Hargrave Family: Halle's Account of Sandy Creek Bible Camp

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Halle's Account of Sandy Creek Bible Camp

The following was written by Halle in reference to her week at a summer church camp. The camp was 7 days and 6 nights long. This is a camp that Brian attended when he was Halle's age and has always talked about sending his kids there.

S.C.B.C.

At Sandy Creek Bible Camp I had loads of fun. I made eleven friends: Victoria, Katherine, Emily, Erica, Kate, Sophia, McKenna, Leslie, and my two cabin leaders, Ms. Lisa and Ms. Kirstey.

We were assigned to teams on the first day. Each team was given a number and color. We had to create a team name on our own. Our color was yellow and our number was four, so the name that we chose was Yellow Jackets 4 Ever. We had to do all of our activities with our team except the pool, snack shack, and the arts & crafts lounge.

My favorite activity that I did at camp was horseback riding. Both of the times I went horse-back riding I rode a horse named Henna. I recognized Henna because he had a white fish painted on his side. While riding Henna he would start galloping which made it really fun.

Another activity that I liked was archery. We got four arrows in every turn. On about my third turn I got two bulls eyes in a row!

To the right of archery was hatchery. One had to throw the hatchet so that it would stick to the wood. The technique for throwing the hatchet felt awkward to me so I really didn’t like hatchery. When throwing the hatchet, it seemed like I was going to cut my ear off!

There also was a giant ropes course that was fifty feet up in the air. There were three rock walls next to it. One wall was easy to climb, one was of medium difficulty, and one was hard. I chose the hard wall and was the only one on my team who made it up. Once we finished the rock wall we got to choose whether we wanted to go on the ropes course or not. I chose to go on it. The course was scary and fun at the same time. There was a similar low ropes course, too. Our team broke two camp records. That made me really excited and proud.

The pool was really fun. We had to take a swim test on Monday. If we passed then we wore a red band on our wrist all week long. The band indicated to the lifeguards that we passed. At the pool there were two slides. Everything about them was the same except the size; one was bigger than the other. I always went on the big one because I was allowed to slide on my stomach on that one.

The snack shack was a fun place, too. They had lots of candy and soda (otherwise saying nothing there was healthy.) When a person went to get his/her snack the girls at the counter would sometimes cheer for you. They cheered if you got a York peppermint patty, a giant Pixie stick, or fruit snacks. Once I got my snack I could go sit with my friends, play foosball, or play table tennis.

In the arts and crafts lounge we made a cross out of clothes pins. First we got sixteen clothes pins and twisted the metal part off. Next we glued them back together without the metal. After that, we made the top, bottom, left side, and right side of the cross and then put them together. Next we stained the cross and wiped it so it wouldn’t be so dark. Last, we burned “S.C.B.C” into the back for Sandy Creek Bible Camp; we also burned 2013 into it. Though it was hard I was proud of myself at the end.

Ms. Lisa, one of my cabin leaders, was from Ireland. She taught some of us girls in my cabin how to speak Irish, and we taught her how to speak American. I learned that shower is pronounced “sar,” power is “par,” and flour is “far” in Irish. My leader said that Scottish people talk funny because they sound like they are asking questions all of the time. Whenever she compared her voice to what Scottish people sound like I could actually tell the difference (though if anybody from America tried to do that, I might mistake either for a British accent.)

In the mornings and afternoons we had chapel. We learned about God and sang songs. Additionally, in the afternoon, we read a book called Secret in the Woods and played a game. The game was called Cooties and was boys against the girls. The pastor would ask us questions about the book and whoever got the question right would go up and pick out a letter. Behind each letter would either be a number or a cootie. A player could look behind as many letter as he/she wanted, but if he/she got a cootie then he/she lost all of his/her points. Then there would be another question. Once all of the letters were gone, the team with the most points won. The girls won most of the time.

Sandy Creek Bible Camp was a really fun camp. I want to go back next year and possibly see my friends from this year.