It's Been A Good Morning

It feels like we've been at the Oaks for days.... but we've only been here for about 24 hours!

So far today, we had an early morning hike up to the cross on top of the hill. Miss Briganti started this hike to the cross tradition for the first morning because it's a delightful place to sit and read Isaiah 40 and think about the Lord.

Isaiah 40:12

"Who has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,

And marked off the heavens by the span,
And calculated the dust of the earth by the measure,
And weighed the mountains in a balance
And the hills in a pair of scales?"

Who has done these things? God has. Compared to our Creator, we are just tiny little, insignificant bugs. And yet He is interested in our well being. He cares for us.

Isaiah 40:29-31

"He gives strength to the weary,
And to him who lacks might He increases power.
Though youths grow weary and tired,
And vigorous young men stumble badly,
Yet those who wait for the LORD
Will gain new strength;
They will mount up with wings like eagles,
They will run and not get tired,
They will walk and not become weary."

So we will call upon Him! And we are needing strength today. Only half-way through and we have done a week's worth of exciting things. The kids built shelters and learned about animal tracks. They even saw a rattle snake eating a rabbit! Steve was able to grab a picture of it with Tigran's camera before they got rid of the snake. I wish I could put it up for you, but isn't compatible with my cord. That picture is definitely something to look forward to!

Here are some pictures from breakfast, of our morning devotion with Mr. Chaffin who continued to explain that we are not products of evolutionary chance, but created by God. And there are a few peeks at our shelter building too...

Tonight we will be thinking about Isaiah 40 again as we see the stars. There are so many!!

"Lift up your eyes on high

And see who has created these stars,
The One who leads forth their host by number,
He calls them all by name;
Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power,
Not one of them is missing."

Thanks for reading our blog! We won't be able to update again until we get home.... but we'll keep the pictures and stories coming.

Enjoy!

Isaiah 40:8

"The grass withers, the flower fades,
But the word of our God stands forever."

p.s. There are so many amazing flowers here!!!!

DAY #1

Hello Parents!

Everything is going great! Today has been so much fun.

We started out with an hour and 15 minute car ride punctuated with a Starbucks pit stop.

As you can see, we really enjoyed ourselves.

=)

We got to camp and settled into our cabin before heading out to the field to play games.

Can you guess who this is?

We broke into 3 teams. Here you can see Dan's group working on some team building skills....

And here is Jared, helping us figure out how to work as a team....
Who knew that Miss Zhakevich is so competitive?!?!?! Oh.... wait..... we all knew it.... but today she got to put her competitive streak into practice against our mystery student (Zach Lang).

Even Mr. Chaffin got in on the fun!

Then we played a bunch of fun games before dinner...

Here's a video of the boys playing some intense basketball-- check out Noah's amazing moves....

Here's a snapshot of a soccer game...

We played some fuseball....

and some human fuseball!

Climbed some trees...

Played some baseball...

Whew...are you tired yet?!? Because we are!

After dinner we enjoyed a wonderful time of worship thanks to our song leader, Steve.

If you've been to Science Camp before, then you'll remember this famous example that Mr. Chaffin uses to explain that nothing happens by chance.

We are either created by God or we are "freaks of nature."

At the moment, we're learning about astronomy. Jared is teaching us about the planets and the stars and Steve is showing everyone the moons of Saturn.

Everyone is going to sleep REALLY well tonight!!!!!!!

Please pray for us. We'll be up early tomorrow morning for devotions, another full day of wilderness survival education, and then..... our favorite... the campout!!!

Goodnight!

We Are Excited and Ready To Go!!

23 Hours till departure!

Welcome to Science Camp

Parents and Students,

We've come to one of the most exciting times of the 6th grade year, and one of the most memorable experiences of the educational adventure of a Grace Community School student.... we are going to Science Camp!

This trip may be my favorite parts of working with the kids. We play games, swim, hike, look at the stars and learn really cool astronomy facts... and then we CAMP. One of the neatest things about this trip is that the students do all the work themselves. The staff at the Oaks teach them how to do all the tent set up and even how to cook dinner in the wilderness. In the next couple days, they'll learn how to build a shelter in the woods, how to start a campfire, and (this is the best of all) how to be quiet and still in order to enjoy nature (you have to admit that "quiet and still" are not often used to describe 6th graders!).

Mr. Chaffin will be teaching them about God, our Creator. We are not freaks of nature, but we were made BY God and FOR God. We will be looking at Isaiah 40 to remind us how small we are and how big God is. There will be so many things to talk about when we come back on Friday night. Our Science Camp adventure is about to begin and I will update the blog a couple times and afterwards so you can enjoy the stories and the memories.

Check out the Oaks website (http://www.theoakscamp.org/), read Isaiah 40 with us (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=isaiah%2040&version=NASB)... and please pray for us.

Enjoy!

With Love,

Miss Briganti