During our counselor training at the end of June, they
informed us that Wednesday would be a challenging day. Lack of sleep, living in
close quarters, stressful conditions might join together and wear on your
nerves. Easily understood. While I may not have nerves of steel like
Superman, I think God protected my nerves and granted my fellow counselors and
I a special outpouring of His Spirit through prayer. At least in my cabin, I
did not see anyone get on anyone else’s nerves. We were fatigued but we were also equally excited about
interacting with the kids!
So after breakfast club, the morning chapel and the
counselors’ morning break, Tom H. and I with our campers went on the fishing
trip. On the bus ride out we sang a
mixture of spiritual and silly songs ranging from Veggie Tale songs to camp
songs to a handful of other ones that I did not know. During our journey out there is when I met a little girl named
E-. She sat in front of me and at some
point I began to tell her a story about an eagle named Everett, which is a good
story but not well known since I haven’t written it yet. She listened intently
and after the story, asked if I would tell her a ghost story.
Hmm…a ghost story? Should I try to do this? And if so how do I redeem it? It was a simple story of a ghost who lived
alone. Everyone was afraid of it except E-.
E- befriended the ghost because she wasn’t scared. They had a picnic together and E- ate her
favorite food, chicken nuggets and chocolate milk, while the ghost ate ghost
chicken nuggets and ghost chocolate milk.
Later during our campfire, she came over to me and asked if I could play
with her. “Nobody else is playing with
me.” And I wondered if she was like the
ghost in the story, invisible to people and desperately wanting a friend in
life. So another female counselor and I
then played catch with her.
We finally arrived at a little pond somewhere in the middle
of the Pennsylvania wilderness. Here we
gave the children fishing poles and they stood at the edge of the pond and
began to fish. I took a long, slimy
night crawler from the little plastic cup, ripped it in half because it was
bigger then the hook, and stuck it on D-n and D-y’s fishing rods. Within a little bit D-n caught a small
bluegill! He reeled it in, pulled it up
out of the water, and onto the shore where it got unhooked and flopped around a
little bit. He glowed with excitement!
I picked the slimy thing up and held it next to him for a picture. Then with a mighty heave I tossed him out
into the pond.
D-y also caught a fish, slightly smaller then D-n’s. This
one also got unhooked on land and flopped around a little bit until I picked it
up. Another picture was taken with him.
We left with success. When we left all the counselors and staff had dirt, worm guts and fish slime on their hands now smelly hands while most of the children had fond memories of catching a fish.
After we arrived back and ate lunch, we had 30/30 time. This is the down time during the day where
you are supposed to try and make spiritual conversations happen. Nothing emerged on either Tuesday or
Wednesday. I was beginning to wonder if I would but God would soon prove faithful in this matter.
I think it was during our craft time in the afternoon Tom G.
came over to me with his nails painted.
“The girls want all the male counselors in the older boys cabin to have
their nails done,” he said.
“If a little girl comes over and asks me,” I replied, “then
I will let her paint them.” I was not
exactly sure I wanted them done but was willing to make the sacrifice if a
little girl asked me.
And sure enough, twenty seconds after I said it, a little
girl came over and wanted to paint my nails.
I remember this somewhat vividly because it was my first time doing
this. I hope you will laugh along with me as I sat down and had two little
girls ‘do’ my nails. C- sat down and
took a pink bottle of nail polish and smeared it on. A few seconds later, E- came over and assisted with my other
hand. She put on a bright blue. C- then decided to put on sparkles over the
pink while E- put a variety of red, pink and purple polka dots over the blue.
After they were done I was instructed to ‘let them
dry.’ One of the female counselors, I
believe it was Tom G.’s wife, said, “You know sparkles are hard to get off.”
Well, no, I actually didn’t know this and would soon discover the truth in what she said.
Brittany and another girl said, “I just can’t take you
serious with your nails painted.”
“Yeah. Neither can I,” I replied. And I admit it was hard to at this
point.
So why do I have painted nails? Why am I making a near fool of myself?
Alas, I will need to keep you in suspense a little bit
longer.
During the ‘Beyah Beyah’ competition of adventure place (a
competition between male and female counselors—more to make us look silly for
the kids) the four counselors had to eat chocolate covered surprises: chocolate
covered onions, hot dogs and plums were among the stranger ones. It was a tie! To break the tie Mr. Science washed his beard in a cup of water
near the end of adventure place and the counselors were made to drink it
afterwards. (I later heard that this
water was changed to regular water). I
mention this because this event formed the idea in D-n’s mind for Shven (played
by me) to drink liquid detergent for the talent show the following night.
The day ended with an display of stars scattered
across the night sky! Stars. When was the last time I saw them in such
a mighty array in the heavens? During our
evening break, I retreated to the basketball court, laid down on it, and gazed at the stars. “When I consider your heavens, the work
of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is
man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him?” Yet we are told to cast all our cares upon
Him because He cares for us!! Amazing thought!!
Wednesday was finished but in the back of my mind the talent
show still loomed. D-n wanted
desperately to do something and I was running out of time and ideas.
To be continued…
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