June 28th ~ Tuesday

I started this day off with a kayaking trip to see the sun rise with some of the staff. The water was rather rough and our kayaks are actually river kayaks... But it was fun to be able to ride the waves on the way back and it was also fun to fight them on the way out. Once we got out around the rock where we could watch the sunrise we all grabbed each others kayaks and sang worship songs as we watched the sunrise while sitting on the Mediterranean. God's beauty is astounding!

I had another great conversation with one of my new campers over breakfast. It is really a pleasure to get to here where they are and how God has been leading them and there families.

We had our Word study again this morning and the girls were not as talkative it made it a bit harder to lead a discussion if the ladies are angry at each other don't want to talk. But I have two really sweet homeschool girls that helped a lot with carrying the discussion.

I once again helped in then office during elective time because of my ankle. It does make for a lot more relaxed morning if I am not out on the ocean with a bunch of youth...

I did kayak checkout today during free time, but because there was also bead bank, tuck shop, and tie dying only three boys came down the whole time I was there and they were the water front director's, Julie, boys and knew what they were doing. So I was able to just sit and chat with Julie we had a grate chat about many different important topics.

We then had big group games which were relay races that did not actually involve running so I was able to join in. My team tied for fourth, out of six teams... But it was not my fault. I had a good time getting to interact with the kids and encourage my team that was trying so hard but just having a lot of bad luck.

This was followed by dinner and service, after which came cabin time. I was so happy to find out at cabin time that the two young ladies had worked out there differences and decided to stay. But over the course of cabin time one young lady managed to get her arm stuck behind her head, which of course brought about the observation that it was a blond thing to do. Now the girl is half Turkish and half English and had never heard the phrase and she did not have blond hair. So we were then left trying to explain what a blond moment was. We then had to explain blond jokes and after that to explain that we were not calling her stupid by saying she had a blond moment it was rather complicated :-)

We finished the evening with ice cream and fellowshipping with the young ladies.

June 27th ~ Monday

So Monday once again marked the start of electives and Word Studies. This week we have 19 girls in our age range (9-10 grade) so we divided into four smaller groups. I have a nice varieties in my group. It was a real joy to get to know them all.

I was unable to do my elective today so Jess, went out with Laura and I helped do administrative stuff in the office. We then had lunch which was the same sandwich that they serve at every lunch... :-/

I got to spend over an hour talking with one of my new girls! It was really enjoyable and such a blessing. During big group games I helped in the office for a little while and then walked around and handed out water to all the kids. I only had one large bottle and it was interesting the different techniques the kids came up with to drink from the bottle without touching the lid. I am pretty sure it would have been easier to just pour the water in than some of the stuff. One technique that i found gross was they would cover the top of the bottle with their dirty and sweaty shirt and then drink through that, I quickly put a stop to that.They were playing capture the flag it was rather intense. I kept having to freeze sections of playing areas and not let anyone move until I had provided water. I would then back away and say go and everyone would start running like crazy!

We then had our service and then our first cabin time with my group of girls. I have some strong personalities in my group. We had an enjoyable, little tense in some parts, talk and it seems that maybe the girls are going to settle down. I have had three girls say they were going to leave in the last three days and two of them are in my group and want to leave partly because of each other :-/ I told them I did not want them to leave and then Jennifer, the assistant director, would not give them their phones she told them they would have to wait till Wednesday which was phone checkout day because wanting to go home was not a legitimate excuse to get there phones :-) I love Jennifer she is my type of lady.

June 26th ~ Sunday

Today was the day of the long awaited boat trip! The very smart people that run this camp realized that if you have two weeks straight of camp your councilors get run down. So on the second Sunday, between the two weeks, everyone gets on boats and we go on a relaxing trip all over the different coves. You are still with all your kids but it is hard for them to get into trouble or lost on a small boat so everyone was able to relax some.

We stopped at one place where there was some caves and everyone got to get out and swim around the caves. Almost everyone was jumping off the boat but I refrained because of my ankle :-( instead I took the ladder and then floated on a noodle so I was not using the ankle at all. Yes I have been behaving myself and letting it heal.

The whole trip was beautiful and a ton of fun!

June 25th ~ Saturday

This was the day that one week campers go home and second week campers arrive and both week campers do there laundry and switch rooms. We were suppose to be up and about no later than eight. But I woke up a little after nine and said "oh no it's after nine" you would be impressed how fast we all got ready and packed out of our room. I was also pleasantly surprised that my ankle was swollen and sore but I was able to walk on it.

We then our stuff outside of our new cabin and started to greet kids, say bye, and do laundry. The laundry was done by hand in a couple of buckets, a little girl was washing her stuff with me and it was a lot of fun.

We are having some drama with the ladies and rooming stuff but more to come later I am out of time.

Okay so the rest of our day... Ummm well we had swim test for all the new people and everyone had to jump in the Med. to cool off. I floated on a noodle because of my ankle, it was rather fun. Then one of the junior high girls and I got into noodle wars, which carried into the next day.

After this we created our group name and a skit to present it. We let the girls create it and it was rather amusing. They wanted us councilors to create a box, with our bodies, for the skit. We were laughing so hard it was ridiculous! You might be surprised at how funny something is when your exhausted...

We finished the evening with a service where everyone did there skits and a lady from Holland shared.

June 24th ~ Friday

So we started the day with our staff meeting, breakfast, and then word study with our youth. It was a somewhat disappointing word study since we were having a really hard time getting the girls to share and open up but those is life.

For elective time today instead of adventure world dividing into our four different options we all went to a cove further down the coast. There were some ruins that were really awesome! And a jumping rock, about 35 ft, I did it once because some of my girls wanted to do it with me. But they all backed out on me :-)

A couple of us hiked around the ruins a little bit and it really was awesome. You can talk about how young America is compared to everywhere else. But there is actually something that makes it real when you are wondering around ruins that are older than our county and yet they are not considered anything special.

We then had siesta, still one of my favorite, and then free time. I worked on some camp related paper things, getting some stuff for bonkers, and preparing something to share with our young ladies. I then went and had a nice chat with one of my girls that was leaving in the morning.

After free time all the staff went to prepare for bonkers. So just in case I am not the only person that has not heard of bonkers let me explain. There are four different groups of people participating in this game. The first group is the bonkers they are painted head to toe and have a tub sock with flour. There job is to go around and hit the campers (2 group) with the socks. One the campers are hit they have to stand still and yell for a medic, the third group, the medics go and make the campers do something crazy and then heal them so they can continue to run and try to find the ten hidden stations. The ten station workers are the fourth group. They have some task that the campers must complete. Everyone ends up with paint or marker all over them as part of the task of keeping track of everything.

Well as you might be able to guess I was a bonker ;-) I had paint everywhere and it was funny. But as I was running around hitting kids I miss stepped on a rock and hurt my ankle. It was funny because one of the medics came and helped me :-) I walked around and bonked kids for a while and then they had me and one of the medics switch. So one of the medics, red cross painted on the face, was going around hitting kids and I was healing them. Some of the kids reactions were hilarious! Once the game was done they sent all of us bonkers to the ocean to get cleaned up.

We finished the evening with a twilight service which was really good. We then had are cabin meeting, where we gave the girls a note with part of mom's about sea glass and a piece of sea glass. We also read them all of mom's blog. By this time my ankle was killing me even though I had wrapped it, iced it, and elevated it. So I went to bed and slept. There was a official "sneak out" planned for that night at midnight. But the other two let me sleep and they went and supervised the sneak out.

June 23rd ~ Thursday

The morning routine was the same as the other days. Also once again the water was too rough to take the kids all the way around. We took them to the tip of the larger rock and then found out that one of the youth really did not know how to swim. He could not get his ears wet so he was dog paddling. Laura in back had noticed and asked, but he kept saying he was fine. We had forgotten about the Turkish shame based culture...anyways we got everyone back safe and just relaxed on the beach.

Later that day for our big game activity we had the traditional football game (soccer). This is where all the local Turkish youth come and play our youth. I was expecting the Turkish youth to dominate, but I guess our youth have been living in this beautiful country long enough to learn how to play :-) the final score was 6-2 in our favor.

Then it was finally the high schoolers turn to go on the eternal flame hike. On mount Olympus there is a spot at the top where natural gases are always being released and catching flame. After dinner we all hiked up. The hike was not bad, but in some places there were built in rock steps that varied from a foot deep to over two feet... I counted and there were 211 steps.

Once we got to the top it was almost like a rock heap or rock slide and then there were flames just randomly coming out of some of the rock piles. While we were there a couple of new flames started... We roasted American marshmallows and made smores on the flames. We then all gathered in the ruins of this monastery and had some worship and a lesson. It was really good the lesson was just what a bunch of the kids needed to hear and the setting was amazing. You could see tons of stars and there was an amazing breeze whistling through the trees. Then came the fun of getting back down in the dark...but we made it with only a few people getting some scrapes and bruises.

June 22nd ~ Wednesday

I slept better last night because the sun burn has healed! That was a huge blessing.

 I am going to skip over the morning routine....

Laura, co-leader of snorkeling, was able to swim today so that promised to be really good. When we got down to the water there was a decent breeze and the water was somewhat choppy. We took off around the rock after warning people that it would be a little rougher. When we made it to the tip of the rock it was really choppy! We went around the rock and about twenty feet down the other side and stopped. I thought it was great, but for our inexperienced swimmers it was just going to be too much. So we turned around and came back. We took our time and enjoyed some of the underwater wildlife. I was told the name of some of the fish in Turkish but won’t even try to type it out.

The kayakers were having the same problem so most of us spent the last half hourish sitting on the beach just playing in the water. It was actually really nice to relax a little. My ankles really needed the rest.

But there was an empty sail boat and nine of the youth were interested in taking it out. James said we could. He showed me how to operate it and I got to go sailing for the first time! All by myself, It was fun and I was proud of myself.  I did not have any trouble.   

We actually made it back in time for me to rinse off and change before lunch. Normally we have been making it back half way through lunch so I just eat in my bathing suit.

After lunch and siesta time, they have an hour nap built into the schedule and it is so amazing.  I went and talked with Renata about a few things and the tracked down another young lady I wanted to talk with. We spent almost all of free time chatting it was a really good.

Next was big group games which was an intense version of capture the flag played on a soccer field, ie sand and rocks with soccer goals on either end. It was fun and I did not get any lasting injuries.

Hmm we then had our dinner, lesson (loving God and your neighbor), and cabin time. Then I ditched my councilor and came into my cabin to work on typing this up... (they said it was fine).

June 21st ~ Tuesday

I did not get a good night sleep.  My back and shoulders hurt because of the sun burn and my thigh hurts  because of falling.  I was rather draggy this morning. But Tressa prayed for me at our staff meeting and that helped.

We did Word study again after breakfast and the ladies are a real joy to work with.

Then it was time for electives and I was almost dreading it :-) but Jess, one of the staff ladies heard I was leading them alone and so she came with me today. It was so much nicer to have a second adult in the water. Plus she was so encouraging with her excitement over the water life and the whole experience. It was her first time snorkeling, but she has had lots of swimming experience.

When we got back to the main shore area James said there was a Sting Ray off shore a hundred meters. Jess, Jim and  I, swam out there. There were two rays and a sand shark. After closer inspection we realized they were dead so we brought them back for the kids to see.

I had the privilege of having multiple meaningful conversations with the young ladies today. I went on a walk that was over an hour long with one and then sat on the beach and chatted with the other. After leaving the beach we went to my cabin to get aloe Vera for her and myself. While doing this she made a comment about me not having white skin. She was shocked and did not want to believe me when I told her I really do have white skin. So I showed her my side, untanned, and she was really shocked then ;-) I would like to say at this time that I am wearing TONS of sunscreen...

We then did tie dying for our big grow activity; the youth went and played a game on the beach for a half hour to let the young kids get a head start. But I played hooky, with Renata's permission, because I had been in the sun so much already. So I got to help with getting things ready for the kids to hike up to the eternal flames and make smores.

I  tie dyed with the youth and went to dinner. The lesson was really good, it was about Joseph and love. Then one of my young ladies needed to go to the nurse to get some stuff to clean out her toe that had a cut, and I needed to get some gauze for my thigh because it was oozing and it would have made a mess on the white sheets while I was sleeping. After we finished we ran into another young lady from our group and we looked everywhere for our group. After a half hour of searching we found them! I then walked around with the hurt tie lady after cabin time for a little under and hour and talked

June 20th ~ Monday

When I woke up, I was indeed burnt :-( but Diny, from Holland, told me using toothpaste worked well. I started the day  rubbing mint toothpaste all over my burnt shoulders. It actually does work nicely.

We had our morning inspirational thoughts and meeting. Next was breakfast and  Word study time with the young ladies. This went well and we really do have a great bunch of girls. I scrambled to get ready for my elective that I'm doing, snorkeling.

It went really well and the kids all seemed to enjoy it. But I did not realize how hard it is to get a mask to fit your face until I was trying to get these young people set. It took about a half hour to get eight of them ready.

 Laura, co-leader, was unable to swim today so I took them out alone. We made it around the large rock without anything too exciting happening. There were some different fish that were rather nice and interesting rock formations. Once you come around the turn it is rather deep. I did not know where we were supposed to meet the kayaks so I started to head across the cove to a sandy area. The water was so deep you couldn't see anything but the very blue water and the sun rays. It was rather pretty in its own ways.

P.S. I was wearing a shirt for those concerned. But we overshot the rock we were suppose to meet at and had to back track a little bit. After arriving at the rock I had one young lady inform me she has panic attacks and she was nervous  she might have one. Then a young man told me he was exhausted, even though I had repeatedly asked about stamina and been told he was fine, and unsure he could swim back.... We all did make it back. Life is good.

It was funny to me that one of the Turkish girls while sitting on the rock eating our snack proclaimed, "I'm black!" in a very cute Turkish accent. Now she is honestly not that much darker than I am, I actually think I might be slightly darker at this point. We had a fun conversation about how skin color and the definition of beauty changes depending on where you are. We also had some other good conversations.

Later I did kayak check-outs which was somewhat stressful. I really don't like having the safety of so many young lives  in my control. But all was well, although I banned one kid from ever using the kayaks again...

For big group games we did capture the flag and the playing field was ridiculous! You could not see from one end to the other and it was extremely hot and on very rocky and sandy terrain. I ended up falling and have a really large bruise scrape thing on my thigh. I did not have time to change out of my swimsuit so more skin than normal was exposed, it was not pleasant and after all that I was an inch to slow :-(

We ended the day with a much appreciated dinner, lesson (dignity), and cabin time.