Camp Barnabas stretches me far

Wow! What an emotionally and physically draining week yet so very rewarding all at the same time. We arrived at Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport at 630 am on Friday the 16th. There were 17 of us going on the mission trip. A few stragglers came at the last minute and barely made the flight and one of them never got their luggage in Tulsa Oklahoma, because as late as they were, the luggage never made it onto the plane. So we had to wait 3 hours in Tulsa for the next flight and luckily the luggage came on that flight.

From there we rented 3 minivans, loaded them up and began our 2 hour drive to Camp Barnabas just on the other side of the Oklahoma border in Missouri. 2 of the minivans, including the one I was driving had DVD players in them so the youth really enjoyed that. We arrived at Camp Barnabas and received our room and cabin assignments. To my surprise, I was assgned to be a cabin dad instead of a camp counselor. Counselors are each assigned their own camper and the cabin dads give them relief and help out where needed. There are also 2 staff counselors in each cabin. I was assigned to cabin B-8 that had 6 campers in it. 2 of our campers were very low functioning autistic and did not talk at all. A couple had downs syndrome, another was very OCD, 2 were what I would describe as very disturbed and got violent at times and they did not like each other or any of us and that made things very interesting in the cabin. Another one was very functional and you really wouldn't b able to tell he was disabled unless you sat down and had a long conversation with him. He was just learning disabled i think and was highly ADHD.

One thing I can tell you is that I did not have to stay in the cabin that was un-airconditioned. And it was very muggy while we were there. I slept in a seperate building with 2 other cabin dads and it had air conditioning in it. But I was only in there about 6 hours at night. I was usually in bed between 1130 pm and midnight and then up at 6 each day to get ready to help get all of the campers up at 730. We got settled in Friday night and then had training all day Saturday in 4 different sessions. What I heard at the training scared me to death and I had wondered what I had gotten myself into, and the campers had not even arrived yet. They would arrive the following day, Sunday morning the 18th.