S.E.P. 2005
A great
big "Thank You" to all who provided financial assistance
for us to attend Camp this year! We had a blast!
The Polar
Bear
by
Monica
It
was 5:30 in the morning. I heard the dorm slowly stirring to
life. 
Groans came from
across the room, and I opened my eyes just
a little bit. My body knew it was too early to get up. Even
so, I slowly sat up, shivering from the thought alone of what we had to
do. At 6 AM all of the campers who were willing would jump into
the ice-cold lake to earn points for their dorms.
I
sighed and pulled on a sweatshirt and shoes. Half asleep, I
stumbled outside and grabbed my damp swimsuit from the
clothesline. I rushed back inside, the brisk morning air waking
me up. A couple of girls passed by me as I made my way in.
They looked about as tired as I felt. As I changed into my
swimsuit I thought of how I would rather be back in my warm bed, but I
forced myself to keep going. After all, everyone felt the same
way I did.
At a
quarter to 6, all but two people started walking down to the
lake. Two dorms were already there. They asked if we had
everyone. We told them the truth -- two of our members changed
their minds this morning when reality hit, but we believed we would be
able to do it anyway.
"You
can still jump in, but you won't earn any points!" the lifegaurd told
us. We all looked at each other and groaned. I ran back to
the dorm with two other girls to try and convince the sleepyheads to
get up. We stopped, breathless, at the door. We knocked and
one of the other girls opened the door for us.
We
hurriedly filled her in on what was happening. "We need both of
you to get out there with us or we won't get any points!" Tasha,
the girl who had opened the door, changed into her swimsuit and was
ready to go in a flash. The other girl wasn't quite as
eager. No matter what we said, no matter what we did, she would
not budge.
About
five minutes had passed, and by this time our whole dorm was gathered
around her bunk, trying to convince her to get up. Still no
luck. We kept pleading with her but she was very
determined. She buried her head under her pillow and would not
get out of bed.
Now
it was after 6. We knew we weren't going to ever be able to
convince her, so we all climbed back into bed. We were upset --
you could tell by looking at our faces. We didn't want to have to
back out now, after we had already put forth this much effort.
After we tossed and turned a while, our minds slowly settled down and
we were able to go back to sleep.
Later
that morning, while we were waiting for the breakfast bell to ring, the
girl apologized and asked us all for forgiveness. After some
thought, we were all glad everything was cleared up. We realized
later that our counselor was able to use this incident to teach us a
lesson in forgiveness.
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