It is raining today.

Our boys are playing a board game instead of building forts for their chickens outside. The light has dimmed as a bank of soft, gray clouds hover above. Drops slide down the metal roof, pinging on the swamp cooler in our living room window. The dirt trails that crisscross the camp are mushy and slick. The foliage is heavy with moisture, drooping under the weight and boasting a rich, verdant brilliance that only comes with weeping skies. 

This constant drizzle is exactly what we needed.

The wildflowers bloomed early again this year, responding to the heat and clear blue days. I saw a tiger lily yesterday, a flower usually found in July. The low meadow grasses are starting to crunch under my feet. Dust rises in a gritty cloud whenever a car approaches the camp.

I love the rain, not only because of its power upon the land and quiet beauty, but also because it reminds me to trust God.

My sons would rather play outside with sunshine warming their faces and a busy building project to fill the day. I was less than pleased as I loaded every single stuffed animal we own into the back of our car to bring them home after the big sleep over last night, with the cousins, outside, in the rain. The sleeping bags and blankets and stuffed toys and books were something less than dry and a few of them came back soaked. This is not the best weather for hiking or swimming or volley ball. It is not the ideal day to harvest hay, ride over Blewett Pass on a bicycle, or break a pole vaulting record. But the rain is good and valuable and vital all the same. It is a blessing from God and it reminds me of His love.

Rain is not always what we would choose. But anyone who has ever nudged the fading leaves of a wildflower or watched a flitting bird search the bushes for rose hips knows its incredible value. My grandmother tells the story of a child she met during the depression, a child who had never seen it rain and looked to the skies with such a longing that it made her want to weep.

When I watch the rain I remember that I don’t have to catch the entirety of the universe in my palm to dissect and completely understand. When I see the rain I remember that God loves me and that He watches and cares for all of His creation, even when we fail, even when we scheme and plan and forget. He is there, giving grace to all that is His. I see that God cares deeply, beyond our wishes of the moment and our childish tantrums. God looks beyond the thin crust we build about ourselves and into our inner self. He weighs and considers so much more than what is happening today or tomorrow or next year. When I watch the rain dripping steady and soaking deep into the earth I remember that my plan is not always best. I see the power of something quiet and gentle and soft. I see life renewed and second chances. I see His love.  

Matthew 5:44-45–“But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

Boo Boo

Camp is like a portal story.

Do you like portal stories? The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe or The Lost World or The Paradise War or The Polar Express, these are all portal stories. I’m actually writing a portal story right now. A portal story takes the protagonist through some kind of portal and into another world. Whether it is an old wardrobe, a deadly plateau in South America, a Celtic burial mound, or a mysterious train, portal stories take you to a magical place. Just like camp.

When you walk into camp, you walk into another world. Camp takes normal, everyday people and turns them into campers or counselors. It resides outside of the ordinary. Deep in the forest, away from homework and cellphones, traffic tickets and PE. People sing at camp, when they won’t anywhere else on earth. Sometimes they even do hand motions! People play pranks at camp and rush through the forest in camouflage clothing and eat an entire bowl of Jell-O just because someone said that they couldn’t. Camp opens the eye to the amazing creation that surrounds us and opens the heart to the amazing God who made us and loves us as His own.

Even God wrote a portal story. One about how He saw that we would never reach Him no matter how hard we tried. So He stepped down from on high, into our world, to give us a chance.

I love portal stories. How about you?

Boo Boo

Have you ever been lost? Not just confused or turned around, but completely and inexplicably lost? I have, and I was not a child left alone at the fair or in the mall. I was 32 years old and it was terrifying.

Scruffy and I had flown into Colorado to visit family and friends. Our three boys had just finished their very first plane ride and a long drive in the car. We walked up a hill to the local park to goof off until dinner. Something strange about Colorado is that the weather can literally change in an instant. I’m serious, they can have a hot summer day that is interrupted by snowfall. It was warm and sunny, shirtsleeve weather. One of our boys was in shorts and a t-shirt running around barefoot. I was barefoot too.  When he had an accident, I took our then five-year-old by the hand and we walked to my aunt’s house to change. It got colder and colder, cold enough to snow. We walked and walked, barefoot and carrying our shoes. I couldn’t find the house. I couldn’t find the street. I stopped and made my son put on his shoes. We kept walking. We were thirsty, but there was nowhere to get a drink. We were tired and cold and hungry, but passed house after tightly closed house, knowing that none of them was for us.

I’d never realized the deep, sweeping fear that comes with homelessness. I could not protect my child from the elements. I could not ease his tears with anything but a hug. I could not get him a drink or change his wet clothes. We had nowhere to go. I would have been thrilled to find a police man or a homeless shelter or just some person with a cell phone. But there was nothing but houses and they were closed to us.

I was only homeless for about an hour and a half, but the feeling is still with me. Eventually, we walked out of the residential area and found a pizza delivery place with a map. That moment when I finally found the right house and knocked. When Abuela (whom I had never met before) flung the door open and pulled us into her arms with tears and shouts of praise, I will never forget it.

I was running to the library in the rain last week. Driving rain at 35 degrees F is incredibly cold. Just my rush to the book drop box and back soaked my clothes. My mind flitted back to that moment of homelessness. My heart clenched tight as I knew that there were moms out there in such a storm, holding a child’s hand, lost and without a place to go.

What does this have to do with camp? Wen I interview campers and counselors about Camas, that is the phrase I hear most of all.

“Camp is home to me.” or “Camas is my family.”

Even when we have shelter and a place to put our things, sometimes we still feel that crushing weight of homelessness. But pull a kid into a cabin full of laughing, shouting, teasing, tumbling kids. Wrap them up with love and care, good food, and fun games. Take the time to answer their questions about God and life and that strange butterfly on the path that they noticed and no one else did. That feels like the door bursting open and Abuela snatching you into her arms and shouting across the house “They are here!” That feels like another story I have heard before. One with a worried shepherd and a bleating lamb tangled and alone on thorny mountainside.

And so as I watched the rain fall last week and the snow drift down today, I thank God that I was found. I am spurred on once more. Spurred on to do this thing God has called us to do, in the place He has called us to be. It sounds so simple, “camp.” But the simple can be sacred as well. A place where we can finally see God, where we can finally come home.

Boo Boo

This last weekend was the 9th annual CamasCon Christian Board Gaming Retreat. This is a camp where Christian gamers get together to play strategy boards until their eyes are crossed and their behinds are numb from sitting still through epic board game experiences such as the seven hour long Twilight Imperium III, or the Settlers of Catan tournament where sixteen campers battle it out for the title of Champion of Catan.

In preparation for the big event, Scruffy moved his personal board game collection over to the camp. This year he weighed all the games as he moved them. There is a reason Scruff’s back is always hurting after CamasCon. The total is in… his collection weighs an amazing 667 pounds.

Nearly 700 pounds, plus all of the games that other campers brought with them, produced a ton of fun for big kids at heart and younger gamers alike.

Mike Vanderveen was the speaker this year and he challenged the campers to use the fun of gaming to develop true friendships where Christ can be shared with others.

So whether they won or lost, CamasCon brought Christian gamers together for a time of deepening their relationship with the Lord and with each other and quite possibly finally taking home the victory from that one particular person who always beat them at Settlers, every single year.

Boo Boo

There is incredible beauty in this world and yet, laced all through the blazing sunlight, delicate blooms, and joyful people, are many dark paths. Sometimes people choose a dark path. They seem to do everything in their power to find the struggle and the pain in life and to live that pain to the fullest. At camp we work with children and so much of the time with kids, someone else has chosen that dark path for them. Someone they love has stumbled or wandered or rushed down a hopeless path and dragged their family with them.

Where is God?

Where is God when the way is dark and all seems grim and full of shadows?

Sometimes a path takes a dark turn in a natural twist of life. People get sick, cars crash, and everybody dies eventually. I have walked such twists and turns. Scruffy is 44 this year, the same age my dad was when he died in a simple accident.

Where is God?

Where is God when life and death and love and loss get all mixed up around you?

I took the picture above on an incredible misty morning. I had just dropped our three boys off at the school bus and our 50+ pound puppy was snuffling around in the car looking for crumbs. Three healthy boys, a happy pup who was the answer to a year’s worth of prayers, a beautiful drive home. Yet, this photograph made me pause and remember. Dark paths twist through even such a lovely world as this and my feet will surely come upon one sooner or later and so will yours.

Where is God, then?

That is the question, isn’t it? The campers who drive under the archway of the Camas Meadows sign and toss their sleeping bags onto a bunk and rush down to chapel to sing “I’ll Fly Away” with all the motions and join in a Jell-O eating contest… Many of those same laughing kids are walking dark paths. What do you say? What do you do?

Where is God, when the path is dark?

I do not have wisdom and answers and perfect golden words. I do know this, when my path was dark, God walked beside me. He was still there, even then. A smile, an understanding glance, an arm draped around the shoulder of someone in pain. These things we can give, even though we do not have answers. These are the things that matter when your heart is broken and the way lies black and misty before you.

Hold on, for God walks in such places as well. I know this, because I have lived it before. Walk with Him when your path twists into darkness before you, and you will find Him faithful even in such a time. I am not the only one. Talk to Scruffy or Choco or Del or Autumn… Open up God’s word and see, the Bible is chock full of people on dark paths who found that God was there, even then, even in such a place.

Psalm 22:24–“For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”

Job 36:15–“But those who suffer he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.”

2 Samuel 22:5-7, 17-20–“The waves of death swirled about me; the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me. The cords of the grave coiled around me; the snares of death confronted me. In my distress I called to the Lord; I called out to my God. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came to his ears…He reached down from on high and took hold of me; he drew me out of deep waters. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes, who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because he delighted in me.”

Isaiah 50:10b–“Let him who walks in the dark, who has not light, trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.”

Know this my friend. Whether God will reach down from on high and pull you out of that place of darkness, or simply place His foot beside yours and walk the path beside you, I do not know. But He is there, that much I can say for certain, and He is good, even when the path is laced with shadow.

Boo Boo

There are hidden wonders in this world.

Did you know that?

You did once, I’m sure. When you were a little girl or a little boy and first held a dusty moth in your palm, chased a gliding snake through the grass, or got up early to catch a glimpse of Venus through a pair of battered binoculars. But it is easy to forget.

One of our missions at camp is to make sure that children don’t lose their sense of wonder. To give them a chance to see some of the hidden treasures that fairly shout out the glory of God if we will only seek them out. Pictured above is The Stone Face. Some people call it Indian Head, but I like the name one of our older board members always uses. The Stone Face. Not carved or shaped and yet everyone who takes the time to hike across the meadow and then up a narrow forest trail to the sandstone cliffs above Inspiration point can clearly see the face of a stern Native American warrior. It is baffling and yet plain to see, for anyone willing to walk a half mile out of their ordinary world.

If you hike down the narrow sandstone ridge just past The Stone Face, you will come upon this old snag. Long dead, and covered with lichen, it still stands guard upon the ridge. A home for woodpeckers and other forest creatures, this lovely old tree makes me wonder about the many years that have come and gone beneath its snarled branches. This world contains so much more than just ourselves. The old snag standing sentinel on a barren ridge reminds me of that. God is larger than we thought, working in ways that we cannot begin to imagine. Much has come and gone during the lifetime of this tree, fabulous things and gentle miracles, things that only God knows. I catch a glimpse of the vast wideness of the world when I crouch upon the ridge with my camera, attempting to capture the beauty of this dead giant.

This is what I would wish for you. Perhaps you are not able to take a midnight hike to inspiration point, gaze down at The Stone Face, or pausing on the trail up to Chipmunk Cabin to smell a pine lily, but God has still provided wonders all around you. Gentle reminders of His power and love. Seek them out my friend. Do not rush on by, wrapped up in your own worries and cares, His world is bigger and grander than you realized. Open up your eyes. Hidden treasure is everywhere.

Boo Boo

Well it has been two steps forward and one step back as far as camp improvements go these past two weeks.

One Step Back

A camper with wet gloves thought that the propane heater would make a marvelous glove dryer.

It didn’t.

But due to a camper who went back to his cabin for a pen during chapel, Scruffy managed to douse the flames with water before the whole thing burned down.

Two Steps Forward

Scruffy finished a new shelf for the ladies room.

He was also able to get a new shelf put up for the guys. Either way, through burnt mittens or new shelves, the Lord is good. Although I must confess I prefer the new shelves. 

Boo Boo