A No Good, Very Bad Day...

We arrived at Mountain Top late in the afternoon of the first day of camp, excited and ready to go.  We were actually a little later than we were supposed to be, by less than an hour.  It made us one of the last groups to arrive, and as we checked in I began to wonder if this had been a good idea.  First of all, because we were late there were only scattered beds left, and so our guys (I don't remember about the girls) were split up for housing.  Things did not get better.  We showed up for dinner and discovered that groups were not allowed to sit together.  I complained to The Director (I can't remember his name, and I don't want to be insensitive and refer to him as The Mountain Top Nazi; therefore I will call him The Director) and was told that the rule was hard and fast.  There was a meeting after dinner for adult leaders, and so I thought I could clear this up then.  After all, aside from serving others in the name of Jesus, our primary goal on this trip was group building.  It would be hard to do that if we were not going to see each other.  The meeting was worse than I could have imagined.  These people had more rules than the book of Leviticus, and they were serious about all of them.  Our group was made up entirely of high school students; the policies and rules of the camp seemed to be aimed at 10 year olds.  In fact, almost all of the others campers were middle school students.  Our group would not be working together; we would be split in two.  And over and over it was emphasized that we were NOT to spend time as a youth group except when it was on the schedule.  This was to be an opportunity to meet people and make new friends.  They assumed that could not happen unless they forced it to happen.  As word spread among our students, open rebellion was a real possibility...

We ate breakfast while waving at each other from across the room the next morning, and then headed outside for some personal devotional time.  This was a quiet time of reading a devotional and reflection and prayer, and it should have been really cool.   Then we read the name they had given this time- Holy Time Out.  It was awful on two counts.  First, the idea of being punished and sent to a corner to be with Jesus was offensive to me.  Secondly, all we could think of was the old Batman show.  We kept imitating Robin and yelling "Holy time Out, Batman!" every morning as we would head out the door.  Still, and sadly, it was one of the best times of the day.

The speed limit around the camp was 5 mph.  I think it was the first full day before Jill Painter and I both got yelled at for doing 10 mph.  It was just a sign of things to come. We were less than 24 hours into this adventure, and things were already falling apart.  It was indeed a terrible day.  We were about to become rebels, and do horrible things like singing on a hillside and throwing a birthday party for one of our own.  We just couldn't help ourselves.  It was going to be a long week, and The Director was already watching us like a hawk.  Fortunately, we had our work with the children every day to make us feel useful and to help us keep a Christian attitude.  We spent a lot of time in our vans.  And in some of those situations, even Jesus couldn't rescue us...right, Dr. Jill?  See you tomorrow!

Because of Jesus,