steal your heart away

Man, I've been busy lately. We had our first normal day of camp today in what seems like forever! It was really nice to be back. Last week was the annual summit, where staff from all the different UrbanPromises (Wilmington, Toronto, Vancouver, Honduras, Malawi) get together and have a 2 day long conference. The summit was really good and it was awesome to get to meet so many people doing similar things in other parts of the world, but 2 days of meetings and workshops from 8am-6pm takes its toll.

Since we didn't have camp on Thurs or Friday because of the summit, we had a "special week" for the kids. We got to take some of them to a park in Collinswood on Tuesday which was fun. I taught some of the girls "Pooh Sticks"- where you pick a stick and drop it in the water on one side of a bridge, and whoever's stick comes out the other side first wins. They seemed to enjoy it, but we were all quickly distracted by the urge to want to climb some nearby trees.
On Wednesday we got to take our 6th graders roller skating, since they didn't go on our trip to the haunted house or the weekend to Messiah College. Some of them had never roller skated before and weren't too fond of it, but all the kids seemed to have a good time, even if it was just to hang out and eat lots of nachos. I hadn't been roller skating in sooo long, and it reminded me of the days when we would go skating with AWANA, and I would win the limbo competition (and therefore a free soda!) every year. I didn't do so well on the skates this time around, but when i switched to blades it was like going back to when Sarah, David and I would roller blade around our neighborhood all the time.

So as I said, today was a normal day of camp. Since it was nice out, we got to take the kids to the park down the street, where i helped some of the girls make a giant pile of leaves at the bottom of a slide. The kids took turns barreling down into the pile, which was entertaining to watch. The rest of camp went as smoothly as could be expected...there were the usual kids who claimed they didn't have homework, and refused to do a worksheet, and the kid who sits at the girls table and annoys them the whole time, and me trying to get him to focus on his own work (and failing). But overall it was good. We also had camp night, where about 10 or so kids stay after, hang out, and we make them some dinner. I like camp night because I feel like I can hang out with the kids more easily without feeling like I'm always telling them not to do "this" or "that".

I'm sorry I haven't really posted much lately. As I said before, I don't have internet at home, and I'm usually too lazy to write a post when I'm at Urban. I'll try to be better! I just wrote my 2nd news letter, and I think I'm gonna start posting them on here regularly. That way, those of you over-seas can get them without me having to mail them to you!

I hope everyone's doing well and enjoying this beautiful autumn!!