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...)

Welcome to Your New World

"Archers to the line!"

Ten grass-stained sneakers march five aspiring young Robinhoods towards the shooting range.

"Ready on the line."

Ten sets of toes step into position, pointing in the correct direction, beside five wooden bows.

"Pick up your bows..."

Five elfen hands wrap themselves eagerly around the sleek bows. You jog down the line, ensuring every hand has found its correct place on the instrument. Arrow rests up, bowstrings under the left forearm...good.

"Knock your arrows..."

 As five dull "click's" sound though the hot summer air, the last command is on your tongue.

"Aim and fire at will."

A single thwack resounds as one of the arrows embeds itself into the target. Boings, thuds, and clatters accompany the sound, depending on the direction of the other arrows. By the time those ten sneakers patter away from the range however, many more thwacks have brought satisfaction to the shooters. You're grinning too, content in your assigned role as this weeks' morning archery instructor. Still thinking about the expression of bewildered elation on the face of the little girl who hit the bullseye this morning, you put away the targets and rehang the last bow.

On to the next task.

Chapels are almost always held in serene outdoor settings,
such as this meadow. Open fires, acoustic guitars, campfire songs...
It doesn't get much better than this.

A remarkable make-over one of my delightful
young ladies gave me

Joining your campers, co-leading Bible study on top of the climbing tower, attempting to form a line for Canteen, moving through afternoon activities and finally heading to an outdoor chapel service all follow. These sound like they should be easy tasks. But to refer to the act of "keeping eight energetic ten-year-olds in the same general vicinity and running in the same general direction for 23 hours a day" as "daunting" would be an understatement met with raised, weary eyebrows.

 Why this particular work is especially challenging--and especially rewarding--is that, as its poster explains, this camp runs for foster home, group home and single-parent families. Because of the challenges campers sometimes face, you as a staffer encounter things here that may be different from "regular" camps. But that's what sets this summer apart as especially for ministry. In a place where you realize you could never accomplish a thing by your own ability, God more often is given His proper place as Power Source. And living through Him wherever you are, whether volunteering abroad or writing papers at home or teaching archery at camp, is the best place you could be.

Training, Continued

The second week of staff training--the week I'm in the middle of now--has been all about learning. We've heard seminars on behavioural challenges, worked in sessions for developing Bible studies, fought water fights...practical stuff. It's the workshops that we're taking about Bible study development and story-telling effects that really have me excited. Not only do we get to build our own cabin studies about a particular Bible story (this year from the biblical book of Joshua), but we can sign up for the opportunity to give messages in chapel illustrated with (guess what!) animal balloons and magic tricks! Some of the illusions I'll be learning are ones at which I used to marvel as a youngster myself, on the receiving end of kids' ministry. Between those and the chance to expand my balloon skills, I'm pretty "pumped."

In other news, getting into the routine of camp life has meant becoming integrated to a culture all of its own. For one thing, as a new staff member you must mandatorily be given a "camp name." Mine, after one or two attempts, finally stuck with "Tangent." Sounds adventuresome enough...

For another thing, you begin to realize that, as a group of camp staff, you have together become a distinct and noble tribe. By the smell of bug spray perpetually clinging to your population, the varying degrees of sunburn on every face, and the essence of campfire smoke on everyone's clothes, you can readily identify one another as members of the clan. You realize that in only a few days this staff, united in Spirit and sunburn, will be opening bug-spray perfumed arms to welcome busloads of excited campers. Here goes something...

Training. Begins, Now.

"Smackos," s'mores tacos, sizzling in anticipation of
the snack-out we'll have with campers every Tuesday

"Everybody's got a water buffalo..." the a cappella strains of this familiar tune, traditionally sung by a cucumber, echoed through the gym as we fought to keep our grip on the water buffalo's head. I don't know if you've ever clung to the face of a long-soul-less water buffalo before, its blunt, breathless nose extending awkwardly close to your own. If so, you'll know that it's the stuff memories are made of. If not, you can probably imagine.





In case you're wondering why staff training for summer camp has me wrestling large, taxidermied African mammals, don't worry: I'll get to that. First things first.



Training, Day One:

On our first full day of training, while most of the staff sat in a first aid course, I dangled precariously from a precipice. --Ok, actually more of a tower. The climbing wall tower, to be exact. The entire day being devoted to literally "learning the ropes" of how to lead wall climbing, I learned how to set up, check equipment, instruct campers, tie knots, and belay climbers. We also got to climb a good deal, and to practice belaying each other. --And to lie on the grass and eat freezies.

The next two days were all about SET UP! Washing, wiping, moving, organizing, assembling, mopping, wrestling that buffalo head out of the music and drama room we were organizing... Moments in between sometimes included a trip to the staff lounge to visit its bottomless supplies of Gatorade, chocolate bars and candy! Oh yeah, and fresh fruit and granola bars. This is shaping up to be a great summer...
 

Back to the Harvest

Nine--NINE!--pages of the calendar have flipped since I first left for Uganda, but the time has come to move back to a mission zone. Of course, anywhere there are people there's potential for ministry, so I've never left the harvest field in that sense. But going to the part of the field God has me now involves a move. It involves going back to learning a new role, a new culture, and a new routine. Going back to being stretched, and challenged, and scared. Going back to living out of a suitcase for months at a time! Though it may sound suspiciously similar to my life in Uganda, this time mission life won't leave me waking up on the other side of the Atlantic. Or even the other side of the province.

The place? A summer youth ranch. Role: senior counselor.

This is something I've always wanted to do. Outdoorsiness, cabins, tents, climbing walls, horses, ranch life...it's the stuff of my lifetime-ago dreams. And it's even kids' ministry! Not that it will be easy or anything. But if God started it, He'll finish it. He's in the details as well as the big picture.

And what's that big picture going to look like? That's what we're about to find out...

The Grand Finale

Friday and Saturday

Friday. The work-hard-play-hard day when you spend the morning on duty (in our case washing again the now-much-dirtier dishes used at Thursday's Valentine's dinner) and then go out as tourists with the team for the afternoon...

Our first stop: the roadside fish taco stand for an as-real-as-it-gets Mexican lunch. Second stop: the market. Third stop: the beach.





                   What's going on here?

 Standing beside a normal-sized person for

     comparison, after spending some time

                    sinking into the sand.



Everything about the coast is endless:
endless ocean, endless beach, endlessly breaking waves
 stretching out to the endless sky...





Chicken tacos, rice & refried beans

Last stop: the restaurant where our YWAM leader always takes the entire team to cap off the week. As if we could still handle more food after tackling all the (amazingly good) southern-style sustenance at the restaurant, within a few minutes of our returning to base camp, a bonfire was blazing for s'mores night.

Saturday, 3:00 p.m. We're now packed into the YWAM van, waiting in line at the border. Beside me a little girl is standing on someone's shoulders, juggling as the person on the bottom wanders between lanes of ponderous traffic. Every few minutes we drive pass vending stands set up in the middle of the road; meanwhile ,other sellers stroll up and down the rows of vehicles offering everything from giant porcelain turtles to live puppies. It's anyone's guess as to what's about to float past the window next. Although a few bags of fresh, hot churros (and also a slingshot) have come into the van since we arrived at the line-up, more is going out the windows as we hand sandwiches, bananas, stickers and toys to the vendors and their kids. That's the greatest thing about traveling with this group: there's nary a single ministry opportunity that passes by untaken.







Walking towards the beach, we could already
 smell the salt in the air.





Migrant Camp Outreach

Thursday

"This is going to be an awesome next few hours," I stated, as we stood waiting outside the vans before going to outreach. It was Thursday night: migrant camp evangelism time. These are the camps--more or less their own little villages--housing migrant workers who have been trucked up from their home states (usually Oaxaca) having been promised "jobs" and "homes" here on the Baja produce ranches. The work hours are long, and the living conditions are generally rough. But I'm told that people are far more welcoming of evangelical ideas here than they are back in places like Oaxaca, where hostility towards the church is still all too common.

Playing string figures and handing out coloured paper and markers:
 I was touched when a girl gave one of the pieces back to me
--folded into a heart-shaped card with my name written on it.

Although outreach nights like these used to centre around evangelism, with a New Testament film and a speaker in the program, the response was so great that Foundation for His Ministry has now switched to a more discipleship-based structure. Migrant outreach now involves holding camp-wide Bible studies to disciple families to take the gospel back to those unreached places when they move on again.

But it's not just all talk: we also spend a good portion of the evening serving a big dinner to everybody, playing games with the many excited kids and handing out gifts.

This morning's work assignment: washing the dust off of exactly 396 plates (yes, we counted beforehand) brought out of storage in preparation for a Valentine's Day couple's dinner at the mission.