My Missions Blog, Part III

The next day is sort of a free day. We can choose what we want to do during the morning. I asked the camp directors if there was some project that I could tackle for them personally. I know people come all the time to repair things for the camp but I wanted to do something for them & not just the camp. Low and behold if they didn’t come up with a doosie of a job for me. Well, I came to serve didn’t I?? The director has this work shop that lays bare the fact that organization is not his gifting and hasn’t been for the last 30 years. They asked me to tackle it & organize what I could. So I picked one little area & started wading through. I have never seen such in my life. My first goal was to just pick up the trash. They evidently have an affinity for Micky Dee’s, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s. I threw away probably 30 wrappers that had just been tossed on the floor. I organized fishing lure, rat poison, random tools & etc. I had to call on the men sometimes to define for me what a thing was so I could file it properly. After 3 hours of working there was one small shelf that was dust free and organized… out of an entire shed that was probably 1200 square feet. I was so proud of it though and boasted gleefully during lunch about what I had found & where I had put it.

We ate lunch, cleaned up a bit & then went off to hunt for Amish. This is Amish country and we intended to spy some. We took two separate vehicles because if you come on a bus they consider you a tourist group & won’t let you come into their shops. No one likes to be gauked at, I suppose. So we rambled around the hills of Western New York in search of horse drawn buggies & the like. We found various little shops for iron working, crafts, & toys. The man at the iron working shop had 7 children under the age of 9 and I felt like I was trapped in an episode of Little House on the Prairie. Except perhaps somewhere in a Dutch colony. Crazy accents. Of course our kids had to stop at the toy store. I had a blast there too. These Amish were definitely used to talking to the public & hammed it up with the kids, showing them how to use various toys & puzzles. They randomly accused all adults of being cheap & tried to guilt us into buying more toys for our poor neglected children. Who can get mad at a fair faced Amish lady, even when she calls you cheap? I bought a thing called a “stool sample” for my 83 year old Daddy. It is a tiny wooden foot stool in a film canister. The kids played with Amish hand cuffs and put their quarters into an exploding wooden bank. A good time was had by all. Then it was off to camp to get cleaned up & go out to our main event. Ministering at a concert in the park.

So here it was: Time for me to do the unthinkable. I was gonna push tracks in a park. We had made little tags for 100 water bottles that invited people to the church we were being missionaries for & it had the gospel on the back. The poofy mustached leader also had the dubious skill of making things out of balloons. You know… bees, dogs & the like. When we first arrived at the park it looked like the lobby of a geriatric center, though. No kids or young people at all. Gray hair, canes & walkers everywhere. We gave out water anyway and tried to explain, loudly so their hearing aide’s could pick it up, that the water was free. They kept thinking we were selling something. Soon the young people and children started arriving & the balloons were a huge hit. The band even played a march and asked us to do a balloon parade. So we led all the kids in the park with balloons in a big conga line around the park. I had to admit I felt a warm fuzzy or two. It was a happy night with a lot of good people having fun and sharing a little of that with the people in the park. At the end of the night Morgan & I snuck over to the ice cream shop & got 14 ice creams in all sorts of flavors & surprised our team with them as we boarded the bus. Aw, ain’t that precious?

So we went back to camp intent on going to bed, until I realized that it was skit night. And pillow fight night. Morgan had mostly been staying with the campers all week & the girls had practiced a skit she wanted me to come watch. The skits started around 10:30pm. They were lots of fun but the real fun started afterwards. I would guess it was 11:15pm. The director & junior counselors strung a log from two beams in the main lodge. Pillow fights generally end in someone getting mad or hurt or both. So the idea here is that two kids straddle the log like a horse with their feet not touching & they schwack each other with pillows until one or both fall off onto the gym mats below. Too much fun. This lasted until at least midnight. Sleep came easily this night because I was tired from the sleepless night before.

Thursday was Niagara Falls day. We finished up some of the main chores in the morning, warmed leftovers for lunch and then headed North. The campers left at 11am and I have to say I was glad. I noticed on this day that the normally jovial poofy mustached leader was very sullen. He spent most of his time away from the group. He was quiet and short when he did speak. We loaded into the bus about 1pm and with a determined SIX! we were on our way. Riding has become an accepted part of this trip. The camp is in the middle of no where. Riding to town takes 30 – 40 minutes. Niagara was about 1 ½ hours away. I found Buffalo, NY to be interesting as we drove by a river with Canada on the other side. Once we were at the falls we decided to go on the walking tour that basically takes you out on this wooden boardwalk built into the side of the falls on the American side. With your admission you get a sporty pair of sandals that will keep you from sliding off the side of the mountain & a poncho. My personal favorite was the Hurricane Deck. It boasts hurricane strength wind & water. It took your breath away & laughter was mandatory because it seemed so incredible to be voluntarily walking into it. We, of course, were soaked but my poncho did keep my camera reasonably dry. I couldn’t help thinking about the guys who had built this walk way. What must that job have been like? How was it accomplished? Did they do a good job???? Good enough to get us across at least. And what a way to turn 15 years old! The lone 14 year old traveler turned 15 the day we went to Niagara Falls. Whatever will he do for his 16th?? After we dried off and bought $25 ice cream cones and tee-shirts, hats, teddy bears with Niagara Falls written on them & the like, it was time to drive all the way back to camp. We got back around 8pm and dinner was waiting on us courtesy of the camp director’s family and the junior counselors who were staying the night. The campers were returning the next morning for a day trip. We ate & then started packing for the trek home. I tell ya, I have never seen so much mud. It is a wet place, this camp. My kids experienced every inch of it all over every piece of clothing they have worn. Some of their pants could stand up by themselves. Our suite cases were mostly empty because everything got piled into, not one but, two trash bags. That night at devotions the leader came in sullen as before. And late. Very uncharacteristic for him. He didn’t smile once all night even when I smiled at him. I decided something must be wrong back at home. I went over after prayer and asked him if he was ok. He said he was just tired. I asked if everything was ok at home and he looked at me kinda bewildered & said, “Well, something is wrong back home. I can’t really talk about it but it is a gut wrenching thing. Just pray that I will have wisdom.” He apologized for being down & I told him I didn’t want him to be sorry. I wanted him to be OK. Please pray for this sincere, giving, sometimes irritable but always serving poofy mustached man as he goes through this gut wrenching ordeal. Pray for him to have wisdom. I told him I would. I have & I will.

Once everything was packed away except the overnight things for our stay in Kentucky and the clothes on our back, be settled in for the night. As was Morgan’s custom, as soon as I was asleep she tried to sneak noisily into the room to retrieve something. She was sleeping with the camp director’s daughter & best friend in the room next door for the night. Once she was out for the night I don’t think I moved once until the alarm went off at 6:30am. Except for the usually sleep talking my sweet little grey haired room mate did once or twice. She is very busy cleaning & organizing things when she sleeps. But I easily nodded right back off once she was done directing the invisible people in our cabin.

Well that is pretty much that. Missions trip accomplished. We decided to drive all night and got home at 5am instead of staying the night in Kentucky. By 2am everyone was cranky, especially when some of the younger kids were being noisy. By 3:30 everyone settled down to sleep in the bus... except me of course. I played brick breaker until I was thoroughly frustrated and then just fidgeted uncomfortably until we arrived.

And so... New York may never be the same. Nor will we.