{013/365} goodbye.

21st August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments

…that’s all.

{008/365} the dock of the .. lake.

14th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments

since i was a young child i’ve always said that disneyland is the second happiest place on earth; camp arnold is the first. but if we were to zoom in that thought a little more, i’d have to say that the lake at camp arnold is my happiest place on earth, especially when i am left alone with God. i’ve had moments of peace, like ten years ago when i was supposed to give my testimony and i woke up early to sit on that bench and figure out what to say. that bench was also the scariest moment of my life, when the stars made God feel so far away and i shouted out into the night “where are you, Lord?” and the silence and lack of peace that followed spun me into a panic, feeling like i had been abandoned and forgotten. the next day God poured onto me this truth – I NEVER LEFT. BUT YOU NEVER QUIETED DOWN TO LET ME TELL YOU.

today i picked blackberries and then walked down to the lake for BEing time. i watched the fish swim and tried to talk to the ducks and saw a snake slither away. then i sat on the dock of the lake and wrote in my journal, enjoying the sabbath of doing absolutely nothing and knowing that God loves me no more than when i toil and labor to be a good girl.

sometimes i feel crazy for loving a place as much as i love this camp, but then my heart breaks a little for people who do not have a safe haven like this.

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{001/365}

7th August 2012 | 365, camp arnold. | 0 comments

okay. i have tried this so many times, but i find that in retrospect life is more memorable and fun when i am in the midst of this daily photo taking attempt. emily and i decided we should try it together again. so today was day 1. we went on a walk all around camp, exploring trails we’d never been on and places we’d only heard about. we even took a trail map.

anyway. follow emily’s at her blog learning to breathe. follow mine right here.

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31 Days of Song {29/31} – Baby

29th October 2011 | 31 days of song, camp arnold. | 0 comments

Some of you probably thought you’d successfully manage 31 days without me talking about Justin Bieber.

Suckaaassss!!!!

It is no secret I love Justin Bieber..

See, I even have a shirt!!

Let me tell you what “Baby” reminds me of.
The song “Baby” by Justin Bieber reminds me of:

doing the dishes at camp with Emily and Tayla
“We’re going to sing grace to the tune of Justin Bieber’s hit song ‘Baby’….”
late night drives back to camp with the windows down with some of my favorite girls in the world.
that moment when Andrew Smith sang the “yo” and “uh huh” part once.
when Jordan auditioned for the worship team and I said “play A, F#m, D and E…” and I started playing the piano with him, and then I started singing… I had totally tricked him into playing Baby for his worship team audition.
the one week last summer when I was a counselor and we started to re-write the words… “we know He loves us, we know He cares. always forever He will be there…”
that one week this summer when the girls of Grand 1 finished writing what we’d started the previous summer, and sang it for me outside of the dining hall once.
Ila’s cabin surprising me with the “Bieber song,” a parody of the “Beaver song.”
This.
Driving 5 miles an hour around Camp Arnold, windows down, song blaring, and making everyone listen.
Doing the morning wake up call and playing the song over the camp PA system at 7 am.. and one of the boy counselors telling me he’d never seen his campers get out of bed so quickly.
Last summer they announced we’d be having a “hideous shirt day” and Jordan asked to borrow my Bieber shirt.

So I guess really and mostly, “Baby” makes me think of summers at Camp Arnold.
…and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anybody care to add anything else?

ps. I am currently in a state of really missing summers at Camp Arnold. <3 I blame it on the long-awaited Facebook albums of camp pics by Desiree Silva.

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{cline} field days

17th August 2011 | camp arnold., everyday life | 0 comments

photo by m.lutcher/m.marshall

photo by m.lutcher/m.marshall

There’s a tall field of grass at camp, just behind Cline field and on the way to the outdoor camp. At night and early in the morning it is ominously covered in fog. Some of my best and fondest memories have happened in that field.

A few years ago I supervised a group of 14 and 15 year olds. Every morning while the rest of the camp had breakfast, we had devotions. And every single morning we prayed for the staff and campers at Tahoma that week. I insisted that if they had to go to the bathroom outside, they deserved extra prayers.

As the summer came to a close, we had a special dinner. Pizza and Oreos. I’d overdone it on the oreos, thinking the 11 of them would consume two packages of Oreos. They didn’t, and we spontaneously decided to trek through the field to Tahoma and deliver Oreos.

We leisurely walked through the field, running ahead and hiding in the midst of the tall grass in attempts to scare each other when we jumped out. It never worked. We excitedly presented the Oreos with a song. You Are My Sunshine. After waving goodbye and accepting gracious thank you’s, we headed back.

It was a good day.

Last summer Emily and I took a walk around the lake without our shoes on, one of my favorite break-time activities. The Wanderwag Trail takes you from the long driveway into camp, past the Old Campfire Pit, slowly over gravelly bits and gratefully over smooth patches of cold hard mud. It makes its way to Tahoma, where you find yourself in the back corner of the field of tall grass.

The first time I made the barefoot trek was the Fourth of July, 2009. We’d been at a barbeque hosted by the Jordan’s next door to camp. As I sat, listening to conversation, I felt an urge to leave. I needed to be alone. Madeleine L’Engle writes about needing BE-ing time. Time to just exist. Which was why I left. I needed to simply be.

I walked the loop twice, the entire time wondering what the Garden was like. So many things I know I imagine incorrectly. Like the place of Jesus in Heaven. The Apostle’s Creed says “he ascended into Heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” And though I’ve known those words since I was young, it only recently occurred to me that when I close my eyes and imagine stepping before the Throne, I imagine Jesus at the left hand of God. My right.

I’ve always imagined the Garden to look like an orchard, with low hanging, fruit producing trees. Nicely manicured grass. Maybe a tiny stream. Some shrubs for the two to hide behind.

On July 4^th, I traded that image in. Instead, I pictured the Garden more like what I was experiencing; dense forest, tall grass, winding trails, and much to explore and discover. That was when I decided to only ever walk the trail without my shoes on, to try and get a tiny step closer to Eden.

Emily and I stopped at Tahoma and sat in the open tent cabins, trying to imagine what it would be like to be a camper or a counselor at this mysterious, cool camp.

But I said my fondest memories happened in the field, not at Tahoma.

At some point in our walk back, we decided to take pictures of ourselves in the field. We spent at least a half an hour strategically placing the camera flat on the ground and standing above it, or carefully balancing it on top of our flip flops and running towards it. We sat and made faces at each other and made model poses.

Then we went to Target and I made a collage print of the pictures. The caption simply read “good day.”

It was a good day.

One night last week I found myself heading towards the field of tall grass with Jacob and Phil. It was nighttime and there were no lights. We didn’t have a flashlight, and we were headed through the field out to Tahoma. After a few moments of quiet, I admitted that it had turned into an out-braving competition and that I was really scared.

We made it to Tahoma and the boys quickly walked back. I walked less quickly, complaining that they walked too fast. Even though it was only last week, I can’t remember what we talked about, but I remember that I wished we could do that every night for the rest of my life.

It was a good night.
A few months ago I found myself walking the trail through the tall grass. I stopped, looked at the wall of grass next to the trail and impulsively decided to walk in it. A short walk in and I sat down, creating a burrow. I sat there for hours, reading Psalms and writing and enjoying the solitude.

Since then, I’ve retreated to my burrow many times. The path from the trail to the burrow grows more obvious each time I walk it, threatening to betray my secret hiding place.

~~Today~~ A few days ago, I packed my backpack with my Bible, a notebook, a book my friend Shari gave me to read, three golden delicious apples, my cell phone and a granola bar. I was determined to stay there as long as I could possibly handle. So I stayed until I had to go.

While on the phone with Gregory, a bumblebee invaded my territory and I willingly stood watching until he flew past me. I tried giving ants a piece of my apple. I curled up in the fetal position and cried, wishing that I would hear the sound of rustling on the path to the burrow and look up to see Jesus, come to lay and stare at the sky with me. I listened to the wind in the grass, wondering what songs of praise were going on around me.

I read some of the book, and left the burrow on the phone with Jami. She is currently teaching English in Chile and thanks to the magic of Skype, she was a part of my field day.

My burrow won’t last much longer. Soon I will have to leave camp and the weather will do its business and the grass will suffer and then it will victoriously burst forth again, and I will have found a new tradition of burrowing every summer. A new burrow each summer.

But I will never forget the magic of this first summer of my burrow, emerging from hours in the field with little pieces of grass all in my hair and on my arms and even surprisingly in my shorts.

It was a good day.

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TWOsday – June 21st, 2011

21st June 2011 | camp arnold., TWOsday | 2 comments

Camp orientation drains the life out of me. Just kills me. and all I keep thinking is, “…the campers aren’t even here yet!”

Today myself and a few other staff members were given the task of making cabin flags. As I wrestled with duct tape and trying to cut fabric with kids scissors, I stopped and noted that we were doing this for the campers that would be here next week. NEXT WEEK. Campers! Little kids bringing lots of stuff. “Invisible backpacks,” as they are called. Coming from broken homes and bringing scars and fears and insecurities and hurts. and Jesus has set this place and these people aside to share the love of Himself with these kids.

For a few months, I’ve been really focused on a specific verse.

#1. Mark 9:37
“Whoever welcomes one of these little children in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the One who sent me.”

#2. Tucker Boettcher
Tucker lights up my life. Yesterday we played disc golf. I was in a foul, foul mood. Two discs made their way into our smelly, leechy, nasty lake. Tucker decided to try and find the discs. I am so glad to know Tucker and hear how he loves Jesus. He makes me a better person.