Winter Camp 2014

Salutations, people.

Every year in January or February, my church youth group goes to a winter camp. This camp, as long as I've gone or have known of it, has gone to Woodlands, which is in North Georgia. I'll give you a little run-down of what happened.

On Friday Jan. 17, one o'clock p.m. (or a little thereafter), a bunch of youth piled in three or four cars for a long drive up north. If I'm honest with myself, the drive there and back is one of my most favorite parts of camp. Such memories abide in these long hours. We got there and unpacked that evening, then went to dinner - some people going to Wendy's to brave pre-iron gut, others wimping out and fleeing to Zaxby's instead. I was, of course, with the Wendy's crowd.

For those of you who don't know, pre-iron gut is basically preparation for iron gut, a horrible game where our youth leaders go to the store or restaurant, buy random articles of food, and mix it all up in two blenders. Then two teams of youth attempt to drain the blender to the dregs, and whoever can chug through the valley of unhealthy mix first wins the 'Guts & Glory Award', which is basically a slap on the back to help cough up what you just consumed and infamy for the next year or so. And a piece of paper that says you did it.

We had a special speaker, Wade Grubbs, with us for the weekend; he blazed through the book of Ecclesiastes, the main point being "live life in light of judgement". I'll be honest: I now see Ecclesiastes through different glasses. I never knew it could be as encouraging as it was.

I'll hit on the main highlights of the camp. Of course, the sessions were a given. Loved them. Loved every last minute of them.
When we weren't in the Word, however, most of our (and by 'our' I mean 'my') time was spent up in the game room, which housed three ping-pong tables, two foosball tables, and two air hockey tables. I was usually on the foosball tables, but I did my fair share of ping pong and air hockey. Saturday night, there was a massive tournament, and you could pick which of the three sports you could compete in. I participated in all three, and made it to about fifth place in foosball and ping pong. I failed miserably at air hockey (not surprising).

Another great event was paintball. Who doesn't like paintball? (Aside from girly girls, I understand that.) All those who signed up went in two shifts, one early and one late. Most of the new kids in the youth group went the early shift - I refrained from my urge to dominate them, instead opting for the late shift, which held most of the YG paintball veterans. Boy, did we have a blast (eeeeh? Get it?). I was chosen as team captain of the Red Team, opposed to our youth pastor who captained the Blue Team. We played capture the flag and team deathmatch, coming out of the shift with a one-one tie. And, of course, more on us than when we began (I was hit in the head, elbow, lower back, and front and back of the shoulder, not to mention getting paint splattered all over my mask visor from near-misses).

The camp we went to also offered a fairly long and awesome zipline (it was probably 1000+ feet long), a bungee, a climbing wall, and kayaking/canoeing out on its lake. I rode the zipline a few times and climbed the wall two or three times, but refrained from doing the bungee. I did do some canoeing, though. Ever tried paddling a canoe with one hand? I have...it kills the arm, man.

Last, but not least, the infamous Iron gut competition arrived on Sunday morning. Eight brave and stupid competitors lined up, four a team, to savor the sewage that is Iron gut. This year it was themed 'McDonald's breakfast'. It was comprised of such things as orange juice, sausage egg & cheese biscuit, coffee creamer, vanilla ice cream, hushpuppies, and a couple other things I probably conveniently forgot. Eight trudged in, and four emerged victorious, with stomach aches and aftertastes to boot. I slapped Bobby, the guy who was pretty much an Iron gut legend, on the back afterwards (he was on the winning team, of course), saying "Wanna go out for lunch? I've got a few places in mind..."

(Never done Iron gut, never will.)

And Sunday afternoon, we all piled in for the ride home. While I'll miss and remember with fondness the memories made this winter camp, I'll always be looking forward to the next one.
Sayonara!