Today was our first day of kids camp and construction. We have some highs and lows throughout the day.

Lows:

My mom (Cindy Tuttle) found herself in an awkward situation today. She was teaching the bible story for the younger kids and a quesion one asks was "Where do babies come from?" She decided that she didn't want to share that with everyone. To come to think of it, I don't even remember having that conversation with my mom. Haha. Funny stuff.

Another low was Ralph talking for all of the construction crew saying how it feels that we come here every year to help the community of Helena-West Helena and nobody seems to take care of it. They built the pool house and a green house in the garden area a few years ago. The men went back this year and they have to go back and fix what they did before and not create new things. This kind of goes along with what Kristen was saying about the community. She and Kate think that Helena has taken a step back in the involvement with kids camp and helping with other things around the area.

Cindy Douglass told a story about having to take 2 children to kids camp in the van she's driving...WITH A PITBULL!  The pitbull follows these kids around and before Cindy even knew it, the dog had jumped in the van with the kids and made itself at home in the backseat of the van.  Cindy had to drive them around and finally they got home and got the dog out of the van.  Then she found out that the dog had fleas!  Great!  And I (Virginia) rode in the backseat after that.  So now we all have fleas!  (Just kidding?)

David Hawkins shared a story that Jennifer had told him about her preschoolers not knowing the words to Jesus Loves Me. 

Highs:

CIndy D. got to spend all day with her friend from a couple of years back.  She said it was so great to have that connection still even though this girl has been in some rough spots in recent years past.  However, she has gotten back on the right path and is helping out at preschool!

Vivian, Carol, and Hope all delivered cookies to local businesses who have helped by donating money to go toward the well in Zambia.  The kids are raising money by selling crafts and some local businesses promised to match what was raised and through all of those businesses they could reach the goal.  Apparently they reached their goal for last week and they're working on raising money for a second well! Vivian said that these adults at the businesses were all very warm and thankful for the cookies.

A lot of people enjoyed seeing kids and/or adults that they had worked with in swimming or kids camp in years past.  It is great to see them still involved with their community!

A couple of groups may have had hectic days, but the yellow group (my group!) had a GREAT day!  Maybe it was because of the FABULOUS weather we are having down here.  It was in the mid to upper 80s today...usually it's around 100! 

We are all thankful for the new group members we have this year!  Of course it's great to have all the returning people, but we are so happy to have new people continuously joining our group each year!  It's hard to convey how meaningful and special this trip really is until you come and experience yourself.

Even though today was a great day (weatherwise, at least) it looks like rain for the next day and half (give or take a few hours), so hopefully we'll be able to adjust accordingly!

Until tomorrow...