Summit Part 2

Summit plays hard, sleeps hard, and studies hard.  We were on the go 24/7.  (Which I loved - the structure was great!)  I got up at 6 am every day and lights were required to be out at 11 pm.  Activities were happening all the way up until 10:30 some nights, so we had little time to sit around. (Again, a really good thing.)

One of the evening activities we had was a student auction for Sudan.  This was Summit's 50th year anniversary, and for fifty years they have held an auction to raise money to buy Bibles and Christian flags for the people of Sudan.  The staff got together and prepared different items to auction; we had several things to choose from including scones/smoothies, staying up all night with the NightWatch crew, a meal at Chick Fil-A, wallets/purses made out of maps, and crochet classes!  They had hilarious options and it was funny to see what groups bid on which items!  We girls were going for the scones and smoothies but were outbid quite a bit.  We ended up winning the map wallets, lol!  Not exactly my first choice, but the money was going to a good cause. :-)

A group of guys got together and bid on, of all things, the crochet class.  (Which, go figure, was taught by several guys!) They won and spent several afternoons afterwards crocheting hats for themselves!  What's more, they did a really good job!

 A crochet lesson in progress.  It was so funny to see them but I give them a thumbs up for being brave enough to step out of their status qou and try something different!

Zach is the only one I personally saw complete his crocheted hat.  Pretty good, huh?  Who says guys can't crochet?!

 The food at Summit was outstanding.  Other people there that had attended different camps told me that camp food is notoriously horrible, and that they couldn't believe how amazing the meals were at Summit. I didn't have anything to compare it by but it was just really good food.  Over the two weeks I was there, we only had one repeat meal.  They were all delicious. 

We got fed three full meals a day - plus a coffee/hot chocolate bar was open all day long for breaks in between class.  It was wonderful! 

 This is Kimbosha and Kellen, part of the Dish Pit crew in the kitchen.  I have never seen people have so much fun doing dishes!  When they didn't have music going, they were singing or telling jokes or just dancing around while they did their work.  It was hilarious!  They looked like they were having way too much fun doing work.

Bacon in progress.....our breakfasts were amazing.  We had everything from waffle breakfasts with all the toppings, egg casseroles, french toast, cinnamon strudel muffins, sausage patties, sausage links, bacon, hard boiled eggs, biscuits and gravy, different cereals, juices, and always a huge bowl of fruit.  So much variety! 

Part of the kitchen crew working on the salad bar.

 This is just one of many tables that people ate at.  You could eat inside the dining room, or go out onto the back porch where they had tons of picnic tables set up.  The weather was so gorgeous too, so usually it was really nice to eat outside.

This is the dining room inside....and Mandy, another girl in the Dish Pit.  Notice the moose/deer heads

on the wall?  They were mounted all around the inside of the dining room!!  They even had one of

them named as a joke off of a camp song! 

 This was our chef, Steven.  He was a proffessional chef right out of culinary school, and he was SO funny.  He always  had a joke and was just a super fun person to be around.  And he made the best food ever!  There were a few students who had food allergies and he was totally willing to work around that - made gluten free things or had substitutions for what they couldn't have.

Every other evening, the students divided up into small groups of four students and two leaders (who were not students).  We had an hour to discuss the lectures, or ask questions, or just talk and get to know each other.  We did all three and I got so close to these great girls and the leaders.  The leaders were always really good about having a snack for us...we always had chocolate in some form or another.....so fun!  One of my small group leaders actually lives in AZ, so when she comes through in a few months to visit family we're hopefully going to get together!  Super looking forward to that. :-) 

Nicole and Alyssa, two of the girls in my group.  Over the course of a few days, we took turns going around and sharing our testimonies, and it was so encouraging to hear what others had gone through and how God is working in their lives now. 

 This is Caitlin and Christina, my two small group leaders.  Christina is a nurse, so I was able to talk to her about nursing school and how some of that works!  Both of them were super sweet and it was such a blessing to get to know them.

 Your's truly. :-)

 Nicole, me, and Hannah.  We took these photos just days before leaving, and we were all starting to feel depressed at this point because we knew it was almost over!!  I'm homesick for Summit already!

This is the classroom that we sat in everyday.  A full class is 180 students, but this session only had 70.  I still felt like it was a huge group!

They had everyone seated according to age, and alternating between guy/girl/guy/girl.  This gave some good perspective when we had to have classroom interaction with "the person sitting next to you" regarding a topic we were studying.  

We spent seven hours each day in the classroom - sounds like a lot (it was) but they had several breaks in between classes.  The teaching was phenonminal and the speakers was so engaging.  We had people like Ryan Dobson, Michael Bauman, Frank Turek, Jeff Myers, and Brett Kunkle come speak; we had so many more but that's just a few I can remember.  :-)  Many of these speakers were either with well known organizations like Stand to Reason, Colson Center, or Focus on the Family, or were professors at Baylor and Harvard!  It was so cool to hear these men give lectures on such a wide variety of topics.  I got the rundown on pretty much every worldview out there - post modernism, secular humanism, cosmic humanism, agnosticism, neo-darwineism, and way more that I can't even remember off the top of my head.  :-)  We also covered topics such as homosexuality, the destruction of traditional marriage and the family, abortion, apologetics, defending the faith, web design, filmmaking, media, and so much more. Never before have I encountered such a large volume of rich information in such a short period of time.  By the end of the second week my head was swimming and I felt like my brain was literally stuffed to the max!

 With all these amazing speakers, naturally there were quite a few related books they suggested buying.  Summit has it's own bookstore right next to the classroom and they had hundreds of books covering every topic we were learning about and more.  I came home with ten books - my suitcase was so much heavier coming home!!

Here are the titles of the books I purchased:

Understanding the Times  by David Noebl

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

Welcome to College

University of Destruction

The Pleasures of God by John Piper

Knowing God by J.I. Packer

Ethix by Sean McDowell

Women, Sex, and Feminism

Bioethics: A Primer for Christians

I'm so excited to get through all of these....though it may take me a while. :-)  But Summit got me excited about studying, so I'm motivated. :-) 

One thing that I had fun taking pictures of was all the signs hung around the hotel.  They had all the girls on the fourth floor, and all the guys on the third floor. Any guy caught on the girls floor or vice versa resulted in immediate KP.  (Another good rule!) Anyways, here are some of the signs they had on the walls of the girl's floor:

This was posted outside of the shower room....reminding us girls what not to wear. :-)  Someone was a good artist!

A super good qoute by Francis Chan (still want to get his book Crazy Love - anyone read it?).

This sign was hung next to the mailbox in the lobby - showing a sample of a postcard you might send home to your parents....lol! I just thought it was funny.

Halfway through the two weeks, Summit acquired a beta fish and they set up a poll to vote on what to name it.  These names were based on two philosophers that we had to discuss for an hour during class one day.  I voted for Augustine, although Pelagius won out!  During the "campaign", some of the staff created signs rooting for different names, like, "Voting for Augustine Changed My Life" or, my  personal favorite, "The Cool People Who Have Voted for Pelagius: Chris Tomlin, Justin Beiber, Toby Mac, Ron Paul, ....." and a ton of other people I can't remember. :-)

And lastly, another thoughtful qoute. 

Next up - Graduation night!