A typical first night of camp...picture "Night at the Museum" (1 or 2) when the animals all come to life after dark...what a mad house that is Junior High Camp...I love it... I finally fell asleep sometime after midnight...I had set my alarm for about 6:45am which proved completely unnecessary because the ememrgency exit fire alarm door was activated by a camper at about 6:00am...and stayed on for a good 20 minutes...As I tried to comprehend how a counselor could be so careless as to let one of his boys go through that door, and at the same time trying to plan how I would show God's love and grace to both that counselor and that boy...I got up and our day was officially under way. Off to breakfast and a morning counselor meeting and then the first morning chapel of the week. The band (330 Plan, same as last year) is awesome, and we worshiped together for about 20 minutes. One little God blessing was the last song, Everlasting God, was a song that most of our students had just learned hand-motions to at VBS last week...(Lory, do you have goose-bumps yet!?)...We had been right up in the front of the stage and by the time the song was over, about 80% of the camp was doing our hand-motions and we were all worshiping together! Pretty cool stuff! After the message (basically explaining our theme of "HEY RUBE"...ask your kid about it) it was time for a quick devo and then recreation! Horizons is represented on three different teams (8 teams total) and it was simply a blast...I'll try to include a couple pics... Following rec was a filling lunch (I had a salad! along with tuna and sugar free lemonade and water...yum!)...it was down to the beach at South Mission... Some kids took surfing lessons, others played in the water...I brought my fins so I was able to go deep and grabbed a couple of six-foot drops while body-surfing...nice to know I can still do it... Now we're back and it's off to dinner, evening chapel, free time and sleep...! I'll try to post once more tonight, but most likely it will be tomorrow afternoon... Troy ps...a finish to the fire alarm story...about mid-way through the day, it was brought to my attention that the boy who set off the alarm was from our church! I don't want to name any names...**cough, Datria, cough cough**...but suffice it to say, it was yet another great "Camp Memory"

Well, the day started off, or more accurately didn't start off, on an interesting note...

Most of the students were there within a few minutes of the requested meeting time of 6:30am. By 7:25am we had everyone there, all forms checked, health screenings completed, and were ready to board our transportation...just one problem...

I had been saving the fact that for the first time, our Junior Highers were taking a bus to Summer Camp, as opposed to cramming into 15 passenger vans, (not the most comfortable ride)...

At 7:15, it was time to make call to our bus contractor to see if he could let me in on why our bus hadn't arrived at the contracted time of 6:30am...first number, no answer, left a message...2nd number, a groggy "he...helllooo?" answered the ring...

"Hi Dane, it's Troy at Horizons, just hoping you can tell me my bus is on the way"...he wasn't groggy anymore...He told me he'd look into it and get back to me asap...

Well...long story short...seems they forgot to move us from the "tentative" file to the "confirmed" one...our bus arrived at 9:30am and we were on our way at last...after explaining to a number of folks who were wondering why 20-something teens were hanging out in the front of the church with luggage and sleeping bags when church was starting! (at 9:00am)

The upside is that our bus was SWEET...as you can see in the pics, and we made good time, stopping just once in Yuma for lunch...



















After checking in and getting all the luggage to the room, we had the typical AMAZING CAMP FOOD (no sarcasm, this food is awesome!) and then our first evening meeting...complete with the Sunday Night "Opener" that Hume is famous for...

Clowns and Mimes everywhere...and quite a spectacle...

And it turns out, one of the Mimes is one of my old students from my days as a Youth Pastor right here in San Diego...she's now a student at my College Alma Mater...talk about feeling old!




PJ (the speaker) gave us a litte taste of where God is leading him this week as he talked about unconditional love...that God has for us, and that we should have for others...

A little free time and a good devotional with the boys about PJ's talk and it's been a great first day...

Please keep us in your prayers, that God would work in each students' heart this week!