This Little Light of Mine

We had a great week at Camp Symonette! Here is the recap:

Maggie and I had our day off in Tuesday. We caught a ride to Navy Beach (one of my favorite beaches) and hung out there all afternoon. We hitchhiked our way back to camp, and also spent some time taking pictures in the middle of the road! The road pictured here is Queens Highway, the main road that runs from the southern end to the northern end of the island. As you can see, there are no markings on the road of any kind, as well as very, very few road signs.

We also did a fair amount of gardening that morning, during which I wore my chacos. Dirt got caked under my straps in the process and this is the result:

Wednesday, I spent the day out on the worksite with our wonderful volunteers! I didn't get any photos while we were working. This week's group was very large though, so I ended up sitting on the floor on the way home!

This photo is the view from the highway in between Governor's Harbour and James Cistern.

You are about to find out that, well, we have some chickens here at camp. And we love them. 

We had a fantastic chicken photo shoot, and these are the result of our chicken love! Clarice did an incredible job catching so many chickens!

The following day was filled with odd jobs. I drew a pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey game for Mrs. Pauline for Independence Day, and when I finished with that, I inflated twenty air mattresses! Not all of the mattresses are shown below. A few members of our staff are traveling to Nassau next week to run BMH there, and the task of checking the air mattresses for holes fell to me.

Friday night we had our closing worship behind Abe's house, right on the water. It was a great night, full of music and learning moments!

Saturday night when our volunteers left, we went caving! Caving is not exactly my idea of team bonding time, but it was quite the experience. Aside from being terrified the entire time, we had a lot of fun. We had to crawl on our stomachs part of the way and swim across a creepy cave pond, all the while holding our candles (which were our only source of light) above our heads! When we had reached the end, we blew out our candles and had a devotion. It was probably the most frightening devotion of my life!! Despite my (and others') fears, we all made it out alive!

This is the team in front of the mouth of the cave, which you can't see...because we are in front of it.

Sunday was the official opening of Zion Children's Home on Current Island!! It was a very big deal, and even the Prime Minister of the Bahamas showed up to give a speech!

This is the BMH staff with the Prime Minister.

This week we do not have a volunteer team, so we were given today and yesterday off. We have been relaxing, and today Kate, Manex, and I drove to Bottom Harbour to go kayaking! There were turtles all over the place. The photo below is Kate and me hanging out with a sea turtle! You can't ally see the turtle in the picture, but I promise that it's there!

Tomorrow, we are welcoming the second session interns and kids camp counselors to Camp Symonette! We will be back to work bright and early tomorrow morning!

Eleuthera, oh my Island

This past week (week two of campers) was awesome! I didn't have a whole lot of time to post anything, so this is ALL of last week!

After our first group left Saturday morning, we finished cleaning and setting up camp for the next group. We had the afternoon and evening off so that we could rest and rejuvenate. Taking full advantage of our time, we decided to have family night out, and we interns took the car to Gregory Town where we ate dinner at Pineapple Festival!

That night, we had family movie night! We dragged extra mattresses into the dining hall and set up the projector, which we used to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.

Our FANTASTIC groups, a youth group from North Georgia and a family from Florida, arrived Saturday afternoon. We played card games and had some fun bonding time that night.

Monday, Chloe, Kate, and I all had the afternoon off together. So what did we do? We went to the only nearby resort and relaxed by the pool. :)

This is me and Kate running errands like pros on Monday morning!

Getting home from the resort (called Sky Beach) was an adventure. Chloe and Kate kept up the drama, sarcastically worrying aloud that we would have to walk ALL THE WAY back from Governor's Harbour to James Cistern. After about ten minutes of walking and worrying that we wouldn't make it home to camp alive, we were able to successfully hitchhike, and caught a ride into town with a friendly couple.

Tuesday I did a lot of baking. Mrs. Pauline and I made cookies (oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip) for the volunteers to pack in their lunches on Wednesday and Thursday. It was also Junior's birthday as well as the birthday of our volunteer Andrew, and it was up to me to make the cake! After baking the cake (I made a marble yellow and chocolate cake), I enlisted another volunteer, Laura, to help me frost the cake. Laura had taken baking classes in Italy while studying abroad...but apparently they don't use frosting in Italy, so we embarked on a frosting adventure together. Together we were able to create something much better than I would have done on my own, but we still struggled with the lettering. Even though it didn't look amazing, the boys appreciated the effort. Because who cares what it looks like? It's cake!

Tuesday was also the last day of After School until the fall, so some of the volunteers took the kids to the beach. I didn't go along, because that happened at the same time as my cake-baking extravaganza.

I was the intern on site on Wednesday. We ate lunch at a beautiful cliff. It is probably the most beautiful part of the island that I have seen so far, and my photos do not do it justice.

This is the view that we had of Gregory Town from the cliff:

Aside from our awesome lunch break, we also did a lot of work, as usual!

This is my twin, Kendall. Can you see the resemblance between us?! ;)

Thursday was just another normal day around camp of getting things done and doing laundry, keeping the place clean and hospitable for our volunteers!

Friday, all of the interns went with the volunteers on their fun day!

This is me and Alissa on Glass Window Bridge! I actually stole this photo off of her Facebook page because I liked it so much!

This is one of the ceiling holes (I don't actually know what they are called) at Preacher's Cave.

This is the North Georgia team of volunteers! I love them so much!

The boys went crab hunting, not realizing that the crab might actually be able to hurt them.

Saturday, we were all very sad to see our volunteer team go! After they left and we got some laundry done though, we were able to once again get in some rest and relaxation. Kate, Melisa, Junior and I embarked on our own fun day, where Melisa introduced us to another amazing cliff.

We then headed to Navy Beach,which has so far been my favorite beach on the island. After the beach we came across a friend of Melisa's and his family, and he invited us to enjoy their pool with them, an offer that we gladly took. Just a fun fact: their house is in a small neighborhood where the royal family used to vacation.

Now we have a new team of volunteers!! One team is from Alabama and the other is from Tennessee! We are all very excited about where God will lead us this week.

SO, now I will apologize for writing the longest blog post in the history of blog posts! I hope that this was an enjoyable read for somebody out there, and I will try and update a little more often this week!