Hello again,
Wow, I thought that the life at seminary required long days. It turns out that when I am there I am getting a lot of down time compared to what I am doing as a scout camp chaplain.
This was the first week with scouts in camp. It was amazing both how fast it seemed and how long it seemed. After staff week I got off fairly early on Friday evening and when I got to my mom’s house my aunt and uncle were in town. We had supper and talked late into the evening. On Saturday we went to an overlook in Winona so they could see the city from above. It was nice, and since it was steamboat days, the festival in Winona, there was a lot to see. In the afternoon we drove to Wabasha to go to the National Eagle Center. We sat in on one of their one hour class sessions. I had heard pretty much all of the information presented, but it was nice to have it presented in a condensed, organized fashion. We followed that up by going to a restaurant in the country near Nelson, WI that may aunt had read about in the magazine. That was nice and we finished off the day by again chatting into the evening.
On Sunday I went to Mass in Holmen before heading out to the camp. When I got to camp I had a few things to set up and get ready since the scouts were coming in soon. We were required to be there by 1230 and I was quite early to get stuff done. When the troops were starting to register I was asking the leaders if they knew the faiths that their scouts practiced. All of the scouts were Christian as far as I could find out, but I decided to still run the services as interfaith, rather than ecumenical incase the leaders had missed one or two. I did feel confident to go a bit heavier on Christian than even I had planned.
I found out Sunday evening that one of the troops had scheduled the priest from the parish that most of them attended to come in for Mass on Wednesday. This frustrated me to an extent because I had spent a bit of time scheduling a different priest in, and this troop hadn’t let me know in advance. So I had to end up calling and canceling the priest that had been scheduled in by me, somewhat embarrassing me, but he was fine with it.
I was alerted to a few scouts that the leaders were concerned would be homesick during the week. I made it a point to be a bit extra attentive to those scouts so that I had been with them if I had to start dealing with home sickness problems. I had a little bit with each of them, but they weren’t any too bad. On Monday and Tuesday I was able to quickly schedule in the Catholic Priest for next week, but had a bear of a time scheduling a protestant minister for the Wednesday. I think I called 20-25 churches before getting one. It would come on Friday that he ended up canceling so I called another 10-12 before getting one that I think will show up.
Monday and Tuesday were my busiest days for homesick scouts. Each of them is so different that I have to figure out a way to distract them and try to keep them in camp. Probably the third scout that I had dealings with I spent a lot of time with. Everything that I did to distract him he had fun with, but when I would mention him doing it again later in the week he would say, “No, I’m going home today.” I was pretty frustrated with myself for not being able to convince him, it was so hard headed though, that on Tuesday his leaders agreed to let him go home. He is the only scout that I wasn’t able to convince to stay, so I think I did pretty well.
As for my chapel services… I’m not as happy with them as the scouts and leaders are. I am planning on writing one or two more and then just editing as the summer goes on. This will also give me quite a bit more time to spend with the scouts. The hours I am putting in amaze me. On Sunday I was with scouts and leaders until 10:30 when we had a staff meeting. Then I get up at 5:30 in the morning. Monday was a 21 hour day and Tuesday was 20. Wednesday I had some homesickness issues in the morning but by the afternoon it slowed down so Wednesday and Thursday were only about 15-18 hour days and Friday I was leaving camp by a little after 9 p.m. It was very nice to go to my moms and climb into a real bed before 10:30 at night.
However, shortly after I climbed into bed I heard one of my step-brothers and a group of his friends come in and they were hanging out. I was so exhausted that I didn’t come out and see them. I dozed and woke up quite a bit until they went to bed about 3:30 am. I managed to sleep until 7:00 so I am good and with one more night’s sleep I will be ready to go for another week with scouts.
Thanks for reading.
Peace,
Adam
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Staff week at camp
Hello again,
As I said before, I think that posts this summer will be a little more sporadic than I would like them to be. I have found out that I do have internet access at the boy scout camp, but I am going to be very busy… I will post as I can.
So since my last post I went to Stevens Point for Pentecost weekend. I helped out at the Masses at Newman Parish and really enjoyed them, as always. I went out to eat couple of times with Father Tom, it was nice to catch up with just him. On Saturday evening there was an Ordination Mass to the deaconate for one of the guys from the La Crosse Diocese. He will be ordained a priest next year. There was going to be an Ordination for another guy on Sunday, but I couldn’t go to that, as the time conflicted with the Mass at Newman.
This deacon Ordination is the same Ordination as for a guy who is going to stay a Deacon, but since this one is going to be a priest, he is called a transitional deacon by those who know him. This doesn’t change any of his faculties or authorities. It is just a term used to clarify incase people are curious. Dan, the new Deacon at the Ordination I went to and Dave, the one for the Ordination that I didn’t go to are great guys. They will both be great priests.
After the Sunday Mass I helped a bit with changing the decorations in the church from the Easter Season to Ordinary Time. Ordinary time isn’t about the boring type of ordinary, but means ordinal, such as a number sequence… just a way of keeping track as to where we are in the liturgical year. I had to leave before this change over was complete… I had to head to the camp for staff week.
When I arrived at camp I checked in and moved the supplies that they had down to the chapel to begin preparing for the summer. I have a nice outdoor chapel to use. I really like it. I found out that they did indeed want chapel services during the staff week, I hadn’t been expecting that, so I raced to put some of them together.
The staff at camp is great. I really like everyone that I have gotten to know over the week. They all seem happy to have a chaplain there, and attendance for the chapel services has been great. I spent a lot of the week figuring out what I was going to be doing, and writing the chapel services. It was a bit difficult with the services because the music books they have are not good. I struggled with them for Monday’s chapel service, but then decided to make up some handout sheets for music. I got this done and it was nice, but it turns out that the people there only knew some of the songs. I had downloaded some music to my IPod to play along, but for the speakers I need power, there is an outlet in the chapel, but it doesn’t work. I am going to use an extension cord so that I can do this in the future, also one of the guys on staff has a portable keyboard and plays piano for his church at home so he volunteered to help out.
The leadership at the camp is great about the importance of chapel. For example, even though it was staff week and heavy on training, if there was an announcement to be made about something for the rest of the afternoon, the programs director would say to the people to meet out at the entrance to the chapel, not make an announcement in the chapel, since that isn’t what it is for. I had mentioned in passing to someone how much I enjoy rappelling and the programs director said that if I want to help out occasionally with the rappelling program I can, but that it is up to me, so that I can function fully as chaplain.
We worked hard this week setting everything up too. I enjoyed the good physical work and pitching in when I could. It was wonderful of the camp leadership to allow me to decide if I wanted to and not do stuff at the expense of the chaplaincy.
I am looking forward to the scouts coming in next week, and spending this summer doing this ministry.
Peace,
Adam
As I said before, I think that posts this summer will be a little more sporadic than I would like them to be. I have found out that I do have internet access at the boy scout camp, but I am going to be very busy… I will post as I can.
So since my last post I went to Stevens Point for Pentecost weekend. I helped out at the Masses at Newman Parish and really enjoyed them, as always. I went out to eat couple of times with Father Tom, it was nice to catch up with just him. On Saturday evening there was an Ordination Mass to the deaconate for one of the guys from the La Crosse Diocese. He will be ordained a priest next year. There was going to be an Ordination for another guy on Sunday, but I couldn’t go to that, as the time conflicted with the Mass at Newman.
This deacon Ordination is the same Ordination as for a guy who is going to stay a Deacon, but since this one is going to be a priest, he is called a transitional deacon by those who know him. This doesn’t change any of his faculties or authorities. It is just a term used to clarify incase people are curious. Dan, the new Deacon at the Ordination I went to and Dave, the one for the Ordination that I didn’t go to are great guys. They will both be great priests.
After the Sunday Mass I helped a bit with changing the decorations in the church from the Easter Season to Ordinary Time. Ordinary time isn’t about the boring type of ordinary, but means ordinal, such as a number sequence… just a way of keeping track as to where we are in the liturgical year. I had to leave before this change over was complete… I had to head to the camp for staff week.
When I arrived at camp I checked in and moved the supplies that they had down to the chapel to begin preparing for the summer. I have a nice outdoor chapel to use. I really like it. I found out that they did indeed want chapel services during the staff week, I hadn’t been expecting that, so I raced to put some of them together.
The staff at camp is great. I really like everyone that I have gotten to know over the week. They all seem happy to have a chaplain there, and attendance for the chapel services has been great. I spent a lot of the week figuring out what I was going to be doing, and writing the chapel services. It was a bit difficult with the services because the music books they have are not good. I struggled with them for Monday’s chapel service, but then decided to make up some handout sheets for music. I got this done and it was nice, but it turns out that the people there only knew some of the songs. I had downloaded some music to my IPod to play along, but for the speakers I need power, there is an outlet in the chapel, but it doesn’t work. I am going to use an extension cord so that I can do this in the future, also one of the guys on staff has a portable keyboard and plays piano for his church at home so he volunteered to help out.
The leadership at the camp is great about the importance of chapel. For example, even though it was staff week and heavy on training, if there was an announcement to be made about something for the rest of the afternoon, the programs director would say to the people to meet out at the entrance to the chapel, not make an announcement in the chapel, since that isn’t what it is for. I had mentioned in passing to someone how much I enjoy rappelling and the programs director said that if I want to help out occasionally with the rappelling program I can, but that it is up to me, so that I can function fully as chaplain.
We worked hard this week setting everything up too. I enjoyed the good physical work and pitching in when I could. It was wonderful of the camp leadership to allow me to decide if I wanted to and not do stuff at the expense of the chaplaincy.
I am looking forward to the scouts coming in next week, and spending this summer doing this ministry.
Peace,
Adam
Monday, June 6, 2011
Training for the summer and taking some down time
Wow, so I thought I had put up a post last week, but just looked and it turns out that I didn’t. Sorry about that if you were looking for a post.
After my last post, I was able to spend some time with my dad and his wife who were out for that funeral. Obviously the circumstances weren’t great, but it was great to see them. We spent a lot of time talking and just hanging out. On that Friday I went to the funeral with them. It was a very nice funeral. I stayed at the lunch for just a little bit before heading out. I had a few things to get done before heading towards Stevens Point.
I didn’t really have anything to do in Stevens Point, but it was a lot closer to where I had to be on Saturday and I was able to spend some time with a good friend and his kids. His wife was out of town with a team that she coaches at the school she teaches at. I got over there a little early so was able to relax and even do a bit of running around in Point before he got off of work. We then had pizza for supper and shared a couple of beers after the kids went to bed. When I was finishing up college I used to spend quite a bit of time with him and his wife, and it is always fun to catch up.
Saturday I headed up to the training for my summer position. This is part of the National Camp School for the Boy Scouts. Most camps don’t send their chaplains to this, but the camp that I am working at thought it would be a good idea. It was fun to be at a camp again. I will say that I was actually quite disappointed with the training, maybe more so with the trainer. She was nice enough, but there was quite a bit to frustrate a person. First of all, she was extremely disorganized which made the training go in fits and spurts. We would race through a lot, and then play it off as if there was almost nothing to do before racing forward again. Probably more frustrating than that was that while she put on being inclusive and accepting of all traditions she would get in digs against the Catholic Church with a great deal of frequency. I corrected her on most of her false statements about the Church, but she just kept them coming. I was quite disappointed by this, and happy to be done on Tuesday. I am still excited about working at the camp, because I won’t be dealing with that there.
Over the weekend there were a lot of priest reassignments announced within the La Crosse Diocese. I had a list of them and am excited about many of them. Some are difficult situations due to a shrinking number of priests, but I think that the Bishop and the personnel board did a great job on fitting different priests with different parishes on the whole, and making the decisions that had to be made.
I came back to Winona after that and kind of took it easy for a day or two other than a few chores around the house. On Friday I volunteered with the foresters back at the Corps of Engineers that I worked with during college. I was working with the students that they have working for them this summer. I helped them repair some tree tubes on an island where the flood had pushed them over. Obviously the trees can’t grow in tubes that are lying down. It was oh so very hot on Friday. We were all drinking water constantly. The students were glad to have me there because with the extra worker we were able to finish up by noon and boat back to the landing. We were then going to take lunch in the air conditioned truck before heading back to the office, but I recommended that we stop at the Corps office right near there to use their air condition. I had worked with those guys some times when I had been in the area before; it was good to see them.
I left from there and drove to Stevens Point to help out at the Masses over the weekend. On Friday night Fr. Tom and I went to the house of a couple of parishioners for supper. A couple of other parishioners were also there. It was a great night of conversation and company. I really enjoyed it.
On Saturday I had some chores around the church and the rectory to get done. I cleaned up at the church and did some setting up for other events this coming week. I also trimmed all of the shrubs at the rectory for the summer. It is fun to be doing outdoor work again, no matter how little. After Mass Fr. Tom and I went out to dinner with a couple of parishioners who are also neighbors to the rectory. We followed that up by going to the parish picnic of another parish in Stevens Point. We talked to a few people there, including the priest at that parish. In the coming changes he is going to be taking over another nearby parish too. He is working to figure out how all of that will work.
I came back to Winona after Mass on Sunday. After a while I drove down to Holmen thinking that I was going to the Knights of Columbus meeting, but it turns out that the meeting is next Sunday night. Today I spent time cleaning my truck. I also waxed it and cleaned all the windows in addition to vacuuming and shampooing the carpet. I really liked doing that, it had been a while and it was nice to take care of my truck like that.
I think that this has me caught up since my last post. I hope you are all doing well.
Peace,
Adam
After my last post, I was able to spend some time with my dad and his wife who were out for that funeral. Obviously the circumstances weren’t great, but it was great to see them. We spent a lot of time talking and just hanging out. On that Friday I went to the funeral with them. It was a very nice funeral. I stayed at the lunch for just a little bit before heading out. I had a few things to get done before heading towards Stevens Point.
I didn’t really have anything to do in Stevens Point, but it was a lot closer to where I had to be on Saturday and I was able to spend some time with a good friend and his kids. His wife was out of town with a team that she coaches at the school she teaches at. I got over there a little early so was able to relax and even do a bit of running around in Point before he got off of work. We then had pizza for supper and shared a couple of beers after the kids went to bed. When I was finishing up college I used to spend quite a bit of time with him and his wife, and it is always fun to catch up.
Saturday I headed up to the training for my summer position. This is part of the National Camp School for the Boy Scouts. Most camps don’t send their chaplains to this, but the camp that I am working at thought it would be a good idea. It was fun to be at a camp again. I will say that I was actually quite disappointed with the training, maybe more so with the trainer. She was nice enough, but there was quite a bit to frustrate a person. First of all, she was extremely disorganized which made the training go in fits and spurts. We would race through a lot, and then play it off as if there was almost nothing to do before racing forward again. Probably more frustrating than that was that while she put on being inclusive and accepting of all traditions she would get in digs against the Catholic Church with a great deal of frequency. I corrected her on most of her false statements about the Church, but she just kept them coming. I was quite disappointed by this, and happy to be done on Tuesday. I am still excited about working at the camp, because I won’t be dealing with that there.
Over the weekend there were a lot of priest reassignments announced within the La Crosse Diocese. I had a list of them and am excited about many of them. Some are difficult situations due to a shrinking number of priests, but I think that the Bishop and the personnel board did a great job on fitting different priests with different parishes on the whole, and making the decisions that had to be made.
I came back to Winona after that and kind of took it easy for a day or two other than a few chores around the house. On Friday I volunteered with the foresters back at the Corps of Engineers that I worked with during college. I was working with the students that they have working for them this summer. I helped them repair some tree tubes on an island where the flood had pushed them over. Obviously the trees can’t grow in tubes that are lying down. It was oh so very hot on Friday. We were all drinking water constantly. The students were glad to have me there because with the extra worker we were able to finish up by noon and boat back to the landing. We were then going to take lunch in the air conditioned truck before heading back to the office, but I recommended that we stop at the Corps office right near there to use their air condition. I had worked with those guys some times when I had been in the area before; it was good to see them.
I left from there and drove to Stevens Point to help out at the Masses over the weekend. On Friday night Fr. Tom and I went to the house of a couple of parishioners for supper. A couple of other parishioners were also there. It was a great night of conversation and company. I really enjoyed it.
On Saturday I had some chores around the church and the rectory to get done. I cleaned up at the church and did some setting up for other events this coming week. I also trimmed all of the shrubs at the rectory for the summer. It is fun to be doing outdoor work again, no matter how little. After Mass Fr. Tom and I went out to dinner with a couple of parishioners who are also neighbors to the rectory. We followed that up by going to the parish picnic of another parish in Stevens Point. We talked to a few people there, including the priest at that parish. In the coming changes he is going to be taking over another nearby parish too. He is working to figure out how all of that will work.
I came back to Winona after Mass on Sunday. After a while I drove down to Holmen thinking that I was going to the Knights of Columbus meeting, but it turns out that the meeting is next Sunday night. Today I spent time cleaning my truck. I also waxed it and cleaned all the windows in addition to vacuuming and shampooing the carpet. I really liked doing that, it had been a while and it was nice to take care of my truck like that.
I think that this has me caught up since my last post. I hope you are all doing well.
Peace,
Adam
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