Day Four- Polar Bears and Graduates

It’s a camp tradition to have an early morning swim in the icy, snow melt waters of the lake. We fondly call this paddle in the water the Polar Bear Swim and this year’s swim was held this morning.

Brave campers and counselors took the plunge and earned their Polar Bear award. Other campers did the Penguin, which constitutes wading into the lake up to their knees. This too earns an award. We added a new award this year, the cheerleader, for those campers that just don’t think hopping into the icy water at 7:30 in the morning is their thing but were willing to come out and cheer on their fellow campers.

The first line of one of our camp songs from years past is “Whether it rains, whether it pours, wherever I go, I will trust you Lord”. This song was put into practice this afternoon.  Just as the boy campers were setup for an afternoon swim, a large storm swept over camp leaving it cold and wet. Since swimming was out, we shift the campers to the Activity Center and games in our large meeting rooms.   Tonight, one of our girl campers was overheard praying, “Thank you Lord, even though it rained and we couldn’t go swimming, we still had fun activities.”  Although sometimes things don’t go as planned, we can still take heart that we are making an impact in our campers’ lives. 

Face Painting

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Face Painting 

Woodworking 

Graduation was held this evening. This year’s campers who will be over twelve years of age when the next camp is held are given the status of graduate.  During our graduation ceremony, graduate campers were given a medal,a tee-shirt with graphics noting they are a graduate, and a new Bible.  Their counselors offered prayers of encouragement and blessing as they start their next adventure.  It has been an honor having these campers with us this year.