Thursday Night

Hume Lake is always an amazing experience in that it is constantly changing. I have gone to Hume since my entrance into the 6th grade (I am a junior now). That makes 5 completed years of Hume for those who don’t want to do the math. This is the 6th year. Anyways, I came expecting a certain Hume experience and I was completely blindsided. This week has been completely amazing. I have experienced God in a whole new way. I now am starting to feel genuinely special, and personal with God. I hope that I can soon find out what God has in store for me so I can serve Him to the best of my abilities. Today was awesome. We had a missionary speaker named PK who spoke to us this morning about being servants to the end of the Earth. He motivated me to try and find out where and how I can personally serve God. After his talk this morning, we went to Spirit Day recreation, which was wild. We had a series of relays and many people lost their voices from screaming for their teams. Their singing voices are spectacular now. After recreation, we went to lunch and had the most amazing camp food ever. After our amazing lunch, was free time. During free time thirty of us went to high adventure and another thirty played paintball. At the end of the paintball session two of our counselors volunteered to be live targets while the students emptied the rest of their paint hoppers. For the evening chapel Darren spoke about discipleship. He challenged us that as disciples, we are to abandon our own life and plans and adopt the lifestyle and teachings of Jesus. At the end of chapel there were a number of students who re-dedicated their lives be more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ and a handful of others accepted Christ for the first time. It was an awesome evening.
-Daniel Fitterer

Thursday Around Camp

Wednesday Night

So, it’s Wednesday and a lot of us are TIRED! This morning after breakfast was the annual Hume biathlon (swimming and lake run). A number of our students competed and ended up in the top 10— our very own Ricky Niese took first place in the swimming challenge (it was the equivalent of eight laps) and Alex Platt took fifth. In the run around the lake (3.2 miles) Matt Day took second place and Paul Stephens took fourth. This morning there were two seminar sessions and we had seven options to pick from. The seminars included: ‘Busting the Boyfriendless Blues’, ‘Life After High School’, ‘World Religions’ and ‘In Whose Image?’ This afternoon, two groups found out the secret of the Little Brown Church and thirty-five students played paint ball. Although our energy is pretty much zapped, we still have enough to appreciate the beauty of the camp, and how blessed we are to be here. Just this morning I went walking around the lake, and it was completely calm and still. It gave me a great chance to talk with God and clarify my relationship with him. The band, Exodus, is giving a concert tonight which will give us the chance to worship and hear some of the band’s own songs.
-Christina Niccolai

Wednesday Around Camp

Tuesday Night

Tuesday is always an interesting day, because it’s the first day of camp where the excitement of being at Hume begins to wear off and you slowly start to realize the draining effect of being away from home and your own bed. You pour all your energy into worship, recreation and free time and seem to get very little sleep. But don’t get me wrong, I can guarantee that each and every camper is really enjoying the experience that is Hume. Just like the previous day, we woke up at seven in the morning to shower and get ready for another good day. We slowly headed off to breakfast, and I begin to mentally prepare for the incoming camp food (which is always . . . fantastic :). After breakfast we made our way to chapel to worship with this year’s worship band, Exodus. Tuesday morning’s chapel speaker was a Christian apologist. To be completely honest, I didn’t agree with all of the things he said, but regardless, there is always some new things to learn, and I took away a few new ideas. Break out time, or small groups followed where we had the opportunity to process the morning’s talk. Today’s recreation was a camp game with, trashcans, green face paint and neon pink spandex. In turn creating quite the wild experience. During free time forty of us headed off to high adventure, which is basically a ropes course made of wire hanging in the trees. Oh, and its over forty feet in the air. Forty. I watched as some of us, who aren’t afraid of heights, made their way through the obstacle course. Afterward we had dinner and headed off to evening chapel. Exodus led another awesome worship session, Exodus exited and Darren McWaters came out and delivered an excellent message. Darren spoke about accepting Jesus into our lives, and seven of our students accepted Jesus Christ for the first time, which was awesome to see. In our cabin we had a great small group session following evening chapel and each person had a lot to share with some excellent questions. Following our small group time, we drifted off to sleep to regain some energy for a new day.
- Zach Garman

Tuesday Around Camp

Monday Night

Today we were divided up into our rec. (recreation) teams. This year’s teams are “Bots” (pink shirts) and “Robos” (lime green shirts). This week there are 1000+ students and adults attending Ponderosa Camp. Because of the number of campers from Saint Matthew, (128), we are split among a number of different sub team (28 total). With names such as Twistybots, Robogobos, Crunchbots, Robosapiens (to name a few). The competition games included: Hard Drive, Infinity & Beyond, System Overload & Anthromorphic (crazy names and even crazier rec. games).

Monday Around Camp

Sunday Night

We had a nice uneventful time getting to Hume. All three buses arrived safely.
This week's speaker is Darren McWaters. Darren is the former lead singer of the band Everybody Duck (the High School worship band the first three years that we went to Hume). Darren is now on Hume staff as the Program Director.
This year's theme is "Rise of the Kinematics." Kinematics is the study of motion without regard to its cause. During the week we're looking at the topics of God, Humans, Christ, Justification, Discipleship, and Scripture. Darren brought us into God's word by looking at who God is, what is God like and why should we care. He challenged us that, "Jesus didn't want us to make followers but to make disciples."
The opener was back in the chapel this year and included Jenn Allan & Robert Niese (from Saint Matthew who are on staff this summer along with Megan Lindquist.) It was pretty amazing with lasers and lights and lots of smoke.
All of our students who wanted, got signed up for Paintball and High Adventure.
PD et al.

Hume Lake - Ponderosa Camp

Hume Lake begins on Sunday, July 27. Check in starts on the plaza at church at 8 am and is over by 8:45 am. The buses depart from church at 9 am (with or without you). Our return is by 3:30 pm on Saturday, August 2. All your forms and fees need to be turned in before you can go.