Rewind ... CAMP KAHQUAH 2007

~KAHQUAH means PORCUPINE~

As you may recall, this past summer Rachelle and Sonja both went to Camp Kahquah which is affiliated with the Brethren In Christ Church where we attend. Camp Kahquah is located near Magnetawan, Ontario, about 5 hours North of Port Colborne.

Sonja went for two weeks (July 1-14) as part of the CREW program.

Rachelle went for five weeks (June 24-July 28) for the L.I.T. ~"Leaders In Training"~ program, which included a 4-day wilderness canoe trip at Algonquin Provincial Park.

They both had an AWESOME time (in fact they didn't want to come home)!!

At long last, here are their reports about their Camp Kahquah experiences, plus their own individual slide shows. ENJOY!! :)

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SONJA ...
"Personally, I'd say that being part of CREW at Camp Kahquah was the best, most exciting part of my summer. It is kind of like a junior LIT program I always tell people, because basically that's what it is - a program meant to help kids around my age to develop their leadership skills and grow in their relationship with God. Something that shocked our programming director, Liz,
was that each and every one of us 14 guys and girls bonded like glue within the first few days, when she thought we wouldn't even get along, and we all left with new friendships made:) Anyway, we were all split up into 4 groups of 3 or 4. In these groups, 3 times a day for three days in a row, we would each do specific chores, which were categorized into kitchen, maintenance, programming, and cleaning. Sooo that was all very fun -- we each got 36 community hours for it which was definitely a bonus:) Along with the work we would have 3 leadership sessions a day, and we would also have our own little Crew games, like a photo scavenger hunt in little Magnetawan, or our very own crazy Olympics. We got to rock climb, kayak, and go tubing and we also had a bit of free time every day to do what we wanted. We were all very crazy and got along well as I said, and this made it all extremely fun:) The guy's crew leader, Albert, took over 2000 pictures of just our crew!! All in all, it was insane fun and an awesome God and leadership experience, and I hope so much that I can go to CK again next summer."

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RACHELLE ...
"This summer I was part of the L.I.T. (leaders in training) program at Camp Kahquah. There were eight of us so we got to know each other pretty well. The program was five weeks in total. The first two were for training in the majors and minors we would be helping with. The third week we went on a four day canoe trip which I was greatly looking forward to and really enjoyed. Finally, the last two weeks we were assistant counselors. that required a lot of energy especially during the last week when we had the older kids who didn't get excited as easily.

Some fun extra things we got to do were helping out with the games like giant clue and the Easter egg hunt type game. WE also got to do camp fire several times; this included a few skits and songs. We did have to improvise several times and there was the occasional gross skit, but it really was a lot of fun.

The canoe trip I think was the one thing that stood out the most from the rest of the month. Especially the one day where we had waves that were about 4 feet high. That was the same day that we had our longest portage which is traveling across land with our stuff and canoes. Natalie could carry so much stuff on the portages; she would have one of the big duluth bags, which is like a giant backpack, on her back, her backpack on her front, a bag on each arm and paddles in her hands. She did this every time, even on the really long portage. The guys had to carry the canoes; I tried but couldn't even lift it over my head, so I helped carry the bags and paddles. I can say that we were all glad to get back even though we all enjoyed it so much. You just really appreciate all the things you have after something like this.

Our pastor asked me what I like the least about camp -- I said coming home. It just gets to feel so much like home at camp, especially after five weeks. You really get to know the people there and you get used to running around with the kids. I think that's what makes camp Kahquah such a great place."