Tangent, the Un-Magical

First full day, almost done.


I looked down from where I sat on the grass, past the rows of heads in front of me, past the gazebo where we were having chapel, past the thick poplar forest, to where the hills beyond met a low summer sky. How long ago it seemed that I'd been standing on the archery range, instructing during morning activities! Between plugged toilets, cabin politics, behavioural issues and other challenges, it seemed as though I'd been quenching little fires all day.

A rainbow over the road thrills my cabin group

I still loved camp. Loved the flow of life at camp. Loved the idea of working with God through all the intensity of camp. But looking back on the day, the only words I could think of were "when it rains, it pours." The sight of blood interrupted these thoughts. Rifling through my bag, I found a Kleenex for the tooth someone had just pulled out during chapel. Suddenly, I heard my camp name being called.

(To read of my looming blunder, please click Read More...)

Beautiful views bordering the ranch

"And now Tangent has something to share with us!"


I stood to my hiking-shoed feet, grateful that the Assistant Director had reminded me before chapel that tonight it was my turn to give a magic-trick-assisted message. I was to speak about sin, representing it as a Sharpie-marked cloth, and how Jesus takes our sins away. Some sixty pairs of eyes watched in anticipation as my volunteer-assistant placed the blackened cloth in the bag. I spoke on, the message growing more and more fervent, until the climactic moment when the assistant reached back into the bag. My entire soul seemed to swell at the expression on my assistant's face as she pulled out a perfectly spotless cloth. Priceless.

Learning to cook over the fire--an important jungle skill for
(future missions hopefully in the long term?)
 and for Wednesday Night cookouts in the short-term

 
 
 
 


The view from a tipi interior

My campers love picking wild strawberries

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Excitedly, I turned the bag inside out to prove that nothing else remained inside. Then, from sheer enthusiasm: a wrong move. Frozen like a camper caught outside after dark, I watched in horrified silence as another cloth fell, marks and all, from the bag in my hand.

Uh-oh. My stunned gaze lifted from the grounded bit of material to meet a million wide little eyeballs. My assistant, still clutching the spotless cloth, also stood fixed with an expression of shocked sympathy. The boys in front especially seemed mischievous, their eyes flashing with terrible glee at the cause of my misfortune. My first day. My first long, hard-fought, day, and I had just proved myself to be completely un-magical. 

 

Hours later, I lay awake starring up at the poles of the tipi in which we were camping that night. We had made s'mores here as a cabin group after chapel, reading from Psalm 139 around the fire. Such questions the girls had asked! Questions like "But how can God be everywhere?!? Where did God live before He created everything? What's the difference between God and Jesus?" It had been a trying day, but a night like this made the whole thing worth it.

Thinking about this, listening to the sounds of squirrels outside and pine needles falling on the canvas, smelling the earthy forest floor and the pine sap inexplicably in my sleeve, I knew this much: Tangent is un-magical, but God is good. This is His summer, and He is faithful to complete the work He starts.