Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: CAMP (08/18/22)
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TITLE: The Old Red Bus | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jennifer Percell
08/25/22 -
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Milk was on each table and we were allowed to drink as many glasses as we wanted. No one else seemed excited about this but I could hardly believe it.
All of the campers were in 3rd, 4th or fifth grade but there were some small kids there who were children of the staff. After the first day I thought their parents would yell and hit them, but they still acted patient. How long could that last?
I was scared to do the sports, people didn't like it when I got outs or lost races. But I made a whole lot of lanyards and nature paintings. Nobody cared if they were not perfect. Campfire was my favorite though, the stars were so pretty. When everyone was singing I almost forgot the week would end soon. I imagined the pictures I had seen of Jesus, He was standing over the flames and reaching out to us. He seemed so gentle.
2022—Every year I am surprised that the gravel is gone. No more sweat and dust, the cabins are even air-conditioned. As we drive in our excitement mounts. So many dear friends will be here. We arrive and I inhale deeply, breathing in an indescribable peace. Here is my heaven on earth.
So many hugs greetings I can hardly get to the registration table. I am teaching this year. I have counseled, directed, and led crafts but my heart is in the kitchen. The kitchen where I learned to belong, where I found patience and acceptance as I grew in the Lord.
I take a walk around the hill. The campfire, the hill side where my new boyfriend and I tried to decide if our crush would last through the school year. The boyfriend who has been my husband for 45 years. I see the lake where countless friends and my youngest daughter was baptized. I pop in to greet the kitchen staff and let them know I would be glad to help them anytime this week. I feel the warmth of home there.
A man comes running up to me. He grabs me and swings me around like a child. I try to place him.
“It's me, Jamal, and I'M A CHEF!!! It's all because of you!”
My heart nearly bursts, Jamal had to wash dishes so many times as a consequence for breaking the rules. I finally started asking him to lift pots and knead dough and mix recipes. I soon realized he was getting in trouble just to come to the kitchen. He found the Lord here, just as I did, in the patient and loving people who never yelled, never hit us, never stopped loving us no matter how we behaved.
After laughing and crying with Jamal, meeting his lovely family and reminiscing together I have to go to the old chapel hill. I need a few minutes with God, in this place where He has held me close year after year since I came on the old red bus and found Love.
I pray the same praise, gratitude and awe that I pray each time I come here. I breathe in the wonder and the grace, the pure miracle that God worked in my life at Midwest Bible Camp. The 'what ifs' always make me gasp. What if that kind neighbor woman had never noticed the little girl who flinched and cried so easily. What if she hadn't paid my way to camp and pressured my parents into letting me go?
I dry my eyes and walk up to the dining hall. I drink a huge glass of milk and offer my week to my God. I pray He will allow me to quench the thirst of the hurting children that He still brings here, 55 years after I rode the old red school bus to camp.
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I love the way you structured your story, bringing together the elements of how camp can cause so much lasting good in young lives, all for the glory of God. Thank you for the blessing this morning.