Transition Weeks

These next few weeks will be full of transition for me. Next week is my last at Camp Tecumseh, then I'm home for a week to get ready to go to Honduras. After that, I have a week of orientation with SALT and some other MCC volunteer programs in Akron, Pennsylvania, then I go to Honduras. And then who knows what! I've been thinking about it more recently since its pretty much on top of me now.

Camp has been a wonderful experience. Its really fatiguing sometimes, but then there are other times that it is completely awesome. This week was pretty much incredible. The guys were all well-mannered and got along great. They got to know each other right away and on Sunday evening they were already calling themselves brothers. Gumby likes to call the really awesome campers 'stand-up guys,' on our good weeks we've had maybe 3 of them, this week we had 10. Often the way they talked and the fun we had reminded me of college. Put those guys in a hall and you would have my freshman year of college, plus or minus a few. So now I only have one week of camp left and however it goes, this summer has been awesome with the campers and the counselors too. Depending on how much time I have back in the US next summer, I might come back and work a week of camp.

I'm really looking forward to the week at home too. Its always great when I get to hang out with my parents for any amount of time. It'll be great to see Elkhart people again. Well, I guess church people, I doubt I'll see too many other people I know. I want to have some more time to hang out at the Jubilee house too because I think spending some more time with them would really be good. There are some wonderful conversations there. As well as my hammock, I need to go lay in that a little too I think. Drink some yerba mate maybe. Sounds incredible. I'm so used to being insanely busy and doing ten different activities everyday where I have ten kids to watch, so it'll be nice to have some time to relax.

Then comes orientation. I'm thinking orientation is going to be like another week of staff training for camp (incredible) but probably a lot more fun. So pretty much, I can't wait. I've emailed another SALTer whos going to be in Honduras but thats only been a couple times. She seems really cool though and I'm sure the rest of the SALTers and the volunteers from other programs are nothing short of the coolest group of people I've ever met. Counselors currently hold that title, but we'll see.

Honduras next. There's a couple that I'm going to be in contact with in Honduras who's blog I found. It was a good blog, and Morgan told me they're cool, so I have some pretty high expectations. ;) They said they have a 7 person community of American/Canadian volunteers whom they get together with and I'm sure I'm going to be really glad for that. I think in the village I'm going to be the only American, so it'll be immersion and that volunteer community will be nice to hook up with every once in a while. I still really don't know at all what to expect. I feel like I'm dropping into Honduras blind and uneducated but I'm supposed to be educating the people there. Sounds audacious.

I see a lot of 'lost and found' clothes at camp and I've taken to looking at the tags on them. Even though I haven't been to Honduras yet I know there are a lot of the sweatshop variety of factory there. Whenever I see 'Hecho en Honduras' written on shirts, I feel a moment of connection with those people in Honduras whom I will soon know and work with. I'm sure I'll get to see plenty of that dark underbelly of global capitalism, aka the beast. Can't wait.

We Need New Heroes

Its another night off here at camp. I'm pretty tired, especially this week. Some of that could have to do with my part of camp doing the 'man up challenge' all week. Its a ridiculous event but its a lot of fun. About half of the male staff plus a few campers are walking around camp shirtless (but not inside or at chapels), wearing hats or headbands, eating all of their meals with knives or fork handles, and laughing hysterically at how we all look. Well, maybe that last part is just me and a few really cool counselors. Originally I thought the challenge had a component where you had to wear short shorts but apparently that isn't the case. Essien (my half Nigerian partner who also goes by Gumby) has been doing pretty well with that part of the challenge by wearing a nice pair of blue running shorts.

My cabin isn't so wonderful this week. Some of their parents thought it would be genius to send their kids who are friends to camp together, so they got here and since we've been trying to get them make friends with the rest of the cabin so we can all get to know each other. I think its getting a lot better but Essien isn't as optimistic. I don't think Mike is either, but he isn't as vocal about it.

Anyway tonight I went to the staff Bible study. We went over Esther's story, a fascinating one. The leader of the study talked about how all the women were pretty much just there as objects for the emperor. The part I found to be most interesting was that a Jew named Mordecai wasn't kneeling down and honoring one of the emperor's officials. The official then decided to kill all of the Jews because Mordecai wasn't respecting his authority and as a people group, the Jews acted differently, they set themselves apart. I find it encouraging that they lived 'in this world, but not of this world' in a very apparent way. I was also struck by the parallel of kneeling down and honoring an official with standing up, doing the 'camp hand salute', and saying the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. Both are symbols of government and worldly power and in both cases, we are expected to stand and honor them. I stand for the flag stuff, but I stand to pray. Unfortunately, Mordecai ends up being promoted to second in the empire and he makes a special day for the Jews to go out and kill all of their enemies, which they do. My explanation is that he didn't have integrity and the massive power of the empire corrupted him. At any rate, he wasn't loving his enemies and praying for those who persecuted him.

I can only pray that I would have the faith and courage that Mordecai must have had to stand up for what he believed in the face of death. The title of this entry comes from Jesus for President, where it encourages us to look for the heroes who are around us every day and are normal people. I'm looking. If you know of any, please let me know. ;)