decisions were made....

once upon a time my sister and i went to bible camp...

did you ever have that experience growing up?

the camp was called decision hills

i remember watching my grandparents drive away that sunday afternoon- feeling a little bit
scared and so relieved my big sister was by my side. here we were, being dropped off in the woods in the middle of nowhere, a long, long way from home. (it was actually about an hour and a half).

                                                               there are no actual photographs of us~
                                                                        use your imagination people.



some of my fears were:

which cabin will i be in and how far is it away from the bath house?

will my sister be in my cabin too? (i wanted her there.)

how will i hide the fact that i can't swim?

will the food be yucky? (i was the worlds pickiest eater)

what if i get my period? (which was just a given- i have had it for every major and minor event of my entire life).

what if there's no cute boys?


well, some of these fears came to fruition- (like the period part and some yucky food), but
some of the things i remember fondly are the new friends i made, the campfires under the
dark night skies,  the guitars softly played by the cool teenage counselors and the boy
named jon whose face i can almost conjure up if i think real hard. he was dark haired and
ka-ute.

he was even a bit of a hero on the day we canoed about 560 miles- portaging across fields and streams in our efforts to get to a neighboring lake. my sister and i chose to be in the same canoe ( a-hmmm ~ big mistake) and neither of us was even an ounce athletic or coordinated, so we were always lagging behind the others- arguing about who wasn't pulling their weight.

by the time we paddled into shore- long after the others were done eating their roasted weinies, we were exhausted and more than just a little bit sunburned. we dragged our sorry arses up on shore and quickly ate so we could begin the trek back to good old decision hills.  as soon as i was done eating i hustled back to our canoe so i'd be ready to roll and in my haste didn't realize that i'd pushed the canoe off shore. as i began drifting out to sea alone, i panicked just a little. (no... come to think of it it was quite a bit of panic) because if you didn't remember this part of the story- girlfriend can not swim!!!!!!

so there i was, drifting further away from shore- without my trusty partner and unable to bring myself back in.....    :  (    but who should come to my rescue but JON!!!  he swam out and pulled the canoe in and he and his friend decided to give my sister and i the lifesaving opportunity to have one of them in each of the canoes with one of us! SCORE!!!!!  now the trip home didn't seem so unbearable- in fact i'm pretty sure sister and i just layed back and let them do all the work while we watched their 14 year old muscles rippling in the sunlight.

i'd like to say that i made some life changing decisions in those few luxurious days away from home- but if i'm being truthful i think the only major decisions i came away with were that i liked boys and that i was always glad to have my sister by my side in good times and in bad.

two of my three kids went to bible camp a few times when they were younger and based on the stories they've told they too had some great times in those little cabins in the woods. far away from their parents watchful eyes...seeing the moon rise over the trees in the dark of night, kids begin to grow up and change and it's good. it's all good.

                                                         if you get the opportunity, send your kids to camp.



                                                                                   peace and kumbaya, beth