Week 1 Camper Articles – 2010
Grayson T., age 10
Cabin: Tortuga
Bar Exam
The Bar Lake exam is really fun and it tests what water activities everyone can do. The activities are canoeing, kayaking, waterskiing, swimming, windsurfing, and sailing. Level 1 we have to tread one minute and swim a little bit. For level 2 we have to tread 5 minutes and swim a little more. For level 3 we have to tread 15 minutes and swim across the lake. I love the Bar Lake exam.
After you pass as many levels as you can we get to play football, keep away, or camper launcher. It all is very fun.
Ben K., age 13
Cabin: Iroquois
Waterskiing
For activities this week, I had waterskiing. There were five people in my activity including me, four of which were from my cabin. I learned how to ski, wakeboard and kneeboard. I like wakeboarding the best. I used Billy’s (the waterskiing counselors) wakeboard and it was huge on me. I kept doing surface 180’s without meaning to because the board had not pins and was so big on me. On Saturday we went tubing which was amazing. Billy was getting people about five feet in the air. Drake, our other counselor, did a couple of barrel rolls on his tube. There were tons of sweet wipeouts and it was a blast.
Jeremy H., age 11
Cabin: Sea Hornet
Phat Day
Phat day is a day we (Leelanau Camp) celebrate. If you look in the Dictionary Phat means cool. So we dress up cool or odd and try to look the phatest of all.
Hadley A., age 12
Cabin: Windward
K Qualities
Wow…I can’t even express enough gratitude for everything that I have taken away from Camp Kohahna. Every year there are seven qualities that Kohahna women focus on expressing. These seven qualities are joyfulness, sportsmanship, orderliness, initiative, graciousness, persistence/determination, and leadership. Each and every one is as important as the other. Every week counselors hand out little colored beads that represent each quality to the campers that they thought expressed that quality naturally. When I leave Camp Kohahna I keep my bead bracelet on for the rest of the summer, and sometimes longer. That bracelet reminds me of camp and all those qualities that I naturally expressed and that I still should be expressing even though I’m away from camp. I love that gentle reminder of all the amazing experiences I’ve had with my fellow young Kohahna women. Camp is one of the most amazing places on earth, where you can grow physically, mentally, and spiritually and I know that everything I take away from camp I will remember and value for the rest of my life.
Camille T., age 12
Cabin: Windward
God Shall Direct Thy Paths
On Monday night, the Sands and Pines had a capture the flag game against each other. Myself and a couple of other Pines had begun to make our way into Sands territory. I was getting a gut feeling at this point that we had gone too far out of our way, but didn’t want to discourage my teammates or seem unfaithful by pointing this out. After a little while, we all realized that to some extent, we were lost. During this entire period of time, I was grateful, not scared, and I knew that God would take care of us all and lead us to wherever we needed to be. I started to remember a quote I had found, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not on thine own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all thy ways and He shall direct thy paths.” This instantly showed me that all we needed to do was trust God and know that He would direct us to wherever we needed to be in, in this case, back to the counselors. Keeping this in mind, we stayed positive and soon heard voices. Going through this experience at Camp Kohahna truly showed me a lot about trusting God in everything you do, and being grateful before the healing has even occurred. I am very grateful for this experience and to my Pine teammates who stayed calm and were with me praying along the way. I now understand the phrase from one of our hymns, “since God is good and loss is gain”.
Libby L., age 12
Cabin: Windward
Kohahna
The first week of Camp Kohahna was the best. Working on levels, trying my best, and as always, having fun. Everyone’s always so nice and cares about you. We’re all sisters here. No matter how unloved or unfriended you think you are, at Kohahna you will never be friendless. Even all the kitchen staff is your friend. The way I would describe Kohahna (if there were great enough words) would be: sisterhood, love, care, getting closer to God, getting good habits, phenomenal (as my mom would say), trying new things and so much more, I can’t even explain it in words!!
