Camp

Question: What would be the point of a blog if I didn't use it to broadcast my opinions and beliefs to others? It wouldn't be anything but an amusing little journal! I told you I'd tell you what I thought about kids and camp, so here goes. Every single child should have the chance to go to camp at least once in their life. It's such a positive experience. Usually, when somebody starts talking about a child's self esteem, I pretty much stop listening, but hear me out. A child's self esteem isn't the most important thing. But it is important. Camp builds confidence. The opportunity to be away from Mom and Dad for that length of time is really good for a child. As long as the camp is well run and trustworthy, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of homesickness to make a kid grow up. There are so many challenges and opportunities to try new things. Even dealing with problems, such as not getting along with another camper, are learning experiences. The whole week is a learning experience. 

So many people have misconceptions about camp. It really is a safe, positive experience, as long as you find the right camp. 

I've been attending a Christian camp in Williamsburg, VA for four years now. Next year I intend to be a counselor there, if they'll have me. The best part about a well-run Christian camp is that it is a chance for kids to grow closer to God. The beauty of nature combined with interesting, relevant teaching from fun, respectable Christians has been a great blessing to me in my life. 

So, think about it. Do your own research. Send a kid to camp!! And if you're looking for a great camp for special needs kids, do some research on Camp Holiday Trails. 

Okay, well, I'm done. Please forgive my rambling. I just figured I'd get my thoughts out and together in one place. Have a great day!

Ella

Today

Holy cow, what a long day. Haha, and it's not even over. Today was a big church-wide work day at the church property. Hopefully *gulp* just a month until we move into the new building!!! Yay!! I couldn't be more excited. I thought it was never going to happen. It was so amazing, just walking through the building and seeing all the stuff that was going on. Sound equipment on the stage. Stalls in the bathroom. Lol I get excited about the dumbest things. But what matters is, everywhere you go, you can see progress. We're making strides!!! It's so close I can taste it. After four long years (seven months for my family) my church is about to finally move into it's very own building. Ever since the church was planted about four years ago, they've been meeting in a rented building on Saturday nights. And my family joined the church just in time to make the exciting transition and be 'in' on all of the relationships before there's a ton of growth when the church finally makes the jump. 

Thanks to this amazing weather, we've decided to go ahead and start meeting outside at the church property. We don't have the permits necessary to meet inside, but at least we'll be on our own property. That announcement was a goose-bump moment in church yesterday. When Pastor Jon told everyone, there was about a fifteen second pause, and then spontaneous applause. Awesome. 

Well, I'd better close for now. I am technically babysitting. Fun. I'll check in tomorrow.

Some Fairly Pointless Rambling For The Sake of Being Able To Say That I Blogged Today

Another week has passed without me doing anything about the boring state of my blog. Believe me, I'm trying to think up something. The main function for this thing is to give me something to do when I'm bored, so I guess it's doing it's job. This has been a relatively quiet week, especially compared to last week. Nothing much to report. 

I can't believe the school year's almost over. It's going to be such an awesome summer! My aunt and uncle are coming home for three weeks. They're missionaries, and I haven't seen them in four years. Vacation Bible School is going to rock this year. With my mom and Joy's mom in charge, we can know that we're all going to have a blast. I finally made the decision to volunteer with kid's vbs instead of participating in youth vbs. That wasn't an easy decision to make. I'm probably going to be entirely ostracized for it, but I just couldn't miss a year of spending time with the kids. First and Second grade is where I always plugged in at the old church. I've always loved having that time to just give back to the church, and those kids are such a blessing! The rest of my summer is sadly empty. I always love being busy over the summer. I don't think I'm going to be going to camp this year. That's something I've always done. I feel very strongly about camp, but that's a story for another post. Meanwhile, this post is getting too long, and I need to start my day. 

Today

Yay! My spacebar works again! I have no idea why it wasn't working, all I know is that I can blog again. It's been a relaxing weekend so far. Church last night went really really well, besides the fact that I'm still a little hoarse. I had laryngitis earlier this week, so singing was a little difficult. I guess I just assumed that you knew that I sing with the church band. What's really awesome is that about half of our band is below the age of 25. Myself and Joy sing, Joy's older brother plays guitar, and Stephen plays drums about half the time. I've always thought that that was cool. Kid's rock!

I've recently noticed that I always rock back and forth when I'm typing. I think it gives my mom the creeps. I don't know why I do it. Amusing, to say the least. I'm so weird. 

I have my fingers crossed that every last one of my neighbor's four-wheelers and other motorized contraptions break down. That way I may have some peace and quiet in which to finish reading The Complete Fairy Tales of The Brothers Grimm. That and writing is probably how I'll spend the majority of my Sunday. Plus grocery shopping with Mom. Wal-Mart with babysitting money is fun. 

A Thought

Nobody cares what's happening in my stupid life. Nobody cares that I'm going to do nothing but chores today. So why am I blogging about it? I don't know. This is exactly what I said I wasn't going to do. My blog is, for the time being, quite boring. I'm working on it. I'll figure it out when I have the time. Which isn't today. For now, I'm so dead sick of fighting this battle with my stupid spacebar. It's sticking, and I'm having the hardest time not typing likethis(withnospaces). I leave now to enjoy my breakfast before sacrificing my day to chores, for the greater good and my mother's sanity. Dirty children's bathroom, here I come!

This CrAzY Week.

Hi everybody. Sorry it's been so long since I posted. Actually, nobody reads this stupid thing anyway, so I don't know why I pretend that you (my reader) are real. Aaanyway, It's been a while because this has been an extremely interesting week. Spent the night at Grandma's on Sunday. That was interesting to say the least. It was me, my three little siblings, and my two little cousins. I made dinner. Grandma and Pawpaw had to leave before we got up, so I was in charge until about ten. Then I entertained the kids all day Monday and part of Tuesday. It was actually pretty fun. It was really good to spend time with my cousins. We used to be so close, then I got a life (which is to say, a busy social schedule), and their schedule filled up, and we never see each other any more. Then babysitting Tuesday night for some kids at church. Bible study on Wednesday (pizza at Joy's house without Joy. She went to a concert.) More babysitting last night, for a bunch of homeschool kids from the community. I actually had a really great time. They were a really well-behaved group, with the exception of the run-away two-year-old who refused to be entertained. A little bit of creative babysitting on my part was all it took. Have you ever played Phase 10 with a toddler? So it wasn't Phase 10 as much as 'Put All The Cards In The Right Color Pile'. Fun. My pastor's kids were there. They, being a good deal older than the rest of the group, did complain and try to give me a hard time at first, but they're such good kids. In the end, they were a really big help. I couldn't thank them enough. 

All of this has left me looking forward to a kick-back-and-relax sort of weekend. And Mom has just informed me that I have to clean the bathroom and vacuum the dining room today. Lovely. No more time just now. Algebra and chores await. Hide me!!!!!

Note

Ha! So much for getting over my fear. Here I sit pathetically trying to type this post with one finger taped to the other. Remember how I said yesterday that my finger hurt? Well the stupid thing got progressively worse and worse over the course of the day, and now I'm convinced it's broken. This makes life extremely difficult. And I'm sure that my usual 84 words per minute average has plummeted to something nearer 20. Ugh.

Flying Things

My little brother Andrew rocks. He's helping me get over my irrational fear of flying round things. Basketballs, volleyballs, footballs, and the like. I can't stand them. I have the hardest time teaching myself that the object of the game is not getting away from the ball, but trying to get the ball. I am very good at dodge ball! My first instinct is to protect my face, and if my hands are over my head, I'm not going to catch anything. Right now as I'm typing, my fingers are very sore from throwing the football with my little bro. Too frequently things didn't work out correctly and my fingers were all that touched the ball before it went flying in another direction. So this is an ode to my awesome brother Andrew, for putting up with a wimp like me and helping me get over my fear. Way to go, bud.

 

T.B.D. I Rock the Drop

Okay, so if you haven't checked the link to the right yet, please do. This whole thing is for a great cause, and I can't think of many things I want to promote more than teen literature. Kudos to whoever thought this thing up! For those who don't know what it is, T.B.D. (Teen Book Drop) is an event taking place on April the 16th. Teen Readers everywhere will be taking a favorite book of theirs and leaving it in a public place. What a way to reach out, and to connect with other teens! So visit the Readergirlz site by clicking on the 'I Rock The Drop' picture here on my blog to find out more. Have fun rocking the drop! 

Random Thought

Okay, I am officially using the word 'hate' entirely too much. I promise to work on it. There's too much to love in this world to spend all your time dwelling on things you hate. I apologize.

Things I Hate About Blogger

Blogger is retarded. This is unfortunate, because I currently have no other options available to me, and I'm already addicted to blogging. Get this. This morning, I tried to upload a new template, and it deleted EVERYTHING I'd already done. So it's taken me this long to get everything back up and running. It's a major shame, because the background was really cute! It was like this notebook that had all my posts on it, and then the background was all these colorful wispy things. So cute, and it made sense, 'cause I'm an aspiring writer. It's also unfortunate that I'm scarred to death to post any of my own writings on here. I've heard horror stories of people blogging their writings, and then it turning out that the service provider owned everything that they wrote. I know, I know. The privacy policy on this site says that they won't do that to me, but I have trust issues with the internet. I can't sign my name on a piece of paper, I can't get whatever they're promising me in writing. I can't shake their hand. I much prefer face-to-face communication. But that would be much less like a blog. So here I am stuck writing about whatever I'm thinking about, and not able to write about what's really on my mind, which is my most current story. Maybe some day I'll get around to writing something just for my blog, and try not to care about who technically owns it. However, I don't have time for that right now. With Easter, I'm sorry, Resurrection Sunday, less than a week away, and the school year almost over, I don't have time for much. The call to get done with school early is louder than ever this year, with my Aunt and Uncle and baby cousin coming in from Guam the last weekend in May. Pray for me, because I have three hundred pages of Algebra still to do. Speaking of which, algebra is calling my name, and I only have a few minutes before it tracks me down. I've got to go for now, I'll try to get back on later.

A Pet Peeve.

I hate hate hate hate HATE HATE motorcycles, mopeds, dirt bikes, four wheelers, and golf carts. "Why?" you ask? Because they're all I see, all I hear, every single weekend during the spring, and every single stinking day during the summer. My lovely next-door neighbors act like they have nothing better to do than ride back and forth in front of my house, all day long. What is that about? I don't know. I don't care. All I know is it's driving me nuts! 

What Happened.

I got a bit ahead of myself in that last post. I need to try to make more sense. Here goes.

Once upon a time, I was a VERY active member of a church. For the first four-and-a-half of those six years, we had a great pastor. Then that pastor, call him Pastor Billy-Bob, said God had call him to move to another state to start a new mission for hurting pastors. Our church went through the whole process of finding a new pastor. We'll call him Pastor Bob-Billy. Pastor Bob-Billy moved in to the parsonage and started ministry. For a couple of months, things went great. Pastor Bob-Billy's wife Sara (name changed) starts helping out with the youth group. Then things go down hill, fast. Pastor Bob-Billy turned out to be a total jerk and a church-killer. Of course we had to be the first to find out. After much prayer and many tears, we realized that God was calling our family to leave the church. My parents went to another area pastor for counseling. I don't mind naming him, because I have only positive things to say about him. Pastor Jon  rocks!!!!! 

Turns out his church needed help in worship and children's ministries. But that's not important now. Pastor Jon gave my parents great advice, and once we finally made the painful break from 

our old church, his was the first church we visited. Needless to say, things worked. Besides the fact that we are now getting solid doctrine and a positive experience with our pastor, the church is so wonderful. The people are so real, and the youth group is totally on-fire, sold out for Christ. I went from being a shunned outsider, to a key component and true friend. I'm somewhere where my gifts, talents, and personality are truly appreciated. And no church drama!!!! Church drama is worse than school drama, because we're supposed to be the ones that are 'in this world but not of it'. My old youth group had so many drama queens. Boyfriends, break-ups, ugh. These things do not belong in church!!!!!

All that being said, no church is perfect. I've found some personality clashes and issues like that, but you run into these things everywhere. I couldn't have asked for a better thing. The few old friends I've kept are always gonna be my friends, and now I have new ones who really care about me. Isn't God good?

The Bonfire and other things.

So last night was the big bonfire. Sadly bonfire-less. There was too much wind for an actual fire. The best we had was a grill for burn-I mean cooking hot dogs. Some people just shouldn't grill. 

Attendance was pathetic. For all of our work (passing out flyers in neighborhoods, plus having agents in all the area schools) we had five people show up who weren't members of the youth group. Four if you don't count Erica. Ha, we even did our skit, for a group of fifteen or twenty people. A bonfire without a fire and a community outreach event without the community. Pathetic.

That being said, we did have an awesome time of fellowship. I played my first game of volleyball, which was hilarious. I really hate balls. I did find a new respect for Stephen, and a new dislike for Aaron. Which was good. Oh, the things you learn, besides volleyball, on the volleyball court. Similar phenomena take place in the swimming pool. There's something about being a totally integrated part of a group, and not really knowing any of them. They accepted me so fast, and forget how short a time I've known them. Which is awesome. I've become more a member of this group in six months than I did at my old one in two years. This makes getting to know this group interesting. I'm at an advantage, because I get to figure out their personalities when they're already totally comfortable around me. People keep on surprising me, because they just won't stay in the stereotype box I put them in. I guess that's bad, but I enjoy trying to 'peg' people. Just when I think I have somebody all figured out, they go and surprise me.  It's been fun, though. I keep on finding 'attitudenal problems' as my friend Marie would put it. Hey, I guess all people have their quirks. It's funny, it crossed my mind that maybe, just maybe, this was the perfect church. Which is dumb, because no church is perfect.