Leah's Week at Camp

The first week of August, we had the opportunity to drop seven-year-old Leah off at overnight camp for a whole week. Leah has barely done any sleepovers in her short life, and the few times she's been away from home, it's been with family or family friends. I was really not sure she would be able to be gone for a whole week. I knew practically she was prepared-- she's basically independent as far as getting herself ready in the morning & night, and fairly good about keeping up with her things, but she tends to be highly anxious about many things, especially getting to sleep at night. I tried to have confidence in her, since she was so excited about going and had tons of confidence in herself. And sure enough, she made it.

We weren't able to hear from her through the week, but we heard from a chaperone from our church each morning. She was homesick maybe the first night or two, but stuck it out and by the 3rd night she was so exhausted from being so busy all day that she didn't have time to think about it anymore. She seemed to have a really great time and looks forward to doing it again next year. The best part-- she accepted Christ into her heart while she was there! Of course, we've been talking about it with her for years, but weeks like this where you're surrounded by an atmosphere of learning about God, she felt the calling and told us she was saved!



We had to take the ferry over Lake Champlain to get to New York.

The check-in process was a little crazy, but organized. Word of Life is such a large camp and quite popular. They must have had 100 kids at just her camp, which was for 1st-6th grade. (Plus they have other camps for middle & high school, and even a family camp.)

She was in a cabin with a bunch of other young, first-time campers and two counselors. She got a top bunk. I was a little worried about that, and that she wouldn't be comfortable, but she didn't complain. Her counselors were great, and most of the activities they did were together as a cabin. They don't get as much free time at her age.

She knew two girls in her cabin from our church. They're not really close friends, but she likes hanging out with them when they do come to church, so at least she had some familiar faces.

When we went back to pick her up on Friday, we stayed with her to watch a skit show. Andrew and Abi are now super excited to go to camp when they're old enough!

The camp put together daily "Day in Review" videos with clips from throughout each day. Here are a couple in which Leah appeared. You'll see she got to do a ton of stuff!