MJ church’s Fall youth retreat will be the first weekend of October at Short Mountain. I am a bit bored of Short Mountain. I have already been there 3 times this year. I am ready for a change of scenery. But it will be good because we are going with the youth from Lebanon Road CofC. New people always make it more interesting than having the same people.
You always find out who are the hard core dedicated church members….as far as who shows up for Gospel Meetings during the week. We had about 200 tonight. It was ok. I was there to make sure the songs got on the screen. I thought I might have had to tape the sermons also, but some of the audio guys showed up and taped it instead.

Surprisingly still a few days since camp and some people (mostly a handful of adult counselors) are still upset over all the shaving cream at camp. People, it’s called camp. This is the only time when kids can cut loose and bend the rules a little. In years past I have seen much worse pranks that what I saw at Mt. Juliet’s camp. Get over it! Move on. Let go. It’s time to focus on the more positive aspects of camp rather than some silly little shaving cream incident. I’m talking about the friendships that were made, the bonds that were strengthened, the lives that grew closer to God. We have souls to save. We can’t let any high school prank stop us.
We’ve had 4 baptized since our camp with probably more on the way….either a revival or domino effect is taking place (probably a little of both).
It’s time to rate each of the camps I went to this summer. The abbreviations is as follows:
TCC – Taylor Christian Camp, Holland, KY
MCC – Maury Christian Camp – Camp Leatherwood, White Bluff, TN
SMBC – Short Mountain Bible Camp, Woodbury, TN
MJ – Camp Meribah, Centerville, TN
Best food – TCC – only once did I have to fix myself a sandwich
Runner up – SMBC for their high school pizza for lunch one day.
Not so great – MJ – Pizza Bites and salad for lunch? Come on….kids don’t eat salad.
Funniest Skit – TCC – “Hey Big Spender”
Runner up – MCC – “Toast”
Best Prank – TCC- Rolling the tractor tire to the main cabin porch
Most Controversial Prank – SMBC – Chinese Flag on the flagpole
Best Swimming Area – MCC – water temp was just right. Could have been a bit less crowded.
Runner up – MJ – if we didn’t have swim with our shirts on. Lifeguards were probably thinking “Who are these mennonites?”
Camp Most Steeped in Traditions – MCC – same skits year after year
Biggest – SMBC – so big in fact that I feel as though campers are starving for attention and are falling through the cracks. 230 campers does not make for a good camp.
Worst Cabins – MCC – pretty much just shacks
Worst Bathrooms – MCC
Coldest Cabin – MJ – I’m sure we had the air down to at least 65 degrees some nights.
Most spiritual camp – MJ
Not so spiritual – TCC – I felt it could have been better focused on God
Best Fun Activity – TCC – world’s longest slip n slide
Honorable mention – MJ – Drive In movie for kids who hadn’t seen drive-in movies before
Best Entertainment – MCC – Jerry Elder and his guitar
Best Singing – SMBC – 300 people does make for good singing.
Best waterfight – MCC – just because of the waterballoon launcher.
Sentimental Favorite – TCC
New favorite – MJ

I went to VBS at Corinth Church of Christ in Portland today. Everyone seemed to enjoy the camp video that I brought, however it lasted a little too long…or else people’s attention spans aren’t that long.
I did ask Phil about doing camp with the Portland churches. He said that he’d rather have Mt. Juliet to do camp by themselves. I can understand this point of view. Then again, if MJ were to go to TCC with Portland, the camp would pretty much be filled up. Somehow I’d like to get all the people who I became friends with over the summer at various youth camps…to one camp by themselves. But I know this can never happen.
I’ve come to realize that while we have some campers who are very spiritually motivated, we do have a set of young people at camp who are very exclusive toward other people outside of their group. It is a real shame. I have heard from multiple sources that these people are snobs toward others in the youth group.
When did I feel closest to God this past week? On the last night of camp, parents of the younger kids tend to show up for skit night and then take their kids home. This left about 20 or so campers left (mostly high schoolers). After a late night baptism we came back to camp and went to the air conditioned chapel. During this time we went around the room and each told what we enjoyed about camp and what we were taking back from camp. I said I enjoyed the late night cabin devotionals and that I was taking back friendships with me. Afterwards we turned off the lights and sang several songs. My voice was wearing thin, so for a large portion of it I just listened. For the last song and prayer we got into a circle, put our arms on the shoulder of the person next to us. Somehow all barriers had been broken down. This was true worship.
I should have some more pictures of camp up by tomorrow. All of my other pictures are on Kevin’s computer. Kevin should have a picture CD burned for me by tomorrow.
At church we have an automatic phone tree which dials the number of members to play a recorded message. The message can be anything from announcing a gospel meeting or a reminder to bring a potluck dinner for some special event. The problem is that sometimes it is utilized too much. We’ve gotten phone tree announcements for youth group activities and other events that just don’t pertain to us. This past week while I was at camp, several members got phone calls from the phone tree at weird hours of the night. We got one at 4AM Thursday morning. I’m not sure if those operating the phone tree really know how to use it. I feel as though there should be a phone tree policy…i.e. what events should be announced on it and when it can be used.

Back from Camp Meribah. Let’s see…. Here’s a rundown….
Took the kids to a Drive-In movie Sunday night for Stuart Little 2. I inadvertently parked the church van in front of some people who asked me to move it. Man, that church van is hard to drive. Thunder and lightning was crackling all over, but we managed to miss the rain. By the way, I want to suggest a solution that would remedy Stuart Little 3….rat poison.
We found a black snake Monday morning. One of the kids was stupid enough to try to pick it up, in which case the snake bit the kid. No problems….it was non poisonous.
The passenger side window on my car broke while at camp. When I was out at Dickson on Tuesday it gradually started going down. Just my luck is that there was a massive rain storm that day. So rain did get into my car. I’ve already had the driver’s side window fixed twice and the passenger window fixed once. It is a constant problem. I’m going to ask VW to make mine manual windows.
Some of the adult counselors seemed to think the shaving cream had gotten out of control. There was one incident in which the high school boys raided the high school girls cabin. It was over the top and took a bit of cleaning up…..shaving cream all over the floor….pillow feathers everywhere…..etc. However later on, the shaving cream continued. This time it was harmless….shaving cream on the ground….and also as prop on skit night. Some counselors have forgotten what it’s like to be a kid. They are still looking at things from an adult perspective. I see no harm in having shaving cream on the ground.
Being at camp pretty much confirmed to me that Camp Meribah’s facilities aren’t all that great. There’s a huge tin roof gym/kitchen which is not air conditioned. Being in there just gave me a headache since the echos were just so loud. There were very few decent places to have classes at. A plus was that the cabins had air conditioning and were kept very cool at night.
We have some very good kids at Mt. Juliet. I was in a cabin with 3 other adult counselors and 14 boys aged 9 to 12 years old. I was very surprised to find them reading their bibles with little flashlights after lights out. I never saw kids motivated like that before. We have some very spiritually mature kids for being only 12 years old. They love to worship God and are trying their best to get to heaven.

You won’t hear from me for about a week unless I find internet access at camp which is very unlikely.
What do I hope to accomplish at Mt. Juliet’s camp this week?

1. Provide young people with Christian teaching and encouragement.
2. Grow closer to the folks from my own congregation.
3. Have a good time, after all it’s the last vacation day I’ll have until Labor Day.

I’ll be leaving straight from church right after morning worship service. The rest of the crew is going at 1PM, but I hope to get there early to help setup. Besides whenever anyone sets a specific time to leave, they usually leave at least 30 minutes later than when they originally said.
Let’s try a little experiment. If you do read this weblog, leave a comment in the comment link right below this post. Even if you only want to give your inituals instead of your real name, leave a comment. I still don’t know how many people read this. I am curious to see who is reading this.

At Short Mountain one of the kids told me I was their favorite counselor. This made me feel better about myself. Even though I was technically not a counselor….only a visitor who stayed only 2 days….somehow I had made a difference to someone.
Darrell seems to think that he doesn’t get enough sleep at camp. Personally I think he could get plenty of sleep. During the afternoon hours Darrell would go back to the cabin and sleep for several hours. Then he’d stay up til 3AM for some reason. He’d say that it was to watch over the camp. But I’m not so sure. Sometimes it was for putting together the camp daily newspaper, but that could be done earlier on. It doesn’t even come out until later the next day. Who’s to say they couldn’t do it during the after breakfast time?
During the night I did put the Chinese flag on the flagpole at camp. It was meant as a joke, and I think most people thought it was at least funny or somewhat unusual. I was told that one person was offended by it, but I don’t know who. So I guess I should apologize to anyone reading this from SMBC who may have been offended. I’m as patriotic as anyone else. The idea of a Chinese flag appearing on a flagpole in the heartland of America is just absurd, which is what makes it funny. It really wasn’t meant as a political statement in any sense of the word.
Someone bought a duckling and brought it to camp. At one point they put it in the camp lake. But later on they retrieved it because we thought that it couldn’t survive on its own. So somone brought home a duck from camp.
Obviously the camp computer is working. I was chatting with some friends there yesterday. Glad it started working, but then again I wish would could have fixed it without having to format the drive. I was hoping to post some weblog updates from camp, but it just didn’t happen in time.

Short Mountain was good. I went horseback riding Wednesday. The only problem was that I got a horse (Gabriel) who wasn’t trained well yet. So it kept getting off the trail. I had to steer it (which I wasn’t good at anyways).
Their pool is pretty deep in spots. 9 feet is available for diving. And the 5 foot area is a bit deeper than 5 foot. I thought it
Another computer guru and I worked Wednesday night and Thursday morning trying to fix the camp’s computer. Seems that ever since they installed Norton Anti-virus, they haven’t been able to get their modem to dial out. After trying everything else, we finally formatted the computer and put Windows 98 back on it. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a driver for the modem, so it was not usuable. I think they sent someone to buy a modem (with an installation disk with a driver preferably).
The other part of the time we refilled some drink machines. Those drink machines become empty quite frequently when you have 230 thirsty kids in the middle of July. I figured it would be neat to see the inside of a drink machine, and help out a little bit by filling it up. Refilling the RC drink machine was no problem. We knew exactly where the different brands of drink went. The Gatorade machine was a different story. It was confusing. The selections and columns were labeled weird. We filled it up wrong and ended up having to fill it again. Gatorade all tastes the same anyways, what difference does it make? Anyways it was cool to see the inside of a drink machine and to figure out how it works.
The best meal at camp? High school pizza for lunch on Thursday! It had been a while since I had this. We ate them on the typical lunchroom trays you’d see in elementary and junior high schools. The whole meal reminded me of a school cafeteria.
The strangest meal? Eating what looked like a corndog for breakfast. It was actualaly a sausage on a stick wrapped in pancake batter. Tasted good.
This camp seems to be run pretty smoothly. They have a good staff and everyone seems to know what to do when it comes time to do something. Wednesday night was parents night. We must have had 500+ people for worship services that night. No enough chairs for everyone.
Someone had posted porn site listing on the church webpage discussion board. I deleted it as soon as I got back. It’s a bit frustrating that this type of thing happens, especially when I go on vacation. Something like this does not happen to often. I try to take them down as soon as I find out about it.
In other news…
Disney Plans Theme Park in Shanghai, China….this should be cool if it is built and opens.

I am back from Short Mountain. I left at around 9:30PM and got back at around 11PM. I had planned on staying just for the evening worship service. We had a few responses and I felt like I needed to say some encouraging words to those who responded. We did have a baptism tonight. It’s always good to leave camp on a good note.
I felt genuinely accepted there. Everyone seemed friendly and encouraging toward me. They run a smooth camp for having so many people.
Now I must get some sleep. Stayed up really late last night…..got up early this morning for a hot shower.

Leaving for Short Mountain camp today. Just staying for a couple of days. Darrell and Tracy will be there, plus the rest of the Center Chapel crew, who are usually friendly toward me. We’ll see if it was worth taking off 2 days for. I’m the type of person who must go somewhere on their day off. Since already work from home it makes no sense the hang around the house on my days off.
Since the camp is completely full, I’ll be sleeping in a bed of someone who got sent home early. Saturday I asked Darrell what was the likely scenerio – a little kid being sent home because of homesickness or a teenager being sent home because of fighting. He said hopefully the homesickness part as they don’t want any violence at camp.
It’s sorta sad. This marks the beginning of the end of summer. In 2 weeks more than likely I won’t take off anymore days until Christmas since I really won’t have a reason to take off. I’ll look forward to the obligatory have-a-good-time message from “bob.”

Should I ruin a good thing� by inviting Mt. Juliet’s youth group to Taylor Christian Camp next year? Will the whole space time continuum be disrupted? Dogs and cats living together….mass hysteria. But seriously I am not sure if the MJ crew would mesh together with the Taylor folks. Both seem set in their ways.
I am apprehensive that if the MJ crew were to go and do something highly disruptive and asked not to come back…would I be able to come back to TCC? Who knows. In this day and time where church politics and disagreements seem a certain as death and taxes, you can pretty much guarantee a missunderstanding in one form or another.
MJ’s parents have a peculiarity of bringing home their kids early from camp on Thursday night. There is so much more you could do if everyone would stay the duration of camp. That extra night for devotionals…. I don’t know why it is encouraged or seemlingly popular among the kids and parents. You paid for 5 and a half days at camp. You should stay the entire week.
I have been told to take MJ’s camp in stride. Nothing is really planned out to a tee and things can change at the last minute. While I understand that some things can’t be planned for, I want some type of order to things. Am I expecting too much? To be honest, last time I went to camp with MJ when they were by themselves….’96 and ’97….it wasn’t exactly jump-up-and-down scream-and-shout type fun. It had its moments, but there was just something missing.
On another aggrivating note, Comcast and Alwaysonline have once again decided they can’t stand each other and won’t connect. This means I can’t view my webpage nor any other webpage on Alwaysonline. This usually lasts for a few hours or sometimes days before it is corrected. The very reason that I can post to this webpage shows that other sites can see this, just not me. The drones at Comcast seem to think it is my computer’s problems, while I know that it must be their problem. My mom is pretty anxious to get her company’s webpage up and running. It’s hosted by Alwaysonline, so there is no chance I can get it up and running right now.