The Best of Bible Camp – Part 3

11. Soccer. This is one of my guys favorite parts of Bible Camp every year! But it is especially Chris’ favorite. He plays hard and pays for it later… :o)

12. RV Land potluck. Every year Jan organizes a potluck for all those staying in RV Land and anyone else who wants to join us. It’s always a lot of fun and good food, too!

13. The Talent Show.  Zack, Andy, Ian and Keegan practiced all year to play “The Eye of the Tiger” at this year’s talent show. Although I didn’t think I could listen to it one more time, I loved hearing them play and listening to the audience cheer! Andy and Zack also got to play “Flood” with their friend Kory. While hearing my boys play is my favorite part, I also appreciate how the kids are so encouraging and enthusiastic no matter who’s performing!

14. Flag raising on the 4th of July. Camp ended on the 4th of July, so we started out the day with a flag raising at Cedar Lodge.

15. The generosity of dear and wonderful friends! I don’t have any pictures of this one, but it was definitely the highlight of the year! Not only did Walt and Don help Chris to install a brake control on the van for the trailer (which was so I could have a relaxing, non-stressed, sway-free trip home) but they also gifted us a new battery for the van (our old one died while installing the brake controller) and a new propane tanks for the trailer (we ran out of gas and couldn’t run our fridge anymore)!

The great part of the story is that we didn’t know about the battery or the propane. It was all part of an elaborate deception that involved most of our friends and our oldest son.

In order to get the keys for the van, Walt enlisted Zack’s help. In order to get them from me, Zack had to come up with a lie. (Zack prefers to call it a “story”) The morning of the battery swap, I wandered over to the group camp to inquire if anyone had seen my oldest son and therefore my van keys, as I needed to get my belongings out of my locked vehicle. Everyone at camp said they had not seen my son. (This was lie #2, as my son had just been to camp to give the keys to Walt.) While I walked away slightly perturbed at not having my keys or my incarcerated stuff, all my friends were having a good laugh at my expense. On the way back to our trailer I happened to spy my son heading back to his cabin. I hollered that I wanted my keys. He replied that he had left them at his cabin. (Lie #3) This made me a little irritated that he would be so irresponsible with my keys and so distracted me from truly wondering why he had ran the opposite direction in order to retrieve the said keys.

Now that I had my keys back, Zack had to come up with yet another “story” of why he needed them back. Apparently the “mystery kid” hadn’t seen whatever it was Zack was going to show him in the van. (Lie #4) So while we were at our Adult Bible class, our friends were out buying us a new battery and filling our empty propane tanks.

When people do such kind and generous things for you, you would think that we would have noticed right away… Ok, just remember that we were really busy and pretty tired and cut us some slack on this next part.

That day while working on the brake controller Chris commented on what a terrific job Walt and Don had done on cleaning our battery. He even quipped about how it looked “brand new”. Gee, I wonder why??? At supper that night, Walt asked if we turned the gas off at night on the fridge. I assured him that we did. He suggested that we turn it off that night. I reminded him that we had run out of gas the day before. He replied that the gas was on and that we would need to be sure to turn it off before bed. I was so confused as to how we thought we were out of gas when we really weren’t??? Before turning in for the night, we went to turn off the propane and noticed that our tank looked really white and had a gauge… We don’t have a gauge… DUH!!!

It’s nice to have friends who love you even when you’re STUPID!!!

This concludes Bible Camp 2010. We’re already looking forward to 2011!!!