If you go to any of the Willow Creek Campuses, you might be familiar with the high school ministry Student Impact. If you've been in Student Impact at some point in your life, you might remember an amazingly fun summer camp known as Sandblast.
Now, I know what you may be thinking. "Church camp is fun? Yeah, right." Whoever said church camp was boring obviously never went to Sandblast. Everybody looks forward to it, and once the dates are announced, everyone begins the countdown for what probably is the highlight of the summer.
Sandblast 2016 is right around the corner. Since I'm not going this year, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and write about all 16 things (16 for 2016) you experience while at Sandblast. If this is your first time going, it'll be your first inside look at what you'll experience this upcoming weekend. If you've gone before and you're going again this year, you can probably relate to every single thing on this list. If you're unfortunately not going this year, I invite you to take this trip down memory lane with me. Here we go!
1. Doing this dance when you wake up on day one, when you leave your house, and when you're getting closer to Willow.
2. You get out of your car with all of your luggage and you bump into your friend(s) that are just as excited as you are.
3. After the long bus ride, you get to your rooms and have to change immediately for competition.
4. All the colors at the competition rally.
5. How you feel walking back to your room after a hot first day of competition.
6. When you want to be up front for worship, so you wait by the doors and get carried in by a stampede once they open.
7. Tony Sorrentino. Enough said.
8. Losing your voice by the end of camp.
9. After a good day of competition, the whole house group is like this when we are waiting for the top five to get announced.
10. The feeling you get when you actually win trashmaster.
11. When things get deep during service, house group, or small group.
12. Trying to figure out what to do during free time.
13. It's midnight on the last day, you're exhausted, and you haven't even started your encouragement cards yet. Regardless of that, you pick up the pen and begin writing.
14. The last worship session must have an encore, and the song can be none other than "Dancing Generation."
15. When you get back on the bus and almost everyone falls asleep because of the lack of sleep.
16. Overall, you're grateful for what you experienced the past four days with some of the best people you have ever met.
