RA camp schedule was a mess

This is Mark J. Boone, Timber Crest Baptist; this was my first year at Latham Springs and possibly my last, as I may not be in the Waco area next time around.

As I see it there were two problems with the schedule. The first is simple and easily rectified: There was no quiet time for the boys to study their Bibles in the morning! What good are cabin devotionals at night if there is no Bible study in the morning? I had to resort to lamely suggesting to my cabin that they get up a few minutes before everyone else to read their Bibles. What I think they really need is a fifteen minute, maybe a half hour, segment after breakfast to go to their cabins, get their Bibles, go someplace quiet, and read.

Second, the schedule was either never solid or else very poorly communicated. It was impossible to fulfill my most basic duty of making sure I knew where all my boys were because of this. Here are some examples:

1. "Elective events in 'the wild' " was an all-camp activity the first day. The second day I and some others assumed we were to be with our church groups; at the end of the second day I learned we were to be with our morning color groups. I, and the boys, should have been informed of this at the beginning of the first day.

2. On the afternoon of the first day I had trouble figuring out whether lads and crusaders from my cabin were to split up for swimming and paintball or whether the whole cabin was to go together. I began by assuming the written schedule was correct: lads and crusaders would split up. Then an announcement was made over lunch that one cabin would not split up. I asked about it and was told that the schedule was correct. Literally seconds before splitting my boys up I was told by another leader in my cabin that the whole cabin was to go to the water park.

3. The written schedule for portions of Wednesday simply said "same as Tuesday." Not so Thursday; we were left to infer that Thursday's hours were also "same as Tuesday." But they weren't: At least one thing was different. The bonfire was not even on the schedule!

Bottom line: The written schedule was woefully, dangerously vague and unreliable. As a consequence I spent probably half the daylight hours not knowing where I and my boys were supposed to be in the next fifteen minutes (sometimes I didn't know who my boys were).

A completely written and DETAILED schedule is a necessity for next year.