victim and victor

wednesday morning (july 25), i woke up at 4:40 again, took a few pictures, and then went back to sleep again! :) for breakfast, there was coffee cake, which is really yummy!! :)
kelsey's message today was about how Jesus sacrificed Himself willingly for us on the cross. our sins held Him to the cross. He went willingly because dying didn't hurt Him as much as watching us dying in our sins did. we need to be willing to live our lives for the Lord, because He gave up everything for us. kelsey's illustration was she went out on the dock with a chair, and her brother zach sat willingly in it. kelsey taped him to the chair, and he tipped back into the water by himself. after we had counted down, 3, 2, 1, he started jumping on the orbit. it was like how our sins (the duct tape) bound Jesus (zach) to the cross (the chair); Jesus died willingly and no one had to force Him to sacrifice Himself for you (zach tipping himself into the water). but death could not hold Him for long, Jesus conquered death and saved us!! (zach jumping on the orbit after we had counted down.) the verses we talked about was 1 corinthians 15:54b-58 (victory over death), philippians 2:5-8 (how our attitudes should be the same as Jesus'), and matthew 16:24-25 (if we loose our lives for Christ, we actually save it).
counselor), for our quests, we had rock wall and field activity. the rock wall is really a rock tower, and it's pretty cool! :) even though i didn't do it, i got a bunch of pretty cool pictures!! for field activity, we were supposed to play a game on the baseball field or on the soccer field. we wanted to play kickball, but the cabin we did quests with didn't, so maryann, erika, rachel, kaela (ashlee'sjulia and i went and ran the hiking path. (maryann is a runner, so that was pretty cool!) it was awesome to do that, i wasn't sure if i'd do anything, but i did!! :) yeay! it felt sooo good to run, even though i was sweaty and stinky and gross after! :)
for lunch we had tacos, it was pretty good. :)
during free time, i had one on one with maryann. and we had the 2nd round of dodge ball!! woop!! go sidekickers!! (this time rachel played) the first round we lost, but the last 2 we won!! :) yeay! even though we didn't make it to the semi-finals, it was a lot of fun! :) go sidekickers!!
for dinner, we had breakfast for dinner, which was french toast, which was really good!! :)
during chapel, jodi talked about how the red sox paid some ridiculous amount of money to just talk to dice-k without him talking to any other team. Jesus paid with His life for the exclusive right to be in a relationship with us asked us were- what to we hold fast to/value most?? if Jesus asked you to lay down your most valuable things down for Him, what would you say?? when God calls us to do something for Him, we should give Him everything we have. we should ask Him what He wants us to do daily, and we should be excited about serving a savior who gave everything for us!! oh, !! exclusive means- concentrated upon only one individual, or one thing. our memory verse for the week was deuteronomy 30:19-20- "I call Heaven and earth to witness against you that I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curse. So choose life in oder that you may live, you and your descendants; by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice and by holding fast to Him. For this is your life!" the verse says that we choose life by loving God, obeying Him, and holding fast to Him; not just saying a prayer. a marriage relationship and a relationship with Jesus should be exclusive. we should only love Jesus. a hug is a picture of a close relationship. john 15:10-11 (if we obey Jesus' commandments, we'll remain in Jesus' love) abiding in Jesus' love=hug. the greatest commandment is to love God, and we love God by keeping His commandments!! :) when we're holding onto God, we can hear His voice the clearest. Jesus never lets go of us, and He always loves us. the illustration jodi did for this was she hugged a girl, which showed what our relationship with Jesus should be like. then she got things like money, music, clothes and friends that got in between her and Jesus. if we value things more than Jesus, our relationship won't be the best it can be and what Jesus wants it to be. we shouldn't love anything more than Jesus. He wants us to be excited about Him all the time. Satan wants us to hold onto things other than Jesus (like money, clothes, music, friends, etc.). Jesus was willing to give up everything for us, we should be willing to to let everything go if that's what Jesus wants us to do. the questions jodijodi and anoli switched places for the beginning of chapel. it was really funny!! :)
after dinner we went over to granny's house for milk, cookies and stories. basically, we had cookies and milk in the dining hall while the staff did really funny skits!! it was really really funny, and the staff were awesome! :) they are all really talented! :) all the skits were hilarious! zach was a really funny timmy, his pony tail was funny!! lol!!
here are some pictures!! :)

4:39 wednesday morning
someone doing their devos
taping zach to a chair
into the water
the chair is empty!
kelsey
3...2...1!
yeay!
our bottle collection is growing! :)
hi erika!!
the a-frame chapel
climbing
2 sides of the tower
deuteronomy
jodi/anoli and anoli/jodi
things getting in the way
isaac revealing his secret identity
the lovely spiders that lived on our porch
skits at granny's! ;)
let's get the guy in the tent this time/from the north, south, east and west!!
the many uses of fluff--hair gel, deodorant, foot cream, shaving cream...
and eating! :D
poor zach! lol!
the lifeguard's beat