another stamp in the passport....

I made it home, from a super awesome week in the Bahamas...so here's the story..

p.s be prepared for a long post and lots of pictures

So Saturday morning, we woke up around 1ish and headed off to Lubbock, the catch my plane which was leaving at...8. I got on the plane, went to Houston, then to Ft Launderdale then from there on to Nassau. The flying wasn't bad, I'm just not a huge fan of flying. Going from Lubbock to Houston was nice cause I got to sit by myself, I had sit between two dudes from Houston to FTL. and then the plane from there to Nassau was a little tiny plane, so it was just one seaters. I won't lie, riding that one scared me a little bit, every time we would hit turbulence and the plane would just shake, I would think "I'm going to DIE" it really wasn't THAT bad, I just just a little freaked out. Anyway, I arrive in Nassau about 4:30 I think? go through customs and all that jazz. I walk out the doors, expecting someone to be there waiting for me...not a soul. There was a little sitting area right in front of me, and I saw all Bahamians and one white guy, I didn't know who would be picking me up, or what they looked like, but I had assumed they would have a sign are something... there was not a soul.

I peaked outside, thinking maybe they were there. Nope. So I go back in, sit down with my bags and just feel...lost. Like a little puppy. With all kinds of things running through my head. Like what on earth am I going to do? I am stuck, in a airport, in the Bahamas, a very long ways from home. So, I sit, and wait, thinking maybe they are just running late, and will be there. A half hour goes by, I start getting scared...I wait a little longer. Time keeps going by, so I pray. And I start to slowly feel more at peace, knowing the Lord will take care of me. But still, what do I do?? So I keep waiting, looking around, hoping somebody will come. After about an hour, the white guy sitting behind me asks if I need to use a phone, I was all YES, in a very relieved voice I'm sure, I must have looked very nervous for him to have asked. Thankfully I had to number to the people, so I dialed the number and looked down, it said "calling ALC" well, ALC is adventure learning centre, which is the place I'm going. I get excited, and tell the lady my situation. When I tell her who I am she's all,
"Oh! Sara! your stuck in the airport, oh my goodness. There should be someone coming for you, hold on" ..I wait feeling oh so relieved. She comes back on and tells me Ed is coming for me, tells me what he looks like and such. So I hang up, and give the guy back his phone. and come to find out he was part of the different thing that ALC does, and was there to pick up a couple of kids.

I'm honestly not sure I have ever felt so relieved in my life. It was such a blessing, and I know the Lord used that. Just made me remember to TRUST in Him. So after a few more minutes Ed comes. He asks me if I am Sara, and then goes on to apologize a hundred times, because the reason he wasn't there was because he had me coming for the NEXT week. But he was already on his way to the airport cause there was three other girls coming in. He just kept telling me how sorry he was, and that he couldn't believe he had gotten it mixed up. It was such a blessing how it all turned out.

So moving on past that scary experience. The other three girls got there, Rachel, Nicole, and Christine, who I made really fast friends with. And we went to the camp, met the other counselors, ate some pizza, went to bed...and moved on to day two. We didn't go to church, which bummed me out pretty bad, cause I wanted to go SO bad. But we did go to the beach, which was gorgeousss

we spent a few hours there, went to starbucks, then that night we had a great time of worship, then orientation. Which was just having us be told what we'd be doing that week. What this whole thing involved was, all of us counselors would be assigned kids, like I had six, we'd have a name, like my squads name was Volcano. So, during certain periods of the day we'd have to be with our squad and keep them all together. Like in the morning we'd go to the playground while all the kids arrived, greet them, them get them all together and go to the flag raising. Then we'd go into worship, sitting with our kids. And then go to this other spot, the pavilion, where there were different tables of all the different classes, like archery, craft, bible, ect. The kids would have their classes on their name tags, so some would go to archery first, or bible, or whatever, you get the hint. Then us counselors would go to the class we would teach, like me and one of the guys, taught fitness.

So then we had two classes, then snack break, where we would sit with our kids again, another class, then break, then lunch, and then during the afternoon there were different things that went on. One day we went on a field trip the police K9 unit, two days we went to the beach, and then we had water day at the camp. So that was basically that. It was really neat. I fell in love with the kids, they are the sweetest things. My six were pretty quiet, and good kids, there were a couple of boys I had that were harder to deal with, but they were fun anyway. One of my girls was kind of standoffish at first, but then she warmed up to me. All the girls were so sweet, they'd always want to come up and give you these big hugs, (the boys too) and sit in your lap. and they LOVED my hair, there were three girls, that anytime we had free time, and we were sitting down they'd come over and do my hair. No matter if I had it up, or anything, they'd come undo it and braid it. They wanted to do it in corn rows one day, but I just told them we probably shouldn't do that ; ) One of the little girls, Allison was walking holding my hand one day and just looked up at me and asked if I'd be her best friend, she was the sweetest little thing.

So yea the time spent with the kids was great, I loved them. It would take a lot out of you trying to keep up with six kids though. I felt like such a mom. haha. The days were pretty hot, and it rained all one morning, so we had to stay inside singing songs, and then watched the movie UP. I guess Bahamians don't like being in the rain at all. All the kids would go to the playground at 3:30 to wait to be picked up, then we'd all have chores we were assigned to do.

During the morning, before the kids got there we had devotions. Then at night we'd have worship, and then Ed would teach. and then we'd just hang out, until they decided to take us to our cabins, which were down the road from the camp a little ways, so we couldn't go back by ourselves.

Friday the kids got to give presentations of what they had learned in some of their classes, there was a slideshow, then that evening we all got to get fixed up and go to paradise island, where we had starbucks, did a little walking around, went to this awesome aquarium and ate pizza :)
..
so now that I've written a garbled book I will put up pictures. So here they are, in no order at all.

field trip at the k9 unit

allison!

me and one of my girls, Kayla

Rachel and Coryn

The family portrait

AJ

Bus ride

teaching fitness

stephen!

rachel, nicole, and myself

my boys, Stefano and Stephen

friday night...
me, cristine, and nicole with..the creeper..aka jake.
a couple of really great people.

So I guess really there wasn't any like big revelation I had on this trip. Really it was...just being refreshed. Just having being in such a dry spot for such a long time before the trip. It felt good, just getting my mind back on Christ, and just learning to apply things in my life. Like to pray continually, all throughout the day, to pray for His strength. Those were things that I had. Cause there were times, at the end of couple of the days I was wiped out, drained, and felt like I had nothing else to give those kids. But I prayed for His strength, and for Him to give me love for those kids, and He did! I woke up the next day with a strength I hadn't had, and with a love for those kids that hadn't been there before. So thats what I got out of this trip, a refreshed spirit, and a deeper love for Christ...if that makes any sense at all, sometimes its just hard to explain things, ya know? I just pray that those kids lives were impacted, they still have two weeks of camp left. I could see it in some kids, and not much in others, and that can be discouraging. But you just have to trust the Lord.

That was my week in the Bahamas, got lots of lovely mosquito bites we had some amazing food ((I forgot to mention the amazing food! i seriously think I gained ten pounds, haha)) got to meet some really great people, got a little bit of tan, some awesome beach time, and great time of worship.


"Lead me to the cross where Your love poured bring me to my knees Lord I lay me down rid me of myself I belong to You."