Summer Sizzle

 

After many months of hard work and planning for the Summer Sizzle coordinators, the week was finally here! 80-90 girls came to registration at South School on Monday, July 11th for a week of fun and learning about God.

Each day the girls learned part of Psalm 16, and each part of the chapter went along with a theme/character quality for the day: Courage, Friendship, Loyalty to God, Determination, and Peacefulness.  The verses all had actions to go along with them to help the girls remember more easily.  By the end of the week, they had a whole chapter of the Bible memorized!

The girls were split up into teams that each had a different color.  I was the counselor for the Pink Team! GO PINK!!! I had nine fifth grade girls in my group, and we had a BLAST together.

Each day started with worship and then we broke up into our teams for Something Real time.  Here we talked about the verse of the day, the character quality, and had a Bible lesson.  Although it was tough to get focused at times, both the girls and I learned a lot during that time.

On Wednesday, BVU's DIMES came to perform a praise dance to "Press in Your Presence." It was extremely powerful and good to see a different way of praising God.

After Something Real, we had a little free time and lunch.  I was told it is possible that I have set some sort of record for the number of pictures that have been taken of me eating...possibly because I'm with kids a lot? I'm not sure.  Anyhow, our Summer Sizzle food  team did a great job of making delicious meals for us each day.

The girls had four sessions in the afternoon: Fitness Activity, Workshops, Special Skills, and Superchicks.

The fitness activity was usually Zumba, but we did a little yoga too.  This was some of the girls' favorite part of the day!

The girls had four workshops: cooking, babysitting, art, and America's next Role Model.  They made smoothies in cooking and necklaces in art.  In America's next Role Model, they talked about how to choose a good role model to follow, and in babysitting they discussed things babysitters should know and what to do in an emergency when you're babysitting.

In the Superchicks session, different women came in to talk to the girls about topics such as body image, self-esteem, and purity.  They also watched a video on Bethany Hamilton on the determination day.

 

In special skills, the girls learned about goal setting, internet safety, and etiquette.  They also had the chance to learn the praise dance DIMES performed for them.

On Wednesday we went on field trips to Cool Cats Pottery, sailing, Faust, and the wetlands.  

 

My team went with the red team to Faust.  The girls all got manicures, learned about braiding, curling, and face shapes, and got a tour of the building. 

Our other special day was Friday. First, the campers surprised us with a counselor appreciation ceremony. They each wrote a note to their counselor that was attached to a sash we were given.

Friday was also the day each of the campers got a letter of encouragement from their prayer partner.  Each camper had a woman in the community praying for her all week.  This same woman wrote them a letter for them to read during Summer Sizzle, and the girls will be getting a birthday card from their prayer partner as well.

After our normal activities, we cleaned up the churches and did a service project.  Each team designed and painted a ceiling tile that will go in The Bridge's new office building.  After this, all the girls went swimming at the beach and then headed to a bonfire, hosted by a local pastor's family, where we sang songs, roasted hotdogs, made s'mores and talked around the fire.  The girls also got to milk goats and jump on a trampoline.

 

The girls were each given a heart that they could choose to attach to a big cross to symbolize their decision to ask Jesus into their hearts.  I was awestruck at the number of girls who dedicated their lives to Christ; our prayer that at least one girl's life would be touched by this week was answered many times.  I am so proud of the growth the girls made during the week, and I'm looking forward to seeing them all again at the Summer Sizzle lock-in next month!

"My choice is you, God, first and only. And now I find that I'm your choice!" -Psalm 16:5