2 Corinthians 3:18

As most of you know i have attended a camp called Wood Lake Bible Camp for 5 years. Well I made it 6 this year due to the fact i went as a cabin leader for 2 weeks. The first week was Sr. High week. I wanted to be up there that week cause the thursday of Sr. High week was the week i accepted Christ in to my heart and i wanted to share that with the campers!! Well I was a co leader with a girl i knew from a winter retreat up at camp and her nae is Jenny. I have to say camp was different this year. We didnt have Leslie and her family there as the camp deans for the week and JAH, Whitney, Isabell, and the band did not make it this year either. However we still had an amazing week. Jenny and I had a cabin of Freshmen girls the first week together. I found out 6 of the 13 girls in the cabin were from my town and out of the 6 i knew 3. I had my loved little one Sydney she has been my minni me for 6 years now. Her mom was my small group leader in 8th gread when i started going to church. Well as the week went on frustration and tention started building. Our entire cabin with the excption of one girl where compleetly united. We never really got over that at all but oh well. One night i was broke there was alot going on behind the senes over the days. When i got there i was extreemly excited to be up there and i love the girls in the cabin. Well monday comes and my dad had called the office cause he couldnt get ahold of me on my cell. So i called him back during my freetime. Bad choice on my part....I got yelled at the entire time i was on the phone with him... I was getting hit with things like your waisting your time doing dumb stuff like this for free life is about money and business. You need to stop foolishy using your time hanging out with teens. Your not going back next week... ect. This continued everyday till wednesday when i told him not to call me cause no matter how many times he called i couldnt leave anyway!!! That first day however i was so broke on monday during my freetime after that phone call i took my journal to the front step of the cabin and i was going to journal and anna walked by.. Anna was someone i was not to fond of till the last day of camp last year and i was unsure if i wanted to talk to her about my life just yet. how ever she saw something was going on and stoped in her path and asked if i was ok and if i wanted to talk. Me being who i am said i think im fine yah ill be fine. Jenny had came back from the store and joined me on the step and i had told her what was going on with my dad and back came anna so we both quick changed the convo. Well the fact that we changed the convo did nothing at all Anna gave me the "stair down" and when she gives that it instills fear in a person and in her stern but loveing and caring voice she said you will find me during the campers freetime and we will talk about whats going on. all i said was k i mean what else could i do... Well we did end up talking and boy was i glad i did. We have the same kinda relationships in our family with us being the only christians so she was a great encouragement and on top of it she knows some people who play big roles in my life. I also what was going on with my cabin buddy Amanda! She is another amazing girl who i was blessed to meet. Cabin buddies would hang with the kids while we were in meetings and they would come do devos with us at night.

So all week the sermon was on reflecting God's glory..never thought i would get sooo much out of a sermon the entire week. I figured one night i would compleetly relate to the sermon but it was odd each day went with what was going on in my life that day. One night we talked about steping out in faith and we had an alter time. Well he did the whole close your eyes....If you want to make a commitment to God saying your going to step out and follow him please come to the alter.....If you want to commite to accept him in your heart please come up.....and lastly if you are going to live your life for God and let nothing get in your way please come forward... We prayed then we were allowed to open our eyes i was brought to tears by what i saw ALL my girls in my cabin we at the alter making a commitment to God!!!! I could not have been more blessed to see that happen!!!! Well the girls wanted to hear my faith story from begining to end and i told them i would share it...Amanda was super excited to hear it to!! The last nigh of camp i was sooo nervious they wanted me to tell my whole life everything good bad and ugly. Well I did everything from the attempts to take my life, to the abuse, to what kept me alive. Sydney was in tears when she heard that if it wasnt for her and her mom Jody being there to teach me about God i dont know if i would be here. All she could do was look me in the eyes and ask "Does my mom know this?" I told her No only a few people know my entire story. Another one of my girls was mad that someone would abuse a little girl. I think it was a good way to end that week. I love those girls and miss them loads...

So the campers all left and i had to yet again give peggy a ride home from camp like i have for the past 2-3 years now. Amanda was worried and so was Anna that i wouldnt be back the next week but after hearing a sermon that week and knowing where God wanted me and the fact that it was an once in a life time oppertunity i was totally going to be at camp for the 5th-7th graders the next week. So i went to the office to hand in my paper work and Tim the director pulled me in his office and asked if i would be back and i said no doubt! He told me i wouldnt be with Jenny when i came back but i would have a Jr. cabin leader with me by the name of Billie!! I was soo excited i loved picking on billie for the fact she couldnt get the hula hoop to work sr.high week. Well i knew that i would have to find a place to stay for saturday night to sunday. So i texted my mom saying i had to be up there for the next week. Well i got home found a card on my bed for a wedding shower for a friends wedding i was in so i called and one of my friends who just got off work picked me up and brought me over. On my way to the shower i got a call from my Sunday school teacher Alisha! I told her what was going on and that my dad was mad about my decission to go work up at camp for free and that he didnt want me home between camps so she let me spend the night at her place.

So i get back to the house after the shower and i went to put stuff in the dryer and i ran up stairs to grab something and my dad stoped me and did the whole strict voice "What do you think your doing here?" bit on me and i told him i was grabbing some things i needed then i would be gone so i grabbed hangers and put all my 1/4 dry clothes on hangers and put them in the car and started to drive. Called Alisha and she didnt sound like herself so she told me what was going on and that she wouldnt be talkative like normal or hyper and perkie. I told her that was fine.. I was sooo tired from camp that i really wanted introvert time. Well I got to her place and she helped me with my wet clothes and we put them in the dryer we made a pasta dinner then decited to watch a movie...This part is funny k so we wanted to watch mall cop tried for 1/2 an hour to get it to work then gave up. The ones she wanted to see i had already seen and we couldnt find one that neither of us had seen that we wanted to see. So she did the whole "K so if you had to watch another one of the movies agin what movie would it be and could we watch it?!!?" I told her excitedly "TAKEN!!!". I have seen it twice and i would love to see it again!!! So thats what we did. I had to laugh cause she would be commening on things in the movie and she got frustrated at one point paused it and said " Well when me and betty went to irlend we did.....ect." I couldnt stop laughing in my head cause she stole the next lines of the movie right before he had the chance to say them. Well on and off throughout the entire movie she would make comments. We hit a point and we need a bathroom/laundry break so we paused the movie and i did my laundry and we ended up talking about the entire weeks worth of sremons form Sr.High camp and she sat there and took notes then we made ice cream sundays and finnished the movie. The next day we got up and got ready for church. Wow what a weekend to have her in my life. We did something totally different than anything we had done before at church. We played songs and when through the A.C.T.S. of prayer. It was amazing that God blessed me with such an amazing woman there by my side when i was falling apart. After service we had class it was neat cause she took some of the notes we taked about from the night before and used them in class. After that i was off to camp.

I got there drove to my cabin and Billie was already sitting on her bed ready to have fun!! I was soo excited to see her and she was excited we were going to be together the whole week. So i went to move my car back to the parking spot on the upper part of camp. So i walked down and Anna was sitting on her front step of the cabin and i was soo happy to see her. She was happy i was back and asked me how it went when i got home and i told her i ended up staying with Alisha and i told her Alisha said HI!! i found out when me and anna talked the first week they work together along with betty who was my cabin leader for the retreat one winter there. Well we got our cabin of girls finally and we had 13girls! I knew none of them Jenny had all the girls from hudson again. Dinner came and i forgot to tell Amanda i was back cause last she heard i wanted to but was unsure if i was able to. So she just so happended to be serving the line we were in and she was amazed i was back!! I was just hoping i would have her as a cabin buddy again but i figured Jenny would have her. That was fine with me too. Needless to say i was slow getting to our cabin that first night for devos and of course i had the bed behind the door so when you open the door you see nothing behind it and i was standing in the doorway talking and i finally closed the door and screamed cause there was Amanda sitting on my bed!! It was awesome to have her back i found out she traded to be in my cabin!!! Me and billie decited to do one on ones with the girls to get to know them and where they are in faith and the monday one of the girls decited to accept christ in her life so that was awesome!!! tuesday night the girls wanted me to share my faith story and not just parts but all. I was a lot more nervious this time than i was the week before I didnt know if i could handle telling them some of the things. Well i did share everything i was shaking the entire time and had a hard time making eye contact well telling them my story but it was so relivent to the point we wanted to make to them. That point was that the only beauty that matters is the beauty God sees in you not what others see or want you to be. That night my story became reality when i went to sleep. I was back in those woods I could hear all the lies and horrid words he yelled at me. He was hitting me all over again and touching me in ways that he never should have been. Well needless to say it felt like reality so much that i found out i scared my campers cause i was sleep talking. They ended waking up billie and had her wake me up. The next morning when billie woke me up for our meeting she asked me if i was ok and if i knew i was sleep talking. I told her i had no idea. She told me how a few of the campers were scared to wake me up cause i was moving around alot and saying things like no...stop...stop it....h...e...l...p... She told me she asked me if i was ok when i was in my dream and i said no and she said i was sleep talking and i snaped out of it. Well as the day went on i was scared it would keep happening at night. One day at camp Anna, Jenny, Amanda, and I were all standing around talking and Amanda wanted to hear Annas story so anna told us. As she was talking Jenny looked over at me and told me i needed and shoudld talk to anna cause we have been through alot of the same things and she thought it would help so did Amanda and Billie too cause that same day they said the same thing. Well we hit the day were we play the relay race our cabin was excited but 1 of the girls was sick so i decited to sit out then another one got sick with something else then one was hurtting. so i went to the cabin and took care of the two sick girls. Another girl came down to the cabin sick then one came down hurt. So we were sitting in a dark cabin girls sick and hurtting all over the cabin and i started feeling sick. I heard some of the most amazing things out of these girls during that time. One looked and me and said "satan is trying to take us down one by one would you pray please just pray!!!" So i did i just prayed my heart out for these girls and the camp. as i was doing so the nurse walked in. After about 10mins of her being gone one of the girls was feeling worse and another one of the girls asked me to just read my bible it didnt matter what i was reading out of it they just wanted me to read it. wow those girls amazed me time and time again!!! The next day we all felt fine however my heart was still hurtting and i hadnt had a chance to talk to anna and i broke down during evening worship. I was soo thankfull for Jenny next to me holding me and knowing what i was broken over and she asked me in my brokenness and tears if i had talked to anna all i could do was shake my head..Then devan game me a hug and billie grabbed my hand and held on the oppiset side jenny was on. When worship was over i gave them all hugs and David came over and just gave me the biggest hug i have ever got from a guy. Even while we where in our little staff prayer time i was still shakking and in tears and amanda just held me along with my friend shelby. That was the last night of camp. I never did get the chance to talk to anna at camp but i did send her the questions i wanted to ask her. I miss everyone from camp staff and campers!!! Hope this was worth reading for those of you who read it!!


"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." 2 Corinthians 3:18