attention that we need to have some sort of Fun Time ready for the weekend family retreat Friday – and we start brainstorming.  So far, James & Todd (King & I), Stephen (Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder), maybe Abe & Stephen with some goofy banana smashing on forehead skit, maybe James & a guy and Val & Clare Grimes with some Squatty-Body routines.  And hopefully a whole lotta laughter!  We attempted to convince Rebecca Greenlee to be Valerie’s arms for Squatty-Body but she refused, claiming she would be sooooo embarrassed.  But then on Thursday, we find out that we only need 15 min of skits, so just King & I and Hello Mudder for now…

Thursday afternoon – we attempt a new game (the brain child of Mr. James).  10 foot tall dominoes in a circle on the soccer field, red & blue campers trying to knock down their own pieces, when they do, their “squires” get as many tin cans as there are points on the domino, the “squires” use tin cans (large ones), duct tape, cardboard, and markers to construct and decorate a suit of armor for one of their teachers – the winners will be judged on points, design, and race results!  Hopefully this brain child doesn’t turn out handicapped…  Well, that’s what I had thought about doing, except I found out last minute that the cans were only open on one end – not very easy to get your arm through.  So we just played Big Ball Dominoes.  The students all complained it was dumb (before it started) then played like enthusiastic banshees once the game got rolling.  Kids these days.

Also Thursday afternoon – I got an email – an ad from a pen company I had to order ink from once.  I flipped through their site and came across a fountain pen carved out of jade.  Very intricate and beautiful.  Guess the price?  $1000?  Higher.  $15,000?  No, higher!  $100,000?  No, try $250,000 – a quarter of a million!!!  Zoinks!  That costs more than any of the houses that most of us grew up in!  Anyway, random but interesting.

Friday afternoon – the campers cleaned out their cabins (including taking sheets off of beds in the deluxe rooms) but somehow housekeeping didn’t get up to the deluxe rooms above the lake bathhouse – oops!  So as they are filling with weekend family retreat campers (their preacher in particular), Rebecca runs up with an armful of linens and I with a bathroom bucket to get them ready – nothing like a couple hours after the last minute!

Friday evening – Jennifer Scates arrives.  Valerie is elated.

Friday night – service begins w/men’s group.  Not bad – but afterwards, I notice that at the heel where the sole of my shoe is separating, it’s getting worse.  By the time I go up to play a euphonium solo, I’ve got an audibly flopping shoe.  When I come down, I’ve got a loudly flapping shoe.  So before the men’s group sings again, I go to the sound booth, find a roll of masking tape, make little tape loops and stick them into the split.  Abraham is watching from across the chapel and he finds this quite humorous, so humorous that he laughs out loud, eliciting a SHHHHH from Mr. Scott.  It held fine and I was able to quietly walk to the platform and back.  Before bed, I super-glued it together.

Friday night – Mr. Todd & I do The King & I again.  Sorry, no video to post anywhere online this time…  We wore costumes (baggy pleated old-fashioned shirts and bloomer-type breeches w/long socks), and the socks that Mr. Todd gave me were sticky.  It was weird.

Saturday morning – I had loaded everything I needed for the CJ display at the Farmtastic into our new nice black van.  At 6.40am when I’m ready to go, it won’t start – dead battery.  No problem, right?  I’ll just use the white Neon.  Well, in order to do that, I need a key.  The key is nowhere to be found.  2 phone calls and a lot of searching later, I locate a spare key and off I go.  My fingers were frozen (we had frost this morning) and I was 30 minutes behind where I wanted to be.  But I survived :)

Saturday morning – at Farmtastic, I get to spend time w/Brian, Sarah & Jamie – mini CJ 2007 reunion.  It was fun.  Jamie was in charge of this game where kids can race remote controlled cars around a wood track and she let Brian and I play which was cool but then Brian’s controller was controlling 2 cars on the same frequency and mine only had one and we pretty much crashed and then all the batteries went dead before lunch but then the recharged them so that Jamie wouldn’t be bored anymore.  We also had donuts.  But that was before cars.  Then we watched some week-in-review DVDs from Teen 2 & 3.  Good old memories :)

Saturday all day – kids would come up to me and recognize me.  I could see this look in their eyes and I remembered their faces from somewhere so I’d just say, “Hey, you came to camp, didn’t you?”  And they’d feel special cuz I “remembered” them (which I kinda did…).  Sometimes I would guess at their names, as in… “Hey, there MikeMattJohnBillTomNate – stop me when I hit the right one.”  And they’d say, “No, it’s Cody” or whatever.  This one kid comes up and I remember his face from this summer so out of the blue I say, “Hey Terrence!”  And his name was really Terrence – wild!  Then there were these other kids I recognized and I thought it was from camp, but it turns out that they go to school where I used to go and that my mom is their math teacher.  It was a fun day :)

Saturday afternoon – on the way home, I missed my exit on the expressway and so I took the next one because I knew what road it would put me on.  Then I was gonna stop in Delavan for dinner but I turned the wrong way and ended up on another freeway and then the exit I needed was closed!  So I went to the next one and it put me by a restaurant and a couple stores I needed to stop at.  Then I got back to camp.  All’s well that ends well.

Speaking of ending well, it’s about time for this email to end!  [Hey, no saying "Amen" - I heard that!] Please pray for next week’s school camp – combined group from Brentwood Baptist & Lake County.  Both schools have open enrollment and use their schools and this camp week for evangelism.  We will have quite a number of unsaved students from MANY different backgrounds – probably Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics and a number of other religions.  Pray for salvation of many of these young people!  Pray also for our staff here – September is a very tiring month – we have school camps of up to 120 – as many as a mid-sized teen week – with only full-time staff and volunteers.  We are fighting exhaustion – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.  Pray that we would lean on the Lord and work in His grace, that He would sustain us and strengthen us to excel in His service!

Thanks for your prayers!