Bible Camp: Week 1

0Josh • 25th Jun 2005 • blog entries, nome., travel

Alright bloggers. Its been about a week since I got back from Covenant Bible camp and I’ve had plenty of time to digest my experiences and figure out what parts I want to share with you. So much happened while I was gone it would take pages and pages to record everything that I experienced. I had a great time and it was amazing to be in a place so far out of touch with the rest of the world. Covenant Bible Camp is a place that doesn’t obviously have internet or TV but also lacks electricity, telephones and flushing toilets. I was a counselor for 6 high schoolers the first week, and 6 jr. highers the second week.

Here are a few highlights:

Pre-camp:
I flew into Unalakleet on Sunday afternoon, a day before campers arrived. Jamie had flown in less than an hour earlier on a different airline and he was waiting for me at the Bering air terminal. We got a ride with a friend of his that he went to CBC Ecuador with and who lived in Unalakleet. We also went over to Heidi Erickson’s house, she was going to be the program director the first and third weeks of camp. Jamie and I went to the only store left open on Sunday afternoon and got a frozen pizza for dinner. The next morning Jamie woke me up and we started doing airport runs. We drove the Unalakleet Covenant Church truck (which was an automatic…but the transmission was broken, so it only drives in second gear) back and forth to the different airport terminals picking up campers and staff flying in from villages all over the area. Around 4pm the decision was made that staff needed to head out a bit before students, especially so new staff could get a quick orientation.

Week 1:
After driving in the church truck (at a very, very slow speed) for about an hour and then getting picked up by a boat and shuttled to camp I had finally made it. As I walked the trails from the beach to the temple (main meeting and dining area) I was soaking it all in, all the new people, the mosquitoes, the cabins, the mud…everything.

After a brief walking tour and orientation it was time for the students to arrive. I had 6 kids in my cabin. Two of them were from Unalakleet, one from Koyuk, one from White Mountian, one from Elim, and one from California. Our speaker that week was Scott Nelson from River47, a covenant church in Orange CA. It was fun to meet Scott and hear the messages that he had prepared for the campers. He really spoke about things that kids from this area really needed to hear. He spoke about abuse, depression, salvation and was much more relevant to Eskimo kids than I ever thought a white guy from So. Cal could ever be.

During the week I went fishing twice during free time, got the chance to go into town once during the Muskox Run (the weekly camp run/walk 5k) so I could call KICY about the VHF radio phone being gone. I got up every morning at 8:30 for the staff meeting/devotions and was usually there on time, except for the day that I missed it because a camper had locked the door from the outside. I was always scouting out the nicest outhouse at camp because the closest one to our cabin smelled really bad. I also discovered how amazing mosquito coils could be, and that people in this area call bug repellant “bug dope”. Camp wide events besides the muskox run were hike and the Eco-challenge a long relay race that ended with a rainy fire starting competition.

Our cabin had one of the best skits during the talent show…I had suggested a similar skit to the one that the cascades o-team did last year. It was a rock race that featured characters. We took our cabins acting ability and came up with the following: a Scottish man named Scotty McScottland…a old rich man and his silent bodyguard….a “hardcore native guy” from Little Diomede Island….Chief Honolulu from a tribe in Hawaii who only clicked to communicate, and then the kid from Cali played a redneck.