Monday is here - The last week has begun

Hello friends and family!

I can't believe it, but the last week has begun. Saturday afternoon I said goodbye to my campers, packed up my stuff, turned in my forms and moved out of Bayberry for the last time. After that it was time to get dressed up and I joined the other g i r l s who were getting ready for our SST wrap-up banquet. The banquet was wonderful and full of great things, challenges, encouragement, sadness and tears. We ate, had our last hymn sing, shared what we had meant to eachother, watched the wrap up video, had our last "prep for ministry" (ministry outside of camp....) and our last prayer circle. We didn't get back to camp until almost midnight.

Sunday we rolled out of bed for church in the Chapel with Carney Free who had a service and picnic here.

Yesterday afternoon a group of us went out on a curvy county highway into the middle of nowhere, turned right down a dirt road and drove for a few miles, parked and walked for 25 minutes and there it was! LaSalle Falls and it was gorgeous. We stayed until 8 hiking around (and climbing out to the middle of the river if you're Courtney.... :) and then went to Pizza Hut and Walmart and drove back by midnight :)

This morning custodial began. It'll be an interesting week since I have to train a new crew everyday..... As usual, custodial's already thrown more intresting projects and things at me. I got attacked by the garbage today and got a nice y cut on my leg, I discovered the insane number of vaccum cleaners camp has when I had to change all the bags this morning, I discovered how heavy a garbage bag full of dirty vacumm bags is.... lol and I'm on my way in 60 seconds to be trained on driving the red mule (another camp vehicle) since the five wheeler is down.

All in all these last few days have been great. I'm loving and appreciating everyone more than ever and I'm enjoying working alongside all the SSTers and having fun with them instead of a bunch of random volunteer staff I don't know.

Prayer Requests:
-That things would go fairly smoothly
-That I wouldn't be intimidated by or annoyed with any of my crews (most of them are good friends of mine but not all of them)
-That I would get to spend some quality time with God
-That at home details would get arranged quickly
- That goodbyes would go okay and that God would give us all strength to endure them and make the transition back to the "real world".
-PRAISE: That we serve an amazing God who has given me the great privledge of serving here this summer!

The last full day

Here it is - the last full day of youth camp.

I'm absolutely shocked that it's here. It feels like it's just the end of another week of camp, but it's not. Tomorrow is our wrap-up banquet and then the goodbye's begin. 1/4-1/3 of our staff leave on Sunday while the rest of us stay one more week to work for the all week Alliance Family Camp. Those of us who are staying will be leaving on August 16th.

My s this week are great and I'm having a blast with them. I want so much to be able to help them through all the different things in their lives. None of them feel like they have it all together or are blatantly apathetic towards God. All of them are searching for answers which is so cool. Another totally neat thing is that four of my s live within two or three miles from me - two of them are under a mile and within walking distance and I'm excited to maintain those relationships as we go home and they begin highschool.

God continues to be faithful to provide, sustain and speak through me even though I get tired, frustrated or doubtful. I'm only getting about six hours of sleep each night so that's not helping my overall end-of-the-week mood. :)

Prayer requests would include being able to reach out to these s in this last day and a half, for strength as I say goodbye to one of my closest friends up here this weekend, for strength and a good attitude as I once again take up the role of head custodian next week (our head custodian is leaving this weekend) and will (besides the cooks) have the least amount of freetime and will most likely be the tiredest.

Thank you all who have so faithfully supported me in so many ways (including this blog) throughout the summer. I love and appreciate you!

Your sister in Christ,
Courtney Lynn

Here we go again - but for the last time

Wow. That's all I can say. Today is the beginning of our last week of camp! Next week we have a family camp but that doesn't really count. I'm one of the eight s counselors for this last week for grades 8-10th. Because of the age group there is a potential for this to be a very interesting week. Thankfully God has helped turn around my attitude so that I'm fairly excited about counseling again.

After my all-nighter I knew I needed sleep but I didn't know when I was going to go to bed. Well, my body took care of that for me. I laid down on a couch that next night at about 8 during a conversation and promptly fell asleep. Someone was kind enough to wake me at 10:30 to go to my cabin :) Where I slept another nine hours. So, for anyone worried about my sleep (like my parents and a selected other few) I'm doing pretty decently even with the all nighter and God really used that night to change my attitude and make me excited about this last week of camp.

Prayer Requests (I would definitely appreciate it):
- Wisdom in leading these g i r l s
- That my focus would be on my g i r l s and not on spending time with the staff - especially those leaving Saturday or Sunday
- Staff health and attitude - Many of us are sick, injured or just getting to late summer exhaustion and just struggling with the idea of giving 24/7 again

I'm so thankful to all of you who have prayed, have financially supported me, have written to me, who have emailed me and who have been reading this blog. Thank you so much for caring about my life and for giving to it. I'm excited to announce that my financial support is now not only above my minimum but is also above the staff goal! Praise be to God for providing.

I'm still up here for two more weeks even though camp's winding down - so please still write me letters! :) - [I havn't gotten many recently]

Much love to you, your sister in Christ,
Courtney Lynn

Precious Moments

As the summer draws to a close, the time I have left with the staff, especially those leaving early becomes very short. Jess is leaving next Sunday and because of our schedules last night was the last time we were going to have a chance to spend time together. She had a project (her shell turtle) that needed to be finished by today and so I kept her company while she worked and we finally had a chance to talk. The time passed so quickly as we talked about things going on in our life now, shared where we think God's leading us, read verses on God's faithfulness and the entire amazing Psalm 37, sang various songs, shared our testimonies and just spent time together. She finished her project and it was 4:30am and getting light out! We couldn't believe how such a short time it had seemed. In our adventurousness and spunk we decided that it was our last chance to do something crazy and we wanted to make the memory together so we pulled an all nighter. After the project was finished we went to the craft shop to wrap it, went to the dock at sunrise, and decided that swimming at 5:50 would be fun (which it was - it was amazing). I did take a short 45 minute nap before breakfast - so no worries - I slept. lol :) As tired as I was this morning (I'm doing okay right now but I'm going to go take a nap again) I do not regret a single thing about last night because it was one of those precious moments God gives us with the special people He puts in our lives. Only God knows how much I needed that time last night to talk through what's been on my heart and mind. I was struggling alot throughout this week and God used the care and love of a friend to minister to both of us because I found out later that Jess needed our conversation as much as I did. I'm so thankful to the God who works all things together for good and works in our lives to make the beautiful and amazing - simply because.

Jessie working on her turtle
The finished turtle - and this picture in no way does justice how cool this thing looks. It's made out of the shells she picked in Mozambique on a missions trip right before camp.
The lake at 5:30 - so beautiful
Camp in the early morning light
Out on the dock, sleepy but oh so happy

We serve an amazing and faithful Lord!

Teen 2 - Riflery Instructor and having fun

Loading the BBs into the guns
The BB guns themselves
Ian and I were the Red team King and Queen for Refindum (like a huge version of capture the flag) this week. We're on the right. This picture was taken while David was explaining how to play the game.
Blue royalty and Red royalty harassing eachother but having a hard time holding a straight face!
Ian and I
A duel taking place in "no man's land"
The stunning riflery glasses...

One of my many riflery activity classes
The riflery range
Superhero Wednesday :)
The Chapel full of kids

And then I got sick...

Rachel and I the second night I was sick - the first night that I was moved to the infirmary. I look lovely.... :)The nurse's office - which over the weekend was my personal office and kitchen :)

My little room that became home for a week. Room #3 of Evergreen cabin - it was like my own little dorm!
This sign is usually used to track the nurse, but I decided to give it a makeover.
Making it feel more like home and bringing some fun and excitement to my day
Evergreen cabin also known as the infirmary or the nurse's station, or for me - home.

Head Custodial Pictures

That would be me - the head custodian :)

Two of the s from my crew and I with the five wheeler I drove around to collect trash and restock.
Gotta love those dumpsters....
Accidentally matching each other and the coke cans.... :)

Apprehending Apprehension :)

In regards to my earlier post, a suspect was arrested at 8:30 this morning - the exact time that our staff was gathered in the dining hall and praying. God is good! The story made it to CNN (story here) and it's crazy to think that this happened just twenty minutes north of us in Niagra. If any of you are familiar with driving to the UP, Niagra is the really curvy town that you have to drive really slow through right before you get to Iron Mountain, MI. Thanks be to God, may justice be done. Please continue to keep the gunman in your prayers though.

Safety Prayer Request

Prayer Request: I don't know how many of you saw the news last night (or paid any attention to it since it was in Marinette county) but a middle-aged man came out of the woods and shot at four kids that were swimming, three of them. Last night we could hear tons of the cop cars going by even late late at night. There's a massive manhunt out right now, roads are blocked off, parents are calling this morning and the staff just had a debriefing on the situation. Please just pray for safety here at camp because we can't simply lock down the camp and we're not telling the kids at this point, but trying to keep a tighter reign on everyone. So please pray for safety and wisdom and for the apprehension of this guy. Last night was the first time I was scared to walk around after dark alone, since he could just came out of the woods (which we have alot of here :)..... Great time to recite scripture. Also, just pray for the man as well since he's obviously struggling with someone and is a lost soul. Thank you!