By Major Nancy Fuller

You can tell it is summer at The Salvation Army Boys and Girls Club.  The building is abuzz with excited boys and girls, playing games, singing, doing crafts, taking trips.
We began our summer day camp on Monday, June 8 and it continues until August 11.  The children involved have a week of planned activities including daily devotions, crafts, game playing, including table games as well as pool, foosball and air hockey, outdoor play on our recently redone basketball court (thanks to the United Way of Mid and South Jefferson County for financing this), arts and crafts (thank to Flint Hills Refinery for donating the craft supplies), and of course, trips all around the community, including Beaumont and Lake Charles.
Our summer also includes a cooking class every Monday and a guest speaker weekly from Spindletop helping the children to deal with life. We are blessed with four wonderful staff members who are helping throughout the summer to keep this group of children happy and active.
When the children go into the Chapel for morning devotions, it is so nice to hear them singing about the Lord and praising Him!  Even Christ said, “Let the children come to me for such is the kingdom of heaven.”  And we believe that very much on a daily basis.
The daily routine is now starting to get a little more organized as we are in our third week.  The children are always inquisitive, interesting, loud and fun to be with.  We have already heard things like:  “wow, I love coming here”, “what are we doing next”, “where are we going today”, “can we go outside and play on the basketball court” to “I’m bored”, to which we make some very quick changes.  The first week, it rained all week and that made for a very long, long week.
But our staff and our children persevered and we made it! The children come from all walks of life.  Some have two parent homes, many have only mom or dad taking care of them and several of our children are being raised by grandparents.  It makes for some interesting times between the children.  So far, we have only had one splinter in a finger, one busted lip (which caused a loose tooth) and one minor fight.  To that we say, “thank you Lord”.
We are just beginning the summer but already we know what is needed as far as more fun craft items, more Xbox games, more table games and cards, and more DVD movies for rest time.  If you want to donate these or any other items, please don’t hesitate to give us a call and see what is needed.  We will also be having our Vacation Bible School in the midst of Summer Day Camp on July 20-23 from 3:00 – 5:00 p.m.
This is open to anyone interested in attending as we go to Kingdom Rock and stand strong for God.  Of course, we are always looking for volunteers to come and help and also speakers to come and talk with the children about various subjects.  If you are interested in any of this, please contact either me, Major Nancy Fuller, or our Day Camp Director, Ms. Emily Green at 409-543-3780.  There is truly excitement all around The Salvation Army this summer and we thank God for it!