Lost Treasures

Seven

EMORY

Once the introductory session was complete, we had what they called Team Time. Tonight, we were all supposed to come up with our team names. I figured there would probably be some sort of icebreaker, too, to help us learn each other's names.

Madisyn showed me where to go, and we found our team. "Hey guys, how are ya?" Carleigh, one of our leaders, greeted. "We're gonna start with an icebreaker!"

Ha, I was right.

"I want you to tell me your name and one cool thing about you," Carleigh instructed. "I'll go first. My name is Carleigh, and I'm married to this goofball." She crinkled her nose as she looked up at Brock and smiled. There was quite a height difference between the two of them.

"Ugh, you stole mine," Brock whined. "Um... My name is Brock, and I'm the youth pastor at New Hope Community Church of Pensacola."

Wow, they'd come all the way from Florida for this!

I noticed a guy on my team look up and smile whenever Brock made his announcement. Maybe they went to the same church? "My name is Kaylin, and I'm going to college for basketball in the fall." Kaylin was an interesting name for a guy, I thought. He had curly, dark hair and light brown skin.

The guy next to him said, "My name is Joel, and I can walk on my hands."

"Woah, really? Show us!" Carleigh exclaimed.

Upon her words, Joel got into a handstand position and then began to walk on his palms across the floor. He only lasted a few yards before he toppled over. "Ta-da!" he joked, and everyone laughed.

"My name is Avyn," said a girl with strawberry blonde hair, "and I'm a dancer."

"Very cool. What kind?" Carleigh asked.

"Ballet and jazz," Avyn replied proudly.

"My name is Salem, and I play guitar by ear," said the boy next to her. He had sandy-brown hair cut smoothly and shaved with a "buzz cut" around his ears and the back. He also had very interesting grey eyes. I wondered if they changed color depending on the season.

The boy next to him said, "Um, my name's Hosea, and I can play piano. Not the best, but I try." A few people laughed. I thought I recognized Hosea's name from the Bible. He had dark brown hair, tanned skin, and green eyes.

We learned that Noah had six dogs, five cats, and two goats; Jeremiah worked at a Disney theme park; and Steele loved soccer and pancakes. "In that order," he joked.

"My name is Madisyn, and I want to be a teacher," my new friend said.

"Very cool. What kind of teacher?" Carleigh asked.

"Music. For middle school," she answered with a smile.

Finally, it was my turn. I obviously wasn't going to tell them my biggest secret, so instead, I told them my special talent. "My name is Emory, and I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue," I said, blushing.

"Ooo, I want to see that! Show me sometime at dinner, okay?" Carleigh made me promise.

"I will."

Now that we'd learned everyone's names (and cool things about them), it was time to pick a name for the team.

After much debate, we chose the name 'Black Mamba.' Carleigh said it made us sound tough and deadly. "That'll intimidate our competition in the games for sure."

I was pretty excited for the games; that was always my favorite part of VBS when I was a kid. That's all I had to compare this to, and if it was anything like that, then I knew I'd have fun.

I had to admit, it did feel pretty good to be away from home. Here, no one knew anything about my story. I could be anything I wanted to be.

ISRAEL

I literally loved everyone on my team.

Justus, who was definitely the 'class clown' of our group, suggested that we name our team the Justus League, after him. Everyone just laughed, but he was like, "Hey, I thought that was good."

Eventually, we picked the name 'Lucky Charms.' One of our leaders, Violet, said she would go on a Walmart run that night and get some cereal to make us team bracelets.

We introduced ourselves by what grade we were going into. Ellen was the only freshman, so we nicknamed her Baby El. Cole and Emerson were sophomores; Navy, Canaan, and Hilary were juniors; and Hollen, Justus, and I were all seniors.

Even though I was new at this camp, I felt like I already knew everyone. This team was like a second family to me, and it was only the first day.

ASPEN

I had to admit, my team was pretty cool. Someone made a joke about Azriel's name, making a reference to The Smurfs movie. Lacy quoted, in a gargly man voice, "Azriel, are you dead?" and everyone cracked up laughing, even him.

I was glad to see that my sister had refocused her attention on someone closer to her age: it appeared to me that she was developing a little crush on Joey. But I noticed someone else admiring her a bit.

Zephaniah, who was also a freshman, kept looking at her and smiling to himself. He probably thought no one noticed, but my radar for who-likes-who was pretty strong. Even though she was a pain sometimes, I couldn't blame him for liking Eden. She had long black hair that she'd been growing out since sixth grade, and her blue eyes were much darker than mine, more like the color of denim jeans than the sky.

And apparently I was right about Evie and Roman; they were in a youth band together at a church in Iowa, called The Crossing. I wondered if I'd ever hear them sing together here.

Cat, a junior, was pretty quiet. She didn't have much to say, but I liked the lavender streaks in her blonde hair. She seemed artistic to me.

Kollen had to keep reminding us how to spell his name. "It's like Collin, but with a K...and an E instead of an I," he explained.

"Why did your parents do that to you?" our leader, Calvin, joked.

"They set me up for a life with confused strangers," he shrugged.

We weren't the most outgoing, and it didn't quite feel like a family, but I did like my team. We ended up calling ourselves the Yellow Jackets, which I had to admit was pretty clever.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.