The International Camporee was the best experience of my life.  My name is Ethan Scholma and last July and August I spent eight days at this hardcore event.  We built a shelter/tent with twine and long wooden poles...  A typical tent held two counselors and eight boys.  Each day our color group (I was in cadre brown1) would do an activity in the morning and afternoon.  Each color group had thirteen plus cadres.  Some of the events included tubing, service project, archery, marksmanship, and a couple more.  My favorite part was the mystery event.  Eight guys from around Grand Rapids came to put on an air show with smaller model planes.  They did many high flying tricks and awesome stunts.  The best part was when they started flying the helicopters upside-down inches off the ground.  It was extremely hot that day in the open field.  Every day we had a Bible lesson after breakfast and supper.  The theme was "Prepare Yourself".  Our theme is the same in Cadets.  We are learning to prepare ourselves to meet our Savior Jesus Christ.  On Sunday most of the parents came for the Sunday worship.  They watched 1200 of us walk in to our seats.  Afterward we ate a pig roast, and showed our families around camp until 3:00 p.m.  All are camps looked magnificent since we had the open time Saturday morning to improve them.

All went smoothly until the "BIG RAIN" on Tuesday night the day before we left.  We got ten inches in three hours.  The next morning the stage that we had used was broken and a river was flowing through our assembly area.  The volunteers had to build a bridge out of skids and wood planks to get us out.  That was the sad ending in leaving one of funnest [sic] places I've ever been.

–Ethan Scholma