Two Tiresome Days

Tiresome Greetings from Camden, New Jersey!

Hello, today is Tuesday and we have already had two days of camp. Camp started on Monday and I am already quite exhausted.

Monday:

I got up very tired and got ready to leave for camp, I didn’t even have time for breakfast. We then headed for camp and finished prepping for the kids. We had one problem before the kids had even arrived, we had a huge @$$ rat in the toilet, and it was floating there alive. We ended up getting it out, or rather Brent did after swatting it with a tennis racket and throwing into a near by field. Some of the kids are so tough and some are so cute because they’ve never been to camp so they are so well behaved and listen and don’t act up.

Our opening program went so great, but we only had like18 kids which was the downside because we had 35 kids registered and only 3 of the kids were the ones registered. So having kids show up that weren’t registered yet was great, but then having that many missing kids wasn’t good. However, we did learn that some of our camp kids were in Colorado with a trip that was sponsored by some of the donations from the 20/20 special.

Because the kids were so few, we only ended up doing two groups of kids versus four, and so instead of teaching four classes I only had to teach two. I love working with my “little kids”, really they aren’t that little because they are going to be in 5th/6th grade. Most of them were first time campers so they were really well behaved and listened, but I have learned that the kids are extremely loud and it is hard to talk over them. Next I had the big kids and they were just something else, they were so loud and didn’t listen. I couldn’t even hear the kid sitting next to me answer a question I had asked him because everyone was so loud. The older kids were so loud and had trouble listening which made it extremely difficult for me.

Apart of the camp is a strike system and the kids can get up to three strikes per class each day, if they get a certain amount of strikes for the week, they aren’t allowed to go on the swim day or one of our camp nights or bible buddies. The street leaders hand out the strikes, but also the interns can hand out the strikes. We also had a work group come to be with us for a week and they’re from Kentucky and are basically our helpers for the week and will help us with whatever we need.

Camp Activities:

Swim Day- Wednesdays is our swim days and our day off, so we take kids swimming in the morning and then the rest of the day is our day off. I have choir practice in the evenings which is fine because I get to see half of my APU peeps anyways.

Camp Nights- Are on Monday nights and we’ll have a select group of kids come back and hang out with us and we’ll order pizza and spend time with them. This is usually for the kids that have behaved from the previous kids and so we’ll hang out with them for a couple of hours.

Bible Buddies- Is a group of two or three kids that the interns choose to spend about an hour to two hours with and we discuss the Bible and try to pour out into them and show them caring kindness and love that they might not be receiving at home.

During camp I had a such a bad headache and so as soon as we got back home I popped two headache medicines and then went to bed (I was still extremely exhausted from the previous week and the Sunday choir day). I woke up two and a half hours later and finally ate lunch at like 4pm. After the nap and lunch, my camp staff went to Barnes and Noble in Cherry Hill to go to the Starbucks there to have our staff meeting and discuss plans and ideas for teaching for the next week. We were there for about two hours and then came home and had a huge “family” dinner with our camp and few of the camp directors.

Tuesday:

Today was quite a good day, mostly because I am typing right now from the UPH and it is good to be in an air conditioned room and see the other interns. Every Tuesday, we meet with Brent (our intern director) and hang out with the other interns.

Camp was better for me today, it was just a very long day. Today the kids made name posters with markers and glitter and it went quite well. Very messy, but even the big kids acted slightly better for my class. This one kid though got three strikes during lunch and two of them from me; he was pushing kids around and also knocking other kids’ food trays out of their hands as they were walking to sit down with their lunch. Then one kid didn’t listen to me at all and so I think one of the street leaders gave him a strike.

After lunch we played ball with the kids and then had bible buddies. My girls are so amazing- they are definitely rough kids but they are so amazing and hilarious. We did have quite an exhausting day because we had Bible Buddies and then we had basketball practice. There wasn’t too much one-on-one time with the kids, but I think that they had fun. We walked to the water front- about a twenty minute walk and then hung out with the kids for about half and hour and then we walked to the basketball courts for practice. I’ll post some amazing pictures of them soon though. My favorite moment of today was:

This kid Jose… I think he’s a really a great kid and has behaved really well the past two days and was asked by one of the interns to do Bible Buddies and so I told him that I that I deserved to be their because he was a good kids and was well-behaved. The look and reaction was heartbreaking, he was shocked. He was like, “Really, you think I am a good kid?” It was amazing, I told him yes and reiterated the above. To see this kids face light up and see the delight he took in being appreciated was so amazing and touched my heart.
Basketball practice was fun too, it was hard to get some of the girls that came back to start playing, but eventually we got them to. I even shot three lay-ups, which is amazing for me because if there could be a negative amount, I am sure I would have it.

Afterwards, we went back to the house and drank lots of water- we hadn’t had anything to drink most of the day. We had dinner and then headed to headquarters, which is where I am right now. Also tonight was amazing because I got to catch up with some friends! J

This is out for now, lots of love!

Blessings and Love,

Jennifer Elrod