Day 3 - Wednesday
Ever figure out too late that you're wearing the same outfit as someone else? Ever hang out with that person for half a day and not notice it until someone points it out to you? Yeah, me neither.

The kids are starting to get into the rythm of camp, understanding what's happening where and when, finding their friends and figuring out what they like to do here. Same schedule today as yesterday, except no Buck Wild. I sat in on Brett Ray's session today and was blown away by his story telling abilities. He ties these stories back to the message so well, leaving you with some huge questions you need to resolve in your brain.

I played paintball today and got lit up. It was middle school and leaders vs. high school and we smoked them. I tried to play pretty agressively, and paid dearly for it. I have scrapes and bruises all over my body, not to mention these quarter size bloody welts from the paintballs.

Tonight in Brett's session, he told us his story, and challanged us to figure out who's God of our world. A group of guys and I just got done hanging out tonight talking about how often we're the center of our universe and how we become less self-centered. We all agreed that serving others was one way to do it, and then asked ourselves the questions around why if we know that, we don't do it. Just stuff to chew on this week as we're out doing the stuff we're doing.

Our prayer team has been praying all week for us and we've seen the results, at least I'm not sure what else to attribute them to. We've had no serious injuries (which we've had in the past, and most of the other groups have had in a big way this week) and I have an energy level that I just shouldn't have at this point, based on past trips. Normally by this time, I'm beat. I've been getting up early on my own, giving me a great chance to have some quiet time of my own. Normally, I'm craving every second of sleep, rolling out of bed right to breakfast.

I've had a great week this week. I've come to remember just how much I love hanging out with middle school guys, something a part of me had forgotten over the past few years. It started a couple weeks back after a conversation I've had with my friend, and it's been bubbling to the surface ever since. I've had a blast hanging out with the middle school guys here this week and just remembered all of the stuff about them that make them my kind of people. When I first started doing youth stuff at Crossroads, it was with the high school kids, because I thought middle schoolers were too much of a pain. Freier encouraged me to give middle school a try and I've never looked back since. We started our first youth group meeting with 4 people and the team grew it into over a hundred at some points. Being a Dad and traveling started taking it's toll, plus I started getting burned out. I started taking over more and more of the high school stuff as my kids left middle school, and the two groups merged into one. Shinn and I started talking about what starting a middle school youth group at Crossroads would look like. I've started to dream (the awake kind) again about it and what it could be like. Anyways, I'm rambling.

If you've got kids at this thing, call them and make sure they spend the $10 to buy a copy of the camp DVD, which has all of the video footage of what's gone on here. Most of them will be too focused on buying midnight pizzas to remember to buy the DVD.

You can see copies of today's pictures here.