So we arrived in Oregon and went to dinner with my dad and his friend Becky. Well, I forgot to mention something about our arrival in Oregon. I did mention that last week in Menlo the temperatures were so nice and cool especially in the evenings... Well, in Oregon it was like the exact opposite. When we arrived in Oregon it was over 100 degrees. Not only that but at Oregon State our dorms did not have air conditioning. So we had the challenge of trying to keep our students cool in the high degree of heat. In fact the week while we were there, there was record heat. Highs ranging from 100 - 107 and lows ranging from 80 - 85.
So, now that we had arrived in this sauna, we still had to begin camp no matter what the temperature was. We had about 140 students arrive on Sunday afternoon. It was an excited group which was cool to see. Angela, Drew, and I really enjoyed our first couple of days there on campus at Oregon State. In the evenings it really was not too difficult to get cool, it was just during the days that were hard. We ended up canceling out outdoor activities for the entire week except for witnessing on Wednesday. It was crazy. Two years ago when we were in Oregon they had really hot days also, I don't know what it is. Maybe we bring the Midland weather with us for some reason only to Oregon. We did have another student leave Monday morning with what we later found out was the swine flu. It was our second confirmed case of the summer and it was disappointing. Not only because the student had to leave but we also had to respond as a ministry. We called all of the parents for the students there at camp and we also had to call all of the parents for the next week in Washington.
Well, so camp was going great and in good hands with my leadership staff as they led camp and performed the duties that needed to do. Monday right after lunch the three of us left camp and we headed up to Beaverton. We had a great time as we stayed with my mom for two nights and Angela's parents for one night. We had a great time as Drew got to meet many family members for the first time. We had a big dinner and celebration over at my mom's house where a bunch of family came over so that they could meet Drew. It was great. It was still really hot and neither house had air conditioning, so it was not exactly comfortable but it was nice to be with family and get charged up before heading into our last week of camp.
I left Thursday afternoon to head back down to Corvallis for camp. It was a great feeling to be back at camp, as I felt refreshed for the first time in a long time during the summer. When I got back my staff was just beginning staff meeting. Sarah Hartung, one of my staff directors came up and was obviously excited I was back. Josh Fairbaugh, my male staff director came up and hugged me and told me he was so excited I was back and not to leave him again. Then Brooke Gifford my other staff director came up and gave me a hug and told me she has never been so happy to see anyone in her entire life. It was good to be missed even though they did great without me. We went through our normal Thursday night activities of our final exam, our spamley cup presentation, and then our campfire time. It was hard to believe we only had one week of camp left but it was going to be an intense camp.
Friday morning came and we did our closing ceremony. It was odd to get up in front of parents and share what we did throughout the week. I wasn't there for much of the week but I was still very much up to date on the happenings of camp. So, upon finishing up with camp on Friday we treated the staff to a Corvallis treat and delicacy. It is Local Boyz and it is a hawaiian style take out place in Corvallis. It honestly has better hawaiian food than in Hawaii itself. Everyone agreed the food was amazing. And with that we loaded up and we headed to Angela's parents house in Beaverton where we were going to have a cookout and hang out for the evening. We ate, we slept, we played crouqet, we played ladders and all sorts of other things.
When you are constantly on the road as we had been for nine straight weeks it is without a doubt a treat to be able to stay at a home. We stay in nice hotels and everything like that on the weekends, but there is something you realize you have been missing by being in a home. It really was just what our staff needed to prepare for the next week. The girls stayed the night at the Lane's and the guys all headed off to a local hotel where they enjoyed a couple of hours of playing cards and hitting the pool before nodding off to bed.
Well, it was no all about Washington. We pulled out of Beaverton around ten and took the staff to Powell's books. An extremely large used bookstore that takes up a whole city block in the city of Portland. The staff used it to stockpile their new reading material.
There was much that laid in front of us in Washington. This was a very unique camp, in fact the largest in Worldview's history. We had several staff that we hired for the last two weeks of Oregon and Washington so that they would be ready to lead a group on their own in Washington. We had four such staff that were now ready to lead a group. We had about 240 students that were going to be meeting us in Washington. We also had one staff member who worked for the east coast team all summer who was flying from Georgia where they had ended their summer and spent all Saturday flying from Atlanta to Seattle to help us out for the week. Then we also had another staff member from the east coast team who lived in Washington who came to help us. Then we also had two other girls who had worked with us in the past who both came to help us. We now had amassed a staff team of over 25 people, when the normal is about 15. We had a large team and we were ready to meet the unique challenges of the week.
It was tough being without Angela and Drew to start the week but I knew they were going to come join up with us on Tuesday so I decided to enjoy the first part of the week and enjoy the last week I had with these staff members.
More to come...
Mike Tiland
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