Everyone Loves Williams, Arizona

I spent last week at Lost Canyon (a camp in Williams, Arizona) with 150 high school students from Mariners Church. The facility is run by Young Life and is, easily, the most beautiful camp I've ever been to.

The band unloaded and went to wait for students to come to the Clubroom. Luckily, there were rocking chairs on the patio.

Trevor, Steven and Nick

My friend, Josh Pease, was our camp speaker. I told him this, but you should know, too: he did a great job. It was fun to sit in the back of the room and watch as he shared stories, both serious and funny, as he helped to spark questions in their brains that would force students to wrestle with what God was trying to say or do in their hearts.

Josh speaking in the Clubroom

About a week before camp, we had a few leaders drop out (sicknesses, vacation-time, etc). Luckily, Torie and Delia came to the rescue. They called up two friends from Biola (Jon and Sam) to join us at camp. We had an amazing group of leaders at camp this week...but these four stuck out most to me!

Jon (white shirt, scowl) at the breakfast table with his huge cabin

The camp layout is really well-designed. They have a giant field in the center of camp, boys dorms on one side, girls on the other, dining hall, lake and pool on one end and the clubroom on the other. It would only take a few minutes for a student to find the rest of the kids from his cabin during free time...and I could walk a lap around camp and interact with tons of students.
The camp band (l to r): Steven, Chris, Nick and Trevor. We played quite a few covers throughout the week (including Muse and Justin Bieber) not to mention songs for club, country night and the coffee shop concert. All-in-all, we learned about 30 songs. They worked the pool and zip-line during the day and then played at night...little sleep, but lots of fun.

On Sunday afternoon, Delia, Torie and I rode the giant swing.
Lots of screaming and laughing...

Sunday night was Country Night. After dinner, we headed to the Clubhouse to sing a few folk tunes together...and then came the line-up: boys at one door, girls at the other. They would be released one at a time to meet their "partner" for the line dance. The anticipation (and anxiety) was very fun to watch. I know that I would have felt the same if I were a student.

Two freshman boys hoping for senior girls

Delia and Torie

Sam, Delia, Torie and Jon

BP, Jon, Sam and Pease
(four new very best friends)

Tuesday night was fancy night: everyone was decked-out in fancy dresses or sport coats for dinner. Most of the upper-classmen cabins went as "dates" so I had dinner with a bunch of abandoned leaders and three date-less students.

Fancy Night

The theme of camp was Boy Bands. BP, Tim, Taylor, Mike and Jared made-up The Lost Boys who were on their reunion tour at Lost Canyon. Pre-camp I got to help plan costumes and even choreograph a music video...I felt like I was a sophomore in high school again.

The Lost Boys signing autographs

I could have stayed at camp for another week. We came home on Wednesday night and our whole team came back to the office on Friday saying, "Okay, we've slept and showered, let's go back!"

Can't wait for Lost Canyon 2011.