Frontier Ranch

After a week of training at my new school, I realized that I had signed myself up for something quite different. I'll have to blog on that later! :) I was a little overwhelmed with all the changes I needed to make and all the work there was to do in my new classroom. The timing of running off to Young Life camp for a week seemed less than ideal, my parents were in town, and I just didn't want to go. I believe the prayer I repeatedly offered all the way up the mountain was, Oh Lord.... please work through me in spite of my attitude.... But, I got there and had a great time. Gosh, high school is a hard time for so many kids. They don't feel accepted, they feel empty, they don't feel like they are enough. One girl just beamed when I let her borrow my clothes and I did her hair so she looked all cute for something. It was like no one had helped her before. It struck me that such a simple thing made her feel loved. It was so great to see how BIG God is as I watched him work that week and could feel His presence there. What an honor to invest in my high school girls' lives and introduce them to Jesus. I had 5 girls say they accepted Jesus last week! So, am I glad that I went??? Yes! Here are some pics of the fun!

This is the water slide I went down in the dark! It was the end of an obstacle course that took us all through camp. It's 300 feet long.

We had to all dress alike for the volleyball tourney. Our cheer was, "C-A-T-S! We're the cats and we're the best!"

Ah yes, the ropes course. Not my favorite thing to be long distances off the ground. And on top of that, being between jobs, I don't have health insurance right now. I am pretty sure that most of the college kids that work as summer staff at Frontier know that I don't have insurance. "Um, I don't have health insurance right now...are you SURE it's safe for me to do this?" :) I even asked how calm my horse was when we went horseback riding because hey, I've heard of horses getting all frisky and trying to dump their rider off!

I am extremely proud of myself for completing the course, but most of all, for leaping off the platform you see here and catching the trapeze!!! None of my girls caught it. I think that the sheer horror of jumping off into the air only to be caught by the rope attached to my harness created the determination to make sure I caught that thing. I'm very proud. :)

At the rodeo....

Mom and Dad came to visit. It was great to have them see what I was doing up there. Young Life does an incredible job with camp...you have to see it to believe it.

With two of my girls the night of the carnival. On this night, you spend all this time getting cute and Western for dinner. Moments after this picture was taken, we walked out into the carnival where kids proceed to earn money so they can throw pies in their leader's face. I got FIVE. Just love whipped cream in the hair...it's great.

FYI: A high-schooler told me to pose like this.
All 300-something of us from camp hiked to the top of Mt. Crystalite...a 13,000 foot peak. The view was absolutely incredible! Most of the camp was from Texas so we Coloradans had quite the advantage. They were struggling pretty bad.

Reading after the pool at free time.

"Fancy Dinner Night"

Our last night there, we had a High Country Boil. The tables stretched through the middle of camp and were covered in newspaper. They came out and dumped shrimp, potatoes, corn on the cob, and sausage in the middle of the table. I thought it was so fun...my girls did not. Here are some quotes from them:
"I don't eat anything that comes from the sea."
"Ew...I don't like my food touching...it's all TOUCHING!"
After asked if she was going to eat the cornbread..."No...it came from a box."
It was a good thing we were going home that night because I had reached my max with the attitudes of 9 high school girls being together for a week. All good things must come to an end sometime, right?