Victory Jam 2009

I'm fresh from a week at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference in Surf City, NJ. Every year, New Covenant gathers with other PCA churches from Maryland for 5 days of insane fun! It's for middle schoolers, but all of we college-aged counselors and youth pastors enjoy the camp just as much, if not more! This year, I went as the camp "nurse". Duty called within the first few hours of camp when one girl fell on the rocks and sliced open her knee, requiring 12 stitches; and may I just mention that I had guessed that she would need 10, whereas Mr. Don guessed 9 and Joel Loftus guessed 8. That's why Mom and Dad pay the big bucks for a Liberty University education, so I can show up my youth pastor and friends with good guesses.

Monday night, Brandon came wobbling up to me with a dislocated pinky toe. May I just say, this was the best experience I had that week, and I laughed myself to sleep that night; I'll try to do this story justice in writing, but it was a "I guess you had to be there" experience. But away we go:

We were outside around 11:00pm for a fire drill, when I hear someone say, "Uh oh, April, you might wanna look at Brandon, here he comes!" I walk up to Brandon and he tells me to look at his toe. It is at a 90 degree angle, going the wrong way. Brandon is.... whimpering? giggling? I couldn't tell; anyone who knows Brandon will understand the fact that he looks exactly the same when he laughs as when he cries. His little face scrunches up and he sort of whimpers. My first question was, "Are you laughing or crying?". He was laughing. I told him he needed to go to the hospital to get it reduced, or put back into its socket, because I sure didn't want to fix even what possibly could be the smallest socket in the human body. I wouldn't want to try something when only knowing the theory of how to fix it, but Mr. Don didn't want to take the trip for such a menial injury. Turns out that a counselor standing with us was a Marine and had learned basic first aid, including care for dislocations. So, Brandon sat sideways on a nearby bench with his injured left leg up on the seat. I, remembering a splinter injury Brandon once sustained while I was baby-sitting, stratled Brandon's leg and held it down (might I explain that in order to remove his splinter, both Aunt Michelle and Uncle Freddy had to sit on Brandon lest he hit the ceiling). The Marine was settled at the toe. Here comes the moment. Just as the Marine asked if Brandon was ready, someone threw a ball point pen between Brandon's puffy cheeks, I turned around to watch Brandon's face, the Marine tugged, and Brandon let out a brilliant "Aaaaahoooowwww" straight from the chest as he, still, sorta giggled and smiled. It was a sight, and I wish you all could have been there. His toe back in place, I was much too happy from the moment to remember to do my job as a nurse and check that there was life-blood coursing through his toe. As I was lying in bed thinking about this, I figured that if his toe fell off in the middle of the night, it would be a great ending to an already fantastic story (just kidding).

The rest of my week was filled with changing the dressing on the stitches, putting on band-aids, handing out water and ibuprofen, and sending two more people to the hospital; one with an infected and fractured foot, another with a neck and spine injury. It was an intense week, but lots of fun. While no one was in need of my service, I watched the kids play from my window and enjoyed bible studies and skits.

This was some raw organic strawberry watermelon juice, which, believe it or not, goes sour just as quickly as raw strawberries or watermelon would.

I'd sit and read while the kids played X-Games outside.

Here we are playing the Green Grenade Gangster Gnomes in water balloon volleyball:

Some encouragement from the sidelines:

A bible study:

And a quick attempt at a pyramid:

The thing about being a counselor, or nurse, or adult at Victory Jam, is that there seems to be this invisible brick wall that comes out of nowhere in the middle of the week, and hits you in the face.

Here's my room:

Complete with a bunk bed for any sick kiddies.

I had to take my own food because of my special diet I'm on right now:

The proudest moment came on Thursday as our very own NCPC middle schoolers swept in the final relay race of the X-Games (a competition of pool and beach games between all the churches) and won the first place prize! It was a big day for the Blueberry Bagel Pandas.