Camp Oakhurst Day Two

Each morning we start our day with a Chapel. The second day of camp the LITS were assigned Chapel and our word of the day was Love. The purpose of camp chapel is to get everyone excited about that days activities. The campers base their chapel songs and activities all around the word of the day and encourage the other campers to use that word throughout their day. Chapel is followed by breakfast and then the camp starts their assigned activities. LITs were split into three groups and rotated the following activities; Low Ropes, Mask Making, and Nature Crafts. Low Ropes is a ropes course designed to challenge groups with their team building and teamwork skills. With these activities they are encouraged to use effective and positive communications skills while trying to accomplish the task at hand.
Our Mask Making activity was lead by co-counselors Jake King and Dajon Kwiatkowski. They lead the campers in creating and decorating a mask. They left those simple instructions for them which would lead to an evening activity that became much deeper.
Nature crafts was lead by Lisa Quartararo this year. Lisa lead a fantastic activity called Knots

for Nets led my United Nations foundation. This was awesome that campers were able to give back to an organization through something so simple and fun to do. Please view the YouTube video that I think is really neat to share : http://youtu.be/u81zAbz7kEs .

After our activities, it was back to the cabins to dress up for dinner. The dinner theme was pirates which always make for some interesting outfits. It sure was fun. After dinner and before campfire the whole camp participated in what we like to call a Twilight activity. LITS activity was a beach ball led by Jessie Ramos. She had the group sit in a circle and pass around a beach ball with numbers on it. When a camper caught the ball they had to share the number that happened to be under their finger. Jessie then asked them the assigned question from the list. This activity is one of my favorites because the questions are a wide variety of subject. They range from silly questions to controversial issues as well as touching on very personal beliefs. This allows for an individual to share as much or as little as they would like, but learning how to be confident is sharing what they believe may be right or wrong. The rest of the group is allowed to share their beliefs or open the floor for a respectful open discussion. The kids have a fun time with this activity. Shortly after the whole camp attended Campfire and then the camps split back up for the Devotion activity. Jake lead this in which he started the activity by asking all the campers to place the masks on their faces. He asked each camper to stand before the group and to share the persona of the mask they made, This was left up to them and they were able to create a persona with whatever characteristics of their choice. They interesting part was to see how many of them created a persona that resembled them and how many created a persona of someone with characteristics they desire to have. After this we all nestled in our cabins for a good night rest for the next day.

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