Recap of Urban Arts Camp Week 1

I made it through the first week of Urban Arts camp!:) There are so many things that happened throughout the week that are so amazing, I can't even begin to imagine where I should start. So, i'll be typical and start from the beginning (since most of us follow well in chronological order).

As you may have read from my previous entry, there were some major storms coming across Michigan which stole our power from Sunday through Wed. of the last week. (yes, the first week of camp). The neat thing was that we had power at City Mission in Detroit, where the camp was being held.

Early Monday morning, Renee, Vicky, Kathryn, Wally, Linda and I, piled in two cars with all of our supplies and drove the 48 minutes down to City Mission. We held most of our camp in the City Mission Academy building, but art was special and it got it's own house:)

We had about an hour to set everything up before the kids began showing up. The first day of camp, we had 27 kids. I had set the day up to run on rotations. We all started out together and my parents did the object lesson and devotional. Then the kids were divided into 3 groups based on ages and they rotated to music, drama, art and dance. Lunch was in the middle of the day and we came back together for our "closer" of prayer, a song and announcements. All in all it went pretty smoothly. The youngest class was a handful and we had to adjust and add more volunteers to them.


On Tuesday, we had 30 kids show up for camp! That was the expected number so we were excited that all of them came. Each teacher continued to work on projects and look for those "kids who stood out" to give solos or pair up for routines for the performance. After camp that day, I went over with a City Mission lady, Kathy, to take a look at our Friday performance location. A Detroit middle school was allowing us to use their cafeteria/stage room at no cost. It was my first experience in a Detroit public school. To be honest, I was very sad. There was no air, it was old, and there were airport security stations to walk through...in a middle school. I was aware of the conditions via tv and the news, but to actually walk in a USA school and see the conditions first hand, made me hurt. We found the principal and he was a very kind man. He showed us the area we would be able to use. It really was perfect for the size, stage and area to hold the dinner. There were only a few glitches....no sound equipment, no kitchen, no air. I had some scrambling to do to make this work. It was only the Lord that brought everything together so quickly! A friend took off work on Friday, agreed to drive down from Lansing and provide all of his sound equipment and run it for the performance. We used large fans to give us some circulation and Betty, who volunteered to cater the dinner, adapted the meal so it was "mobile" and didn't need a kitchen. All of that was only God!

Wednesday was a tired day for everyone. You could feel it in the kids when they walked in, I felt it, and other teachers were walking around with coffee cups glued to their fingers:) Everything was still running smoothly though. The dances and songs were coming together well and I was beginning to see some attitude changes for the better. Oh yeah, we had 32 kids that day!

Thursday was crunch day. It was our last day to get everything worked out before the performance. For our closer, we had the kids perform for one another and they loved it! The staff from City Mission even came out from their desks and watched.

Friday was laid out totally differently from the entire week. The kids didn't come to City Mission until 12:30. We transported them a few miles away to the middle school for our dress rehearsal. When we arrived at the school, the kids ate lunch and then we did a blocking run through of the performance. It went pretty well. The kids were pretty hot and tired, but troupers. After our run through we set up stations for them to go to before dinner. A friend brought his electric guitar and pedals and took groups to play around on that and show them stuff. We also had an art station set up to do sand art and a "thank you" card section for the kids to write thank you's to their sponsors. It worked pretty well. After that all happened, I took the entire group out into the hallway and showed them my violin and played a little for them, then let some of them play. It's amazing how quite a group of loud kids can get when they are interested in something. I found that when I was showing them my violin. Dinner was at 5pm..it was a smashing hit of tacos and chips and dip. We were worried that the parents wouldn't come. I think someone from every family showed up to support. That was another answer to prayer. When the kids were done with their meal, we took them out into the hallway and passed out their performance t-shirts. A church had donated them last summer. They were very cute--white t's with stars and glitter on them. The performance started about 6pm. They got a standing ovation! My heart was bursting with pride:) Our team did an amazing job!

And that, my friends was our week in the abridged version. I now begin a whole new week with all new kids tomorrow.