Super Kids = Super Fun

One would think that registration day would be the most chaotic day of camp. After all, nearly 200 kids (plus another 50 or so junior staff) are arriving at once, trying to find their cabins, handing us money for the canteen, making sure the nurses understand that their child has a disease unlike any other child, putting mail in buckets for the week and trying to avoid playing bumper cars in the parking lots. But on that day, everyone has a place. And while I get hundreds of questions addressed to me, I don’t get them all at once on the walkie, phone and face-to-face. Thus far, they’ve been spread out.

On closing day, I have to be no where except the office. I honestly don’t know how chaotic it looks outside my office – I only know if it’s as awful as inside, I’d want to find a place to hide. First, no matter what time we end a camp session, the phone will ring off the hook as soon as closing assembly is over. And only 1 out of every 5 calls has anything to do with the kids we’re saying good-bye to.

Not only can I not answer 3 phone lines at once, I most certainly cannot do that and talk on my walkie. I try to keep it low so not to disturb the people attempting to get my attention in the office. However, my name is sure to resound every other minute. I have learned that parents have a bad habit of putting everyone (neighbor three doors down, ex-boyfriend from college, second cousin five times removed) on the list of people allowed to pick up their child and not putting themselves on there. Since we require a photo ID and signature from a person on that list, we’ve had a few perturbed parents over the last couple of weeks. If this happens (and it does at least three to five times), I have to okay the person signing in the office. Thus the calls from counselors. Or, even, personal visits.

I also get to be the number one person with whom you can file complaints. Or dispute canteen refunds. Or ask about missing teddy bears. Or babysit if the child isn’t picked up by staff meeting. (The latter I don’t mind at all.) To add to all this, the junior staff (who are anywhere from 13 to 17 years of age) swarm into my office as soon as the closing rally is over.  Their purpose is five-fold: pick up the cell phone we confiscate (and some of them really hate that), get their own canteen refund, turn in tax forms and identification for their paychecks (which they’ve had all week to do but haven’t), find out where they and the others will be next week, and then gossip/complain about it. To be honest, I think they’re scared of me. But for some reason, that doesn’t stop their griping about any number of things. Or making my desk public property.

And then comes 12:30…and camp becomes silent. The kids are all gone. So are the junior staff. The summer staff have a meeting and then clean up camp before they leave. I take a deep breath and finally get something done. And, honestly, I’ve enjoyed it.

Last week was Super Kids 1. Those are the kids ages nine to twelve. This week the girls outnumbered the boys nearly two to one. They’re not as cute or naïve as Adventurers, but they’re a fun group of kids. Next week will be a bigger change: Junior High 1 and only 110 kids.

But God is so good and His timing is so perfect. Last night, after the Super Kids left, we got hit by a major storm front. No tornado, but it looked like one this morning. I woke up many times, wondering if the siren would go off and trying to figure out what to take to my bathtub with me as wind whipped around my apartment, the heavens thundered, and rain poured down in a deluge. I’ll admit, it was scary. Thankfully, we didn’t have any kids at camp for counselors to keep calm.

This morning, trees had been uprooted and thrown across lawns. Hard wood trees lost heavy branches or even split in half, taking down more trees as they tumbled to the earth. Branches, leaves and shingles were scattered across the roads. Some towns are still without electricity. At camp, we had a lighter tree land on one of our larger buildings, but it didn’t do any damage. We had a huge tree come down just in front of two cabins (one of which was occupied last night). Praise God we have no damage to buildings, but it is going to take some time to get that tree moved and Phil has made the cabins off limits until he moves it. But with only 110 kids this week, we weren’t using all the cabins anyhow.  The timing couldn’t be better!

So, it all starts again on Sunday. Another registration day. Followed by a week of preparing for the next several weeks, and now we’re even starting to talk fall events and getting mailings ready for them. And then closing day. Truly, never a dull moment!