more from Wildwood Hills Ranch Camp

A few more pictures and stories from the week at Wildwood Hills last week, written by organizer and staff Laura Edwards:

Tonight at assembly the campers had a special treat. After a skit, photos of the campers themselves were displayed in slideshow fashion on the wall while they played a song called "He'd take a bullet for you." Matt shared with the campers about Jesus, the One willing to take a bullet for them. Then Cordell shared his testimony. For those of you who don't know Cordell or his story, he started at the ranch at the very beginning 9 years ago when he was 7 years old. He was a fighter, just like a lot of the Waterloo campers. He shared with the campers, all of them wholly captivated, about how he used to bully and beat other kids up just because. Then he was branded by Wildwood. He was introduced to our Savior, Jesus Christ, who changed his heart and made him new. I wish I could have captured the look on some of the kids' faces (except I was so captured by Cordell's story and being so proud of his ability to stand and share, I didn't dare interrupt the flow with the click of a camera). They were hearing his words. He is the first to graduate from high school from his family-- ever. Statistically speaking, he should end up in prison. But he and Matt shared with the kids about how the labels placed on him by the world were broken, and with his commitment to Christ he was made new-- and each and every person is able to rewrite their own future. Praise the Lord!!

------

* One of the sites the kids visit during the day is "Team Building" . This is a site where the rubber meets the road for kids. Yesterday, one group of boys went to team building and had quite the experience. This particular group is filled with boys who are used to using fists instead of words when there is conflict. Here's what Laura had to report about their experience getting their team mates over a wall.

---The wall is a 12-foot high flat wall in which the teams are challenged to figure out how to get their entire team over. This is a relatively simple task that involves lifting one another over-- a figuring out how to get the first and last people tend to be the parts that require the most strategy, and the task of lifting one another usually forces kids to confront issues of self-consciousness, strength, fear of heights, and trusting one another... It's brilliant.

The Wolfpack are the boys I am excited to tell you about. This team is comprised of 7 young men: Kevin is brute strength... last year he got in several disputes with other campers and was sent home early. Torion, another young man who was sent home early last year for fighting- has a very likeable personality but a short fuse. Teion is very athletic and very good natured. Damarius is on the quiet side, tender-hearted and very self conscious. James struggles to stay focused. ShaQuan has a short attention span and quick temper. The seventh member of the team is Tanner, very slight stature and cautious. Aside from Tanner, these boys all have history of different conflicts between them.

When presented with the task of conquering "the wall," today was a milestone for the boys in the Wolfpack. They rose to the challenge. Not only did they accomplish the wall without bending any of the rules, but they displayed kindness to one another and acted as a team. Some observations:

They communicated with one another about strategy.

I saw ShaQuan (the epitome of looking out for number one in past years) ask Tanner, first of all, if he was ok, and secondly, if he would prefer to be one of the people at the top of the wall or if he'd rather be first to get down. They didn't know I was watching and it was a beautiful act of kindness between two boys from completely different backgrounds.

Damarius and Torion both stepped out of their comfort zone, taking the step of faith to trust their teammates to get them over safely. And their team followed through.

I heard words of encouragement between them spoken, I saw them looking out for each other. Afterwards, they were pumped. Full of broad smiles, they were empowered by the realization that they achieved their goals and succeeded at the task. Short on time, we did a quick debrief-- "What did you learn from this?" All of them were anxious to share-- how they learned they "could accomplish more as a team than they could as individuals," and, "We could do more than we thought we could!" and "Trust each other."