June Service and Camps

If we thought May was busy, June did not bring much relief. Lots of camps and retreats in June, 2 weeks of dog sitting, holidays, and parties filled the calendar. On top of that, neighborhood swim team practices started May 1 after school and continued just about every weekday morning through June, plus the JH Strength and Conditioning (SAC) camp every M-Th afternoon. Whew! At least the kids can bike themselves to swim and SAC.

Owen and I started off our June at our Junior High service camp, Bridge. We went to Galveston and met up with a couple of other Katy-area churches for Thursday-Sunday. 40-ish people slept in a church there, worked in the community during the day and played, worshipped, and ate dinner back at the church.

The kids were broken up into small groups for discussions and planning. Owen was in the Blue Bombers. Most of the missions had to do with helping the homeless, so the kids had some learning opportunities to understand the causes and impacts of homelessness. They even did a simulation where they were given a budget, a few resources, and real life challenges (transportation, rent, etc.) and had to try to make ends meet with a minimum wage job.

On the first day, Blue and Red teams went to help Artist Boat, an organization dedicated to reclaiming wetland habitats on Galveston Island. 

The kids spent the better part of a day (8a-3p), in the heat, digging holes in a field and planting native plants in a grid every 6 feet. While some kids were too small to really get a shovel in the ground, they became plant runners, going back and forth between the trailer and the shovelers. The teams worked together to plant 600 plants in that time! The AB guide was impressed with their work ethic when they blew through what he had expected them to do and asked for more. The Blue team even returned the next day and planted 70 trees in a different area.

I was on the kitchen crew (1 of 2), so I had early mornings to get breakfast ready by 7 and had to be back early to get dinner for 40+ started. In between, I went around with the camp leadership to check in on each site, so I got to see all of the teams' efforts. Over the two days, besides planting, we had groups organizing a food bank, making 300 lunches for distribution to the needy, painting doors, signage, and ramps at St. Vincent's House, and cleaning a clinic. They were working hard! So at night, they got to have some fun, like human hungry hippos!

The weekend centered around worship and living out our mission as humans to make the world a better place. I think it really opened some kids' eyes to what they have to be thankful for and what they can do to make a difference. Some of the kids shared their takeaways during the church service on Sunday, and they were so heart-warming and wise! What an exhausting and yet refreshing weekend!

Before we left the island, we spent a couple of hours at Pleasure Pier. Because kids!

The following weekend was our church's Church Without Walls, meaning they had oodles of projects to go out into the community and do good works. John was excited about replacing a fence, so he and Owen actually went on Saturday to dismantle the old fence, pull out concrete, and set new posts to dry overnight. John then returned on Sunday to finish the job, when the cameras were out. 

I let Hadley choose the job for us, and she picked decorating the church for VBS, even though she decided that she's too old to actually attend VBS. The theme was "Ready, set, go!", which meant lots of paper on the walls to make streets, cars, trains, and all things that go. She and I worked on the train, but ran out of time before we got to make the engine.

This year, Owen tried out a new camp with some friends, Great Adventure Camp, which was his first sleep-away camp. It's only about an hour away, but he was gone Monday afternoon through Saturday morning. Here he is at drop-off and with his cabin. The cowboy is his college-age cabin counselor.

From the pictures the camp posted, it looked like they had a good time. Lots of paint, mud, and water activities to keep cool in the record heat wave. Owen is easy to pick out in his bucket hat in most of the pictures.

The whole camp: About 140 campers, 3rd-8th grade, boys and girls. I think Owen enjoyed it, but he was exhausted. He said there were some talkers nearly every night in the cabin that kept him awake.

Here he is at pickup: tired, hungry, and sweaty. On the way back home, we stopped for some donuts/kolaches a la Homer. 

Lastly, Owen went to a Beach Retreat with the church youth. Looks like they had a pretty swanky house on Crystal Beach! I didn't get to go to the beach, so Owen sent me these pictures of the view from the house's deck and the large hole he dug. 

Other than that, all I have is this montage they sent out. Looks like fun!