Stick Night

Stick Night is like a mini-entertainment night! We all enjoyed seeing everyone involved in camp go up to the front and tell us a bit about themselves and their goals for camp.  The campers were especially fun to watch from the shy, to the funny, to the very confident.  The responses to what the goals were a range of the following:

"To get to know all the campers"
"To inspire fellow campers"
"To keep a good attitude despite the heat"
"To improve my prayer life"
"To get closer to God"
"To be more enthusiastic"- said in a deadpan voice and expression, which would elicit much laughter.
"To overcome shyness"
"To get out of my comfort zone"
etc.

It would be interesting if they had Stick night again at the end of camp, to see the difference in responses maybe to the question - what did you get out of camp this year or did you fulfill your goal?

It's great to see all the campers one by one to help us put a face to the name. We have quite an international camp this year too with representatives from: Australia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Colombia, Germany, England and Hong Kong.  You can view the pictures in the album and I hope I was able to get a picture of all the campers

First Day....yawn!

Mrs Hilliker & Mr Woemmel preparing
eggs and hash browns

So today was my first day of doing the 6am shift! Ahem..those who know me are laughing right now but hold your laughter 'cause I made it through, albeit with very heavy eyelids and a foggy brain! That was my fault though for not going to bed early. I will learn from that tonight (hopefully ;). One benefit of the early shift is you start out the day quiet after breakfast then it gets busy as we prepare for lunch and the 9am crew join us so there are more people in the kitchen to maneovor around. It is really nice to get off at 12 and have the rest of the day free to shop, relax, hangout and for me - take pictures.

 

What a great start to camp. I think the campers have dived into camp much quicker than last year. I am seeing a lot more smiles and animated interactions than I did on day one last year and it's wonderful to have campers come up to me to introduce themselves or remember me from before.

Tonight at 7pm is Orientation 2 aka Stick Night. This is always fun for those watching, probably not so much for the campers anticipating having to stand up in front of everyone in the gym and say their name, where they are from and what their goal is at camp. There are usually some hilarious moments. Check out my Twitter @melopodia for some on the spot observations. In the meantime you can enjoy some photos in the album.  By the way, if you know the names of campers in a picture go ahead and write that in the comments which will be a great help to me and others.

Arrival

We're here! We arrived about 1.30pm and headed straight to HQ. The first thing we noticed was how much the landscaping at the entrance had been improved. There is now a water feature (pictures to come) and new landscaping features by God's House. Over by the Field House is where the campers were arriving throughout the afternoon. Of course we met up with a lot of people - old friends and some new faces.

Southeast campers arrive

Mrs KM went to the Kitchen worker orientation at 2pm, since this was her first camp, while I continued chatting and taking pictures of campers arriving. Most of the campers who had already arrived were hanging out in the gym. Afterwards we headed over to Mr & Mrs Hilliker's (Snr) house to settle into our temporary home for the next three weeks.

Waiting for Orientation meeting to begin

After a tasty dinner of chicken and pasta back at HQ, we attended the Orientation meeting given by Mr Turgeon where he expounded on this year's theme of "Focus on Perfection". In his lecture, Mr Turgeon he encouraged the campers to have the right goal of Godly perfection and to focus like a laser beam on the goal and striving to grow. He posed the question: "If you were are laser for God how powerful would you be?". About the obstacles they may face at camp and in life, Mr T challenged the campers: "don't be a quitter".  What if Thomas Edison have given up before his 3000th failure in creating the light bulb? He concluded by admonishing all to look at the areas of our lives where we need to strive for perfection and lock our sights on the ultimate vision. 

Tomorrow is an early start for me as I am on the 6am-12pm shift in the kitchen. Other shifts are 9am-3pm, 1pm-7pm. So I'll be going to bed now and see you readers tomorrow! In the meantime, you can camper spot in the photo album.

Drive to Edmond

Today we enjoyed the 11hr drive from Augusta, GA to Little Rock, Arkansas (2/3rds of way to Edmond). We had a lot of fun chatting, laughing, singing along to Philly Singers and Motown and being educated from an audiobook (Positive Words, Powerful Results).

The time went by really fast as we took turns driving every two hours. It was mostly sunny but we encountered some heavy rain showers mid-way.

It's weird to have the time change when you're driving - we went back 1 hour. Tomorrow we'll aim to leave early to do the final 6hrs to Edmond.

Night before departure

Mrs Miller arrived today, we packed her stuff in my car, had dinner, a little Smirnoff Ice and hung out chatting and watched The Blindside. Our men ate well set up to not go hungry while we're away.

This time next week...in Edmond

In three days we'll be on the road. Can you believe I still haven't packed? Well packing for PYC is much easier than for FOT - just need mostly casual clothes: shorts, t-shirts, sandals and about 8 Sabbath outfits for Biblestudy and Sabbaths. The main things to remember to pack are my contact lenses, glasses and power cords for gadgets.  I found out this week that another good friend will be there whom I haven't seen for a long time so I am so looking forward to spending quality time with her and everyone else.  And I mean quality time because even though we have three weeks it goes by so fast you can end up just having rushed time with friends so this year I want to make deliberate goals for relaxed get-togethers.

PYC 2012 Here we come!

Another year has flown by and here we are getting ready to begin PYC in 9 days. I am happy to be going again as a worker and this time bringing along Mrs Kim Miller (henceforth to be referred to as KM). We are driving out together so the fun will begin next Monday...let me hear you say "Roaaad Triiip!!". But before then I have lots to do. I am so bad at preparing way ahead whereas KM has been cooking for her hubby for a month!

2011 Final Thoughts

It's been a week since camp ended and I am back to 100% health. Time to close out this blog with a few final thoughts.

Camp excelled my expectations - I learnt much more than I thought I would, kitchen work wasn't as hard as I was told and fellowship way surpassed my hopes. However, it's easy to be enthused after such an event and the hard part is keeping up the momentum in applying what I learnt and maintaining the friendships.

Likewise for the campers, my hope is that they too will keep the flame of PYC alive. I hope the counselors will keep in touch with each camper in their dorm throughout the year to encourage them to work on goals set during camp. I hope the campers will continue communicating with each other after camp and not let it die out after the Feast or even before. I hope to recognize some names of campers in those accepted to HWAC in 2012. I hope I do my part by continuing to pray for each camper by name during the year.

Grateful thanks to our Heavenly Father and Mr Flurry for making camp possible. To Mr & Mrs Turgeon and Mr & Mrs Burns for all their tremendous hard work and dedication to our teens and to all the other organizers.

I hope this blog has encouraged others to take some time out be a worker next year. You just might find it a life-changing experience.