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This past Saturday (April 11) I had the pleasure of doing some of the things I love the most. Making children smile and making sure they had fun, while attending Camp Kwasind’s “Camp in April”.  I joined many other volunteers, made up of a mix of current staff, Alumni, Camp Board member’s and some really nice people who just wanted to help out at Central Baptist Church in Oakville. 

Just like at camp, parents and some very excited camper’s started arriving earlier then we had planned but it was ok, we were ready and excited too.  Just like at camp, camper’s signed in and then are  told what cabin they would be staying in, each cabin is a different age group.  We spent the first little bit while everyone was arriving getting to know everyone in our cabins.  My cabin group, Algonquin, had 16 campers and a total of three leaders.  We had a blast playing get to know you games and telling stories about what camp is like to those that have never been to Kwasind before (which in our group was about half the campers).

Once everyone had arrived and signed in and got to know their cabin groups a bit, we moved on to our next activity. A camp wide game, while normally at camp this is done after dinner, was a great way to start the day.  Our first camp wide game that we played is known as Phobia.  Phobia is played by having a bunch of staff pretending to be afraid of different things (touching the ground, must be singing songs etc.) and having the campers have to figure out what it is and then successfully brings the person back to the starting point where they get points for each person they bring back.   After Phobia we played “Game in a box”. The game is played with everyone siting in a large square and being given a number. When the persons number is called they do have to do the action that the announcer has said, to get the other side.  Some of these actions included, crab walking, lunges and hopping on one foot.

After that we had Worship.  Some of our volunteers made up the worship team and played some of our most popular worship songs from camp while others showed the actions that go along with them.  We also got to hear from our speaker of the day, who got some of the camper’s involved with his lesson by having them dress up and act out the bible verses that we were focusing on.  The campers loved it, there were lots of laughs.  I also think it left a number of them hoping he is the speaker of the week that they have signed up for this summer.

After Worship, it was finally lunch! Lunch was set up almost like it would be at camp. The campers all loved the hot dogs and hamburgers that they got to eat but I think the real hit was desert.  Yummy cupcakes with little flags stick out the top with messages like “ I love Kwasind”. We even got to sing one of the songs that we sometimes sing during desert, “Shake it dear…”  Everyone got to shake it at least once.

After lunch, was a quick 10 minute staff land bucketball. This allowed us to show campers how to play the game that is so famously played at camp.  For those of you that don’t know what bucketball is, it is played with two teams who are trying to get the ball into the bucket (which is held by one of their team members) on the other team’s side. It’s simply a mix between basketball and football, normally played in water.   It was after this that we started into rotation activities with our cabins. Each cabin moved on through the activities as a group.  The day’s activities included:

~ Bucketball

~Human sized hungry hippos

~“Cabin Time” where were learned a cabin cheer for campfire later in the day

~Crafts where they were able to make a keychain or pom-pom pen

~Video where they were able to help make a video with one of the staff by doing silly things

After our rotations we, had vespers, were we sung quite songs and had reflection time with the speaker of the day. 

Then it was campfire.  Campfire started off with each cabin being able to do their cheer that they learned during “Cabin Time” before moving into different volunteers leading some of the most popular camp songs and doing some of the camps most popular skits. I feel like every song and skit was a hit. There was always campers laughing and cheering. After all the songs and skits, we did our campfire closing, “Day is Done”.

After Campfire, everyone had the hard job of saying goodbye to the new friends they made as it was time to go home.  It was a sad time for everyone.  But overall it was a great day and everyone, campers and volunteers alike, left looking forward to when they could finally head up to camp this summer.  Thank you to all the campers and volunteers that made the day a success!

Blessings, 

Alicia Petley

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