Ministry: Middle School Campout.

When you hear the words middle school and camping in the same sentence it may scare you, creep you out or it may even make you cry. Well, me and some of our Student Ministry staff took some middle school students camping in south-central Florida this weekend. The weather was great, no mosquitos, and the oak trees provided incredible shade. Needless to say we had a great weekend. Campout's are a great way to build community and get students out of their elements. Here are a few things we did this weekend....
Campfire - There is no campout without a camp fire. On Friday night we all gathered around a campfire. Bryan, our worship leader lead us in a time of singing underneath the wide open country skies. Its amazing how many stars you can see without the pollution of city lights. Our speaker for the weekend, Jimmy Grosz, talked about having a relationship with Christ. We then cracked open the package of marshmallows and had some smores.

Rope Swing - as you can see in the picture I conquered the rope swing. We went up a day early and hung a brand new rope and made a "platform" to launch from. It was a beautiful thing. It gave students hours of fun and excitement. We were on the Kissimmee River, which is pretty shallow and dirty, so we had to be careful with rope placement and length.

More Water Activity - Kayaking is one of the coolest things ever! I love the fact that you control your own mini water craft and don't have to worry about a bad rowing partner like you may have with a canoe. After a 30 minute trip my shoulders had a slight burn and I felt as if I had just had a nice little shoulder and arm workout. On our trip we were looking for 'gators, but the best thing wed could come up with was a couple of 2-3 footers and a bunch of jumping fish.

Lots of good eating - One of the parents from our ministry went to our campsite early and hooked us up with some island cooked chicken and fresh corn. Very tasty. We then fed the students Grandmas cookies and as mentioned earlier, smores. You want to have a good student campout? Provide lots of food. Lots.