10. Peanut Butter Break a Chair Boy – One of Wade’s illustrations involving a boy who painted himself for peanut butter for the sake of laughs. Had me in stitches.
9. Ryan getting scared by Joey “The Pretty Pink Princess” Silvia – It was quite a sight to watch Joey prance around the guys dorm room in a gold cape with a pink tiara. The only thing that made it better was him sneaking up on Ryan and scaring the boy into the hallway.
8. The Ice Cream Sandwich Eating Competition – While I was ECSTATIC when I found out there were all you could eat ice cream sandwiches, nothing could prepare me for the competition that took place the last full day of camp. Joey started it by shoving a whole ice cream sandwich in his mouth. I thought it was a peace of cake and shoved two in my mouth before choking and spitting them out. Tracy shoved two in without even flinching, then she stuffed her fingers in her mouth and spread them out to make room for another sandwich. Then the biggest mouth of them all, Brad, piled four in his mouth like it was nothing.
7. Sean getting in trouble – Not a misprint, my brother, the epitome of a well behaved child was among a group of hoodlums that received a twenty minute lecture from one of our adults. While I was not happy with the misconduct I had to high five him for coming out of his shell.
6. The Super Early Morning Show – Last years Celebration was poor at best. This year was much closer to classic Student Life. The Characters had me in stitches!
5. Tuesday Nights Cryfest – All the good camps have one and even though it’s somewhat “taboo” for a man to cry, it’s always a good release for me. Our last night of camp was one of deep appreciation and desire to grow closer to God.
4. The Photo Scavenger Hunt – I had never done one of these before but it couldn’t have gone any better. Take a look at Madhouse Ministries facebook page to see the entries. Watching both groups get way outside their comfort zone for the chance at a victory. I got to spend some time with the guys and it was so cool to watch them get excited at the chance to get handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police cruiser or do some kung fu fighting in a chinese restaurant. Awesome times.
3. Random Acts of Kindness – Something else I had never done before. We went into a mall with the desire to do nice things for people just to show Christ’s Love. We split up into several groups and started walking around. My groups first stop was pretty disheartening. We went into JC Penny’s and asked if we could help them put garments back on racks or take garbage out. The manager informed us that that was not possible. I didn’t see what the big deal was but he asked us to go ahead and leave if we weren’t going to buy anything. Then we went to the mall manager to see and he said the same thing. Then we decided to do a shotgun approach and hit every store. Before the end of the day we had entered every store and were given tasks ranging from taking garbage out, to washing windows, to restocking shelves. It was much more successful when we stopped focusing on big opportunities and tried to help everyone and anyone we could.
2. Mattress Jousting – the brain child of James Emery, Brad and Dawson Steele. It involves two opponents, each holding a mattress in front of them and then charging towards each other. When done at an optimal speed and with great connection you get a simulated sonic boom and if you’re mismatched with a much smaller opponent you get to watch them bounce around the hallway like a pinball. “How about we NOT touch it!”
1. Sponsoring two kids through Compassion International – Easily my favorite memory of camp. In one of our pastors meetings the purpose and mission of Compassion International was brought up. Kerri had sponsored an Indian girl in 2004 and my Mom had sponsored several children over the years but I never had the tug. To save you from the long story (which will be coming in the next couple weeks or so) I sponsored a 5 year old girl from Nicaragua and a 7 year old boy from Uganda. Their names are Rachel and Innocent. I look forward to communicating with them in the near future and will bring you their messages.
So that’s it….my top ten memories of this last year at camp. Check back next week for another top 10!
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