High Spirits on Low Ropes

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Happy Wednesday from Ox Lake! This morning we had the opportunity to spend time on our lovely low ropes courses. Our cabins had a blast doing trust falls, balancing acts, and loudly singing Christmas songs to distract themselves from the wobbly wires. Afterwards, we spent our afternoon at DD Kennedy, a local park, where we played cornhole, spikeball, and splashed around in the water. We also hosted a rock-skipping contest, where a new record was set – 8 skips! When we returned to our home base at 2nd Village, we transitioned into free time to play gaga, relax in hammocks, and tie dye. There were a lot of promising designs and color combinations and everyone can’t wait for the big reveals back home on Friday! This evening was no less busy: two field games, an energetic build-your-own campfire full of action songs (including a fierce singing competition between the cabins during Prince of Peace), and *drum roll* night game! Luckily, everyone was fueled with our delicious dutch oven night snack and had plenty of energy to chase our “lightning bugs” around all night. We can’t wait for more fun tomorrow at Ox Lake, we’re practically bubbling over with excitement!

Having a Blast

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Happy Wednesday from Ox Lake! Today we hosted our long-awaited laser tag extravaganza and everyone had a blast running around our custom-built laser tag course. Our afternoon was also filled with endless games of gaga, hammock hangouts, and wood-burning (with blocks straight from the forests of Ox itself!) as our arts and crafts project of the day. Around sunset, we played a highly-requested round of Snoodles, where our red, orange, yellow, and blue teams competed to collect all four team noodles. Although it was hard fought, nobody was quite able to get all four noodles at the same time. We finished our night with karaoke, a movie in Earth Chapel, and – most importantly – lots of popcorn with all the seasonings! All of us here can’t wait for a full day of sunshine tomorrow and more opportunities to grow closer as a community.

Right as Rain

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Happy Monday from Ox Lake! Another great day in the books. We started our morning with sunshine and swim test, then moved into some of our favorite field games: medic, exploding enchiladas, and mighty mighty. We took advantage of the good weather, but even the rain couldn’t stop us from having fun. Our campers had a blast indoors as well, playing card games (Exploding Kittens and Blank Slate are new favorites!), arts and crafts, noodle hockey, and indoor 9-square. Our campers were even so inventive as to create an indoor version of gaga with folding tables as walls! The night wrapped up with an energetic campfire, with Radical Gad being a big hit. Other highlights of our night were a silly skit by our counselors and s’mores! Clearly the weather can’t keep us down, and despite the rain we were able to pack our day full of fun. We can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings!

Sunday Funday

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Happy Sunday from Ox Lake! What a beautiful day to welcome a whole new batch of campers. We kicked off our week with a site-wide scavenger hunt, which the Red Hawks finished first with a new summer record – just 30 minutes! After a quick canteen (mango Jarritos and sour skittles are favorites so far) we jumped into our first campfire worship of the week, which was so bursting with energy that everyone could barely contain themselves. We can’t wait for more opportunities to run “all around Ox Laaake”!

Ohh Paddle!

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Happy Friday from Ox Lake! We can’t believe this week is already over. It feels like just yesterday we were teaching the rules of Mighty Mighty… luckily today we managed to sneak in one last game before closing worship, this time with extra face paint! Although our goodbyes were too brief as we sent off our campers with a rousing round of Feewah, the inside jokes, relationships built here, and matching royal blue crewnecks will live on for a long time to come. See you all next summer!

Rolling through Thunder Thursday

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Today was a very happy and humid Thursday at Ox Lake!

We started off our morning with a rain shower in the middle of chapel (which arrived right on cue to the word “pour”), but that didn’t stop us from continuing to sing, dance, and praise God.

The rest of our morning was spent engaged in competitive bouts of laser tag. All of our cabins had such a blast that we had to all but pry the taggers out of their hands to get them to lunch on time.

Our afternoon was no less busy as we jumped straight into our first tie-dye of the season, complete with stained hands all around! We also kept cool by playing a favorite Ox Lake water game, Drip Drip Drop, which is like Duck Duck Grey Duck, but with water.

We also had some friendly cabin competition in the evening as we unveiled a series of Minute to Win It challenges. Each challenge required a specific set of skills in order to complete the task, which ranged from paper airplane folding to juggling to mummy wrapping.

Our night ended on a more spiritual note, as we dove into our weekly specialty worship with a performance by our staff, prayer stations, and campfire worship. This was a great way to wrap up our last full day of camp!

A Day of Rest (But Not Really)

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Happy Wednesday from Ox Lake! Today we had a beautiful day of sunshine, a big turn from our first few days. We decided to take advantage of the weather and spend our entire day outside.

We started our day with a hearty breakfast of French toast to gear up for a competitive game of knocker balls. After many intense games and plenty of knockdowns, everyone came away drenched in sweat. To cool off, we made our way to Ox Lake for an afternoon of swimming, paddle boarding, and canoeing. While the beach was filled with rounds of spikeball, the raft was full of diving and cannonballs. Following both these high energy activities, we relaxed with electrolyte freeze pops back at 2nd village.

Our day didn’t end there! We played a never-before-seen field game called Avengers and another called Snake. For dinner the kids refueled with chicken stir fry, then jumped straight into campfire and our night game, Lightning Bug!

Today’s Bible study delved into the creation story in Genesis 1 & 2 and emphasized the importance of rest. Between activities, our campers engaged in physical, mental, and spiritual rejuvenation through meditation, hammocking, community building, reading the Bible, and quiet time.

We can’t believe how quickly this week has flown by and are so eager to continue to grow alongside our campers during the second half of our week.

Hello from Ox Lake!

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Welcome to Ox Lake! Our entire staff is so excited to have campers with us for our first official week of the summer. This week, our campers will be diving into the theme of Just Love during Bible studies, based around Psalm 33:5, which reads, “The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of God’s unfailing love.”

Despite the rain coming down on Sunday, energy was high as we kicked off our week with a scavenger hunt across the Ox Lake site in search of the Ox Medallion! On Monday, we made a visit to THE Ox Lake for swim test, and despite some brief (but refreshing) rain showers, we were happy to hand out coveted purple wristbands to all of our amazing swimmers.

Tuesday brought us even more field games, delicious meals, high energy chapel songs, and engaging Bible studies. With the sun making its first appearance this week, we had a beautiful day for completing low rope team building challenges in our cabin groups. We also had a lovely picnic at the local park, DD Kennedy, where we played lots of corn hole, spikeball, and Kan Jam before jumping into Bible study.

Join us this week as we grow in faith and community together by following along through our blog posts and Bunk1 photo updates!

Share your Story – Summer Staff Alumni Survey

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Here is an exciting opportunity for summer staff alumni of Camp Wapo, Ox Lake, Wilderness Canoe Base, and Luther Dell. We’ve been working with an exceptional group of Marketing students from Gustavus Adolphus College on a project for their class. They have created a survey designed just for our summer staff alumni.

Whether you worked at camp 5 years or 50 years ago – we value your input and stories! You are an important part of the history of this ministry and we are so grateful you said yes to spend a summer at camp.

The survey is short and easy to complete – please take a few minutes to share your responses. We hope to share the survey project results with you in the future and use your stories to inspire future generations of summer staff. The survey is only open through April 16 so complete yours today!

Thank you!

  • Please share this opportunity with other summer staff you keep in contact with and encourage them to fill out the survey too!
  • If you complete the survey we’ll send you a cool camp sticker and enter your name into a drawing for a sweatshirt!

JUST gonna LOVE it

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Now that our coldest days are (hopefully) behind us and every sunny day above 30 degrees feels like a tropical vacation, I can’t help but start thinking about summer. And while there are many things to enjoy about summer – warm weather, the end of the school year, ice cream, and beach days – what I’m looking forward to most is camp!

After spending so much time cooped up inside this year, I can’t wait to stretch my legs and spend my days chasing after campers again. Field games have always been one of my favorite parts of Ox Lake, so I’m already thinking about what games we can play this summer to stay safe and active together. Everyone’s favorite game, Bubble Soccer, is definitely on the top of my list! And, of course, I also have to devote plenty of time to convincing campers that Gaga is superior to 9-square. As a washed-up water polo player and canoe battleship champion, I’m very excited to dip my toes and paddle back into the water of the Ox Lake. If everything goes according to plan, all of us will collapse into our bunks completely exhausted at night and fall asleep to dreams of low ropes courses and laser tag wins.

While summer is a great time to be active, it’s also a time to simply relax and spend time outside. As much as I love playing games, some of my best Ox Lake memories have happened while relaxing in hammock village with my cabins or stargazing at night. There’s nothing quite like being tucked under blankets, music playing softly in the background, and staring up at the sky. Even as a camper, this devo deeply resonated with me. There’s something about nature that brings peace, focus, and an opportunity to acknowledge and appreciate God’s creation. This summer, I hope we spend as much time running around and playing games as we do quietly hiking the trails, laying in the sun, and staining our fingers during tie dye. I’m also happy for the opportunity that camp provides to disconnect for a while: no cell phone, no TV, no likes or comments or tweets or snapchats. While that disconnect can be intimidating, I’m looking forward to the deeper connections we can find with each other, nature, and God when we step away from the distractions and pressures of fast-paced society and reconnect with who we are and what’s truly important to us.

To that end, I can’t begin to explain how thrilled I am to explore this summer’s theme: Just Love. I know Bible studies aren’t everyone’s favorite camp activity, but Ox Lake wouldn’t be Ox Lake without our graces, worship, campfire talks, and devos. And it’s those parts that make Ox Lake home for me and so many other staff and campers, and what brings us back every summer! After the isolation we have all faced this year, I can’t tell you how electrifying it is to think about bringing campers back around the same campfire pit, trying to smack the same mosquitos, and singing the same worship songs. While this summer may look a bit different, I’m excited about all the new possibilities that come with the opportunity to build a completely unique camp experience and to welcome back new faces and old friends for another awesome summer at Ox Lake. I promise… you’re JUST gonna LOVE it.

Written by Steph Allen