camp

BigStuf High School Camp
June 26 - 30, 2006

Sunday morning, Joe gets up to go to church with his neighbor Dave. The two boys were discussing what their plans were going to be that afternoon. Unsure of what they were doing that day, they set off to church. Dave and Joe usually get to church about when the second service is about to start. When they arrive, the boys head strait to the Heavenly Grounds Café at Harmony Hill Baptist Church to score some free coffee from the canisters set outside the coffee the café. As they were drinking their precious coffee, they were chatting about whatever while walking to the youth service. When they get there, the praise band plays a few songs and then a few students make a few announcements. A lady, known by Joe, asks him if he wants to go to church camp this year. It was a last minute decision but that didn't matter to him for he was excited to go. He found out that he was going to Panama City, Florida for a week as part of church camp. The church was leaving around 9 that night to get on the road in order to make good time for registration the next day. As 8:30 pm rolled around, Joe arrived at the church waiting for everyone to show up. About 30 min. to an hour passed when more and more of the high school students and youth leaders began to show. The bus finally arrived around 9 pm and it was then when everyone was given the green light to get on the bus. They were on their way to Florida.

Throughout the entire bus ride to camp, people were constantly moving around and talking. Joe was seated with a friend by the name of Ethan. As the two were talking amongst themselves, other boys joined in on the conversation. A short while into the ride, the boys were standing in the aisle of the bus chatting to others and making jokes about anything. Not too long after the very back seat was free, Joe took his guitar out of the gig bag and began to play some of the songs he wrote. Even though no one was listening or paying any attention to him, he continued to play his music. Soon after, he tried to join several conversations pertaining to whatever people were talking about. When he could not make conversation, he went back to his guitar and played and played until he went to sleep. A few hours, he wakes up to find that everyone is still up and running with all kinds of enlightening communication. He goes back to sleep. Around 3 in the morning, he wakes up again to find everyone is asleep at this point and proceeds to gaze out the charter bus windows at the glowing lights and beautiful scenery of Louisiana while eating the giant bag of popcorn set aside of him, his guitar lay overhead in the storage rack. This is dinner, a movie and entertainment all in one. He goes back to sleep until the sunny part of the morning.

When dawn hits, the bus is about halfway into the trip and everyone is up about this time. They make a pit stop at a nearby convenient store to get drinks and some food for the road. A few hours later, the bus gets a flat tire and has to go to a truck stop. While sitting at the stop, the youth pastor, Donnie, asks for prayer requests. The few requests that were asked are prayed for and Caleb Robinson generates the idea for a song. He calls it, "Here at the Truck stop" as it talks about the bus waiting for a fixed tire and other things. It was a charter bus hit for the youth group of high school students. After the bus was good to go, it was only a few short hours later that the bus was entering Panama City, which the group ate breakfast at "The Cracker Barrel".

When the church youth and leaders entered the diner/store, some of the students looked around for a bit as the others were being seated into groups in order to be seated at the tables. Joe was grouped with a few of his friends. The boys were seated next to some girls who were also on the trip with them. Joe, checking the place out, notices a rather interesting piece of God's many creation; Crystal. He checks her out and asks Ethan, seated with his group, who she is. Ethan informs him of whom she is. Joe asks many questions about her to Ethan wanting to know more. He wants to get up and talk to her at this point but he feels as if he is bolted to his chair and cannot move. That and he has no confidence in himself either, so he waits for the waitress to take the group's orders. Scanning through the menu looking for something tasty to chow on, he repeatedly continues to glance at Krystal in hopes she will glance at him back; nothing happened except she chit-chatted with her friends grouped with her. As the waitress is making her way over to the boys, Joe is continuing to glance at Krystal but the waitress already began to take orders. As usual, Joe is the last to do everything. He frantically and finally decides what he wants to eat and places his order.

The waitress goes into the kitchen to drop off the other for the cook, meanwhile, the boys are talking amongst themselves and, once again, Joe makes another attempt to get Krystal to look at him; she doesn't look so he decides to give up. A short while and funny comments later, the food makes its way to the table. One of the waitresses makes a joke by telling the group of boys "it takes three of us to feed y'all". The boys find that to be humorous and their mouths are watering as the meals are dispersed throughout the boys. Chow time! As they boys are scarfing down the luscious breakfast, they are making faces acknowledging that the food is deliciously tasty and well worth the price. After the boys polish off their plates, as do the other church members, they each head up to the front register to pay their bill. The students begin to look around once again finding various items of interest. Two girls play checkers; Ethan is being funny in his own way by putting on a Scottish accent, causing others around him to laugh. Joe, along with other member of the church, walks outside to find comfort in the rocking chairs displayed along the wall of The Cracker Barrel.

Mrs. Donna Jansen, Mrs. Theresa Wier, and Joe were talking to each other about whatever came to mind. Joe had started a conversation about himself with Donna and he told her some basic truths about his life and the way he sees things in life. This helped him realize a little more about himself as he somehow managed to keep the conversation flowing. A few minutes later, the church packed back into the bus and they were off to the resort in which they were residing.

Once again, the bus is on the road. Not a whole lot is going on this time; everyone is still talking to one another but Joe is being alone by himself by choice. He decides to stop spending time paying attention to everyone else as they have a good time so he picks up his guitar and begins to play his music and some others he learned. As he is playing, some of the students overhear him and ask him if they could play his guitar for a bit. He hands the guitar over and listens to the music coming from their fingertips as they play short pieces of music they know. Some mess around by playing whatever, but Ethan plays a segment of a song he knows. Joe thinks it sounds very good. A few long hours pass and the bus finally arrives at the given destination, The Boardwalk Beach Resort.

Donny Grigg, the youth pastor, announces they arrived early by about an hour and a half and suggests either everyone can stay on the bus or they can get off the bus and stretch. Of course after being stuck on a charter bus for at least sixteen long hours, everyone decides to get off and stretch. The curiosity level of the students rise and they began to scope the place out while looking for some vending machines. They found them along with the bathrooms and arcade games. As time passes, the students and leaders are enjoying themselves with what they see, mainly the games. Everyone gets back on the bus, as they were when they arrived. Two guys from the BigStuf Camp were drifting from bus to bus with a video camera filming the buses for an intro video that will be presented during the opening welcome service to the camp. Caleb performed a crowd surf from the back of the bus to the front and then the guys filmed everyone individually getting off the bus. It was time to register.

As the video filming was taking place, Donny went inside to register the church into the resort. He told everyone to walk over to the nearest building, where the services were going to be held, and to wait there for he was calling rooms and their occupants. He started by calling the girls rooms first, followed by the guys; ladies first right? While he was calling rooms, armbands and booklets were being passed around to the students for later use in the week. Joe heard his name and immediately carried his luggage to his room. Unacquainted with many of his roommates, Joe introduces himself and he knew he would get along with the guys by the end of the week, or so he thought.

Once everyone was in the room, the boys played the classic game of "rock-paper-scissors" in order to decide who bunks where in the room. They played best two out of three in order to decide who goes where. After the game, the boys settled in and they were ready for the week ahead of them. Joe's roommates were: Joel, Taylor, Justin, Mark and Will. Around 5 pm, everyone in the camp headed down to the mess hall to feast on the dinner made courtesy of the resort. Soon after the meal, some of they guys had to go to Wal-mart to get some things for the ladies. Donny and a few others walked down to the store and when they got there, they were confused about what they were supposed to get. The list given to them contained the basics, no specifics. So as Donny and the other two leaders were searching in the medicine section, Joe and the boys were checking out the teen ladies walking about through Wal-mart. One girl kept passing by the boys multiple times, they kept looking at her. Finally, Donny found what medicine they need to get and walked to the sports section to get a bit more stuff on the girl's list. Again, while Donny and the other leaders were looking around, that one girl was around the boys. Joe thought she kept eyeballing him as if she found him interesting or something. To his unfortunate disappointment, she was looking at the other boys instead. Minutes later, they guys gathered everything they need and went to the checkout lines. Everything was paid for and they were heading back to the resort after the fun tour of Wal-mart.

As they were getting closer and closer to the resort, the boys noticed two runners of the female gender and couldn't help but to look at the two gorgeous, sweaty ladies as they ran towards them and then passing on by. Sure enough, they turned their heads allowing the eyes to follow the young women. About midway into a conversation amongst the guys, the ladies came running by them again but in the same direction in which the guys were going, towards the resort. Once again, the eyes followed them as they ran into the distance ahead. Shortly after the two young runners were out of sight, the guys arrived back at the resort and back to their rooms to give the purchased items to the ladies who requested them. At that point, Joe asked what was going on. Not a whole lot right then until the evening service later on meaning there was some free time left to spend. So Joe grabbed his guitar and waltzed around the resort looking for something to write a song about and somewhere to play as well. He scanned the beach for a place to play while looking for some familiar faces and some new faces to meet but he found nothing but himself wandering with a guitar on his back.

The evening service came around and Joe hurried to the room to get ready and leave with the rest of the group. He made record time just as they were leaving. When the group headed downstairs for church, Joe walked ahead of them to get there early. Being the nice person he is, he declared himself temporary doorman for everyone attending the service. As the students filled the hallway, the anticipation of the crowd began to rise, as people were anxious to get inside. Everyone was doing all kinds of things to pass the time: get a chant going, start a countdown for the doors to open, crowd surf, whatever they could do to make time fly. They did this every time a service would be held, the same thing over and over (which got annoying after a while). Eventually, the doors open, everyone is screaming in joy and cheering as they flowed from the hall to the chairs awaiting them. Different churches were scrambling to find somewhere to sit, as were others in the seating fiasco of the camp. As the people of the camp found their seats, the service had commenced to begin. As was said earlier, a video presented to the youth contained the footage from on and off the buses in the parking lot before camp registration. It was great, everyone loved it; they were cheering at the video and screaming at themselves when they recognized when they were on the video. The host, Lanie Donahoe A.K.A. Mr. BigStuf, came out and threw frisbees to the energetic pool of Jesus-loving teenagers as the band played a theme song, which they played a different theme song every time he came on stage. He introduced himself to everybody and they just screamed and cheered and clapped in excitement throughout his entire introduction. About an hour and a half to two hours later, the service had ended. The camp went back to their rooms where they to talk amongst themselves and then go to sleep. Before the boys on Joe's room went to sleep, they decided to take a morning run on the beach early the next day around six a.m.

The next morning, about eight a.m., the boys were still sleeping and had missed breakfast. They were disappointed a little bit it was no big deal, what was a big deal was the morning service was about to start in nearly an hour. They made a mad rush to get groomed up for church. The morning service was a little bit like the introduction the previous night only there was a speaker involved, and the services were about the same throughout the week. The speaker talked about two hours and then after the service there was free time for about 6 hours. After church was over for the day, Joe headed up to his room, dropped off his bible and booklet and walked down to lunch in the mess hall. Lunch there was one of the best meals Joe ever had, including breakfast and dinner. The time schedule for the week was about the same everyday: breakfast, morning church, quiet time, lunch-free time, dinner-free time, evening church, group time, then go to sleep.

During a period of quiet time, Joe took his guitar to the beach and decided to play the entire time. A girl, associated with the BigStuf staff, walked along the beach recording footage of the quiet time for the final video, which was to be presented to the camp at the end of the week. As Joe played some of his music, she took a glance at him and decided to put his performance on the video. Also, at the church service that very morning, as Joe was heading back to the service after getting a soda outside the lobby he noticed a few girls coming from the service walking towards him. They were going to walk on the beach while church was going on. As they were walking towards the beach, Joe caught one of the girls' attention and they had a moment of staring into each other’s eyes for a few seconds. They somehow managed to look each other in the eye, pass each other, turning their heads and walking backwards, while still looking in each other’s eyes. After the girls hit the corner, Joe realized he should go talk to them and as he was walking after them, he was smiling a mile wide. He approached the corner with a gigantic amount of contentment from what just happened to find that the girls were already gone. His huge emotion just fell without a parachute and crashed to the bottom. But that lasted only a little bit though as he realized he would see her again throughout the course of the week.

After he made it back to church, it was only a matter of seconds before he heard that Warsaw, Indiana had been sitting in the very front of the crowd. Instantly forgetting about the girl from earlier, he realized that his girlfriend might very well be there. So when church was over he quickly, and without hesitation, went up to the registration desk and asked what rooms Warsaw may be residing in. The lady behind the desk willingly informed him of the room numbers and Joe felt very grateful, thanked her and headed straight for the building conveniently located right next door to his building. In a desperate search for his beloved girlfriend, he asked everyone in the sixteen rooms where Warsaw had been staying if anyone knew her and if she was there. Having asked everyone in the building at the time, some said they knew her and she might be there, others said she more then likely was not there. Joe found a leader for the group and asked him for the rooming list to se if she might have been on it. No luck, her name was nowhere to be found.

It not only hurt Joe to hear that she was not there but also he had hoped he would get to see her for the time he was there. He has not seen her in five years and really looked forward to seeing her for at least the three to four days left in camp. He went back up to his room, grabbed his guitar and walked around the resort to find somewhere to play. As he entered the dinner line, a few guys from Tennessee waved him over to their room and asked of him to play a few songs. He asked them what kind of music they listen to and began to play for a little while. That's when one of the boys, Aaron, suggested he play while he and his friends dance, or try to dance, outside for the general public of the camp. Joe saw this as an opportunity of a lifetime and accepted. A girl from Ohio, Sonya, walks up to the boys and though this was interesting to watch. Aaron decided to sing a song about Sonya while Joe played along. The song was terrible but it earned a few laughs. Another one of the boys stuck out a hat and asked for any contributions to Joe's guitar playing. Amazingly, Joe earned three dollars and them some change. He had become an official beach bum of Panama city, Florida.

Joe stuck around with his new friends the remainder of the day. Even though he didn't earn much, it was something and something is better than nothing. Aaron, Sonya, and Joe walked around the resort looking for something to do. Joe walked over to the pool behind the building he was residing in for a swim. He met some new faces while he was there, not many but some. He met another fellow Texan by the name of Emily. She has long beautiful red hair and dazzling, big brown eyes. Joe could not resist talking to her, as this is the kind of person he is. They talked for a little while and the one thing he never got from her was a way to contact her when camp was over. Oh well, maybe next time. The night was coming fast and Joe decided to walk around some more to kill time, instead he found Aaron and Sonya coming from another pool.

Throughout the remainder of the week, Joe basically just walked around with his guitar on his back. About midway through the day, Joe went back to Aaron's room to chill for a little bit. He had found out then tat Sonya was stalking Aaron and that Aaron was afraid to go outside his room alone. Not only is the stalking bad enough, but also Aaron is 16 and Sonya is 19, yeah, big difference. Joe thought the "Sonya" situation was pretty funny, as did Aaron's roomies. They said Sonya was waiting outside their room that morning waiting for him to come out. She also tried to wake him up, or so they said. Eventually she went away somewhere for the time being. Aaron goes to score some lunch while trying to avoid Sonya. While the guys were talking, Joe stands at the door looking around and sure enough, he found Sonya. She was in line for lunch and Aaron was in front of her and neither one of them noticed each other were there. Joe and Aaron's roomies were laughing their heads off at what they were seeing, they also tried to tell Aaron but he couldn't hear them. Just as the laughing started to fade, the "beach girls" came around the corner and Joe had another eye contact moment. It was exactly the same there as it was in the church service, the very exact same. Naturally, Joe went to follow her and then again, she disappeared. This shocked Joe yet again but this time, he asked around in a desperate search for her. No luck so he gave up, again. The next day wasn't too bad until after church.

As Joe's church had a group time/session, they were asked to sit on the beach and someone complained. Donny got upset and told everybody off asking what does he need to do to please them. No one answered. Donny called off the group time and dismissed everyone to quiet time. After it was over, Joe went up to his room and searched for verses in his bible that might help Donny out and possibly make him feel better. He gave the references to him that night and told him to read them whenever he got the chance. The next morning, Donny was energetic and ready to go and thanked Joe for the references; they helped. The day was about the same as all the other days. Breakfast, morning service, etc. The church went out to eat at a restaurant that evening. At the same time it was Caleb's sour sixteenth birthday (inside joke). The church provided him with a cake and card. Joe told Donny he was going to share his testimony that night. The church arrived back at the resort with just enough free time to do whatever they wanted. Soon enough, it was time for the evening service. They were talking about people who have been dramatically hurt recently and only picked four. Every person had serious problems, each one

Then group time rolled around. This time Donny re-capped to the group about what was said in church a little while earlier. After he was done, Joel played some music pertaining to the service followed by a prayer. Midway through the prayer, Joe had a sudden image seeing himself dangling from the third floor balcony using a sheet from his bed. As soon as the prayer was over, Joe went up to his room casually, grabbed his spiral and walked onto the balcony. He looked over and saw himself hanging below and then rescuing himself from the suicide attempt. He then wrote a song about the thoughts running through his mind about suicide. Later he turned it into a poem instead of a song. After this was written out, he felt a little better about it and wasn't worried about it as much as he did.

During the service the next night, he talked to Donny about the situation during the prayer. Donny simply told him that the devil was playing with his mind telling to jump. If Joe believed in God, then why was this happening? Joe told Donny that he accepted Christ a few years prior to starting to high school. He was still confused as to why this was happening to him. All the suicidal thoughts, attempts, triggers have long gone before that week but all of a sudden, they came back. Donny prayed for Joe right then and there for God just to help him out with his struggle with his situation. Joe went back into the service and during a song the band was playing, something had triggered depression in Joe and he asked for his bible and booklet to take back to his room. Soon after he left, the adult leaders scouted everywhere looking for him; they think he may have gone through the attempt. Minutes later, Joe walked out of his room when Donny was walking towards the room. Joe was escorted back to church and was watched throughout the remainder of it. After it was over, everyone went to the beach for the group session to share testimonies among themselves. After everyone finished, the prayer for all who shared, everybody went back to their rooms. Donny brought about the situation with Joe and others in the youth in a little meeting with the leaders. About an hour a half to two hours later, lights out.

Joe woke up to the sound of Mark's cell phone alarm, which was annoying by the way. Eventually the others had awakened as well, still tired and grouchy. Same routine as before: breakfast, morning service, etc. This was the final day in camp. The last service was a dedication to a former band member who passed away the year before. A tribute music video was created for him using clips from the years he has been there including a song he recorded called "The Way I Was Made", his name, Rick Pearson. Rick was not feeling well one day and repeatedly called in sick throughout the week at camp that year. The staff had been wondering what was wrong with him and Lanie visited him trying to find out what was up. They thought he drank too much of the ocean water. The doctor said he had Leukemia. He went to the hospital and stayed there until he passed. Lanie dressed up as a doctor just so he could see him. Rick’s' dad came to the hospital to see his son. Rick had written some journals before his passing, which the camp heard them in another video. He didn't care about his illness; he knew where he was going, straight up to the Father in Heaven to spend his eternity. After Rick packed his bags and flew First Class to Heaven, Rick's father accepted Christ that night for the first time in his life.

At the group session that night, Joe let other share first before sharing himself. Once the others were through, Joe opened up and told the youth and leaders about his vision during the prayer and almost attempting to fulfill the vision twice. After realizing he had two people who cared about him the most he couldn't do it. Those two people were God and his girlfriend, Becka. When he was finished, he broke into tears and was prayed for by a fellow student. Everyone felt bad for what he said and almost done. Some cried and others felt his pain. He was given several hugs that night after the prayer by the youth, told they would hate to see him go and that he did the right thing by not jumping. Some of the youth had sadness in their voice when they told him that. The BigStuf staff came and dismissed everybody to their rooms for the night.

The next and final morning everyone was packed and ready to go home. There was a recap service about what happened throughout the week. A video was presented to the youth showing everything from the beginning of the week to the lasting moments of camp. Joe was shown playing his guitar on the beach and Ethan was shown sobbing in his chair during the service the night before. Others from the church were shown as well doing other things: Addie winning $1000 worth of stuff, people showing off their ways of being wired weird, Lanie and his Mentos experiment and as said earlier, the lasting moments of the camp. There was a lot of singing at that service and Joe was getting very tired from all the standing, he wanted to sit but thought it would be disrespectful if he did. After the singing, the band made a few jokes and then it was over. Church camp was finally over. Joe purchased a copy of the final video for himself and for the church to show the middle school kids what happened in Florida. The church was on their way home.

Along the ride back home, everyone was talking about camp and the fun they had, listening to music from camp and watched the final video again for a memory. Some of the guys and some girls were playing some mind games. Joe played mined game scenarios with them; this was enjoyable for him as it was for the others. Soon enough, everyone who was playing, including new players, were coming up with all kinds of scenarios for the game. It was great. Joe then left to the front of the bus to make conversation with anybody who would talk to him. He had an interesting time in the front of the bus. Later on throughout the day, all the energetic, hyperactive students calmed down by night but they were still a little fulls of energy, not much. As the night came along, Caleb was teaching Ethan some of the songs he plays for worship and Joe found this interesting, so he joined in. He didn't learn much because the bus kept shaking a lot. Eventually, he went to sleep until the bus stopped at a convenient store. There, Joe stocked up on soda and food before he got home. Not to long after, they were home where their parents were waiting for their arrival. Everyone said his or her good-byes until Sunday. Joe received hugs yet again by several students telling him bye and he did the right thing. Another night has come and gone.

Saturday afternoon, about four o'clock, Joe gets up from a long and deep sleep. He gets dressed and goes to his neighbor's house to go chill for the rest of the day. Nothing really happens but he did receive some bad and shocking news. His beloved girlfriend had left him because of what he did to her. She lives out of state so she can't see what he does and vice versa. He told her what he did one day before he left for camp and that ended it all for him right then and there. He felt bad and wrote her a poem recently and gave it to her, he hopes she got the e-mail he sent her so she can read it. Other than that, he had a good day, somewhat. He was bummed out about it for a little bit and it finally hit him that she did it for the better. Besides, Joe has plans to go to the Marines soon, about two weeks from then. Ever since she left him, she hasn't talked to him or been online for that matter, her birthday was recent so she might have been busy with all that, he isn't sure though. He wants to talk to her one last time before he leaves. The day was dull and slow like any other day.

Sunday morning, Joe and Dave went to church. The high school students were to share their testimonies and/or any advise for the students of junior high. Several people shared, some to most of those who shared on the beach those nights. When they were done, Joe walked up to the microphone and announced he would be leaving for boot camp in two weeks and that his last Sunday was the next one coming around, also that his girlfriend left him and that his sister came out of rehab the previous day. People thanked him on his stepping up for the country, told him to keep his faith and wished him all kinds of good luck before he left. After church was over, Joe and Dave left to go do whatever they wanted to do that day.

During that week of camp, Joe had lived the entire week as if it were his last. Doing everything he could with anybody he could: make friends, talk to others, produce a song, anything he could do before he left, as if never to return again.