Bruiser! and the Princess

Rachel is the adventurous one of our two girls. She is always running, climbing, and FALLING! The most recent adventure of doing a faceplant on the gravel driveway has resulted in a fat lip and small bruise on her cheek. She bled a little bit, but was soon back to her old self. Princess, on the other hand, gets weepy when the mosquitos fly too close to her. Summer camp will be a joy for her! ;) Here, she shows some of her dance moves.

finding our place

**sorry, no photos with this post, but more to come**

we've been here at camp all of two months and it sometimes seems like years. i don't mean that as a complaint. there are days when we seem to fit right in and go with the flow of camp, as if we've been on staff for years. then there are days when i wonder if i will ever find my place here. i think derreck has fit in well and doesn't struggle with this at all, but the girls and i still feel alien sometimes.
as we were saying bedtime prayers tonight, the phrase "please help us to find where we fit, what our role is here" just rolled out of my mouth. and after the prayer, jenna stated matter-of-factly "mom, my job is getting the mail, i'm in charge of putting the flag up or down". some days she is allowed to ride in the golfcart out to the mailbox with whoever is retrieving mail that day.
such simple wisdom... my role here is to do whatever needs to be done "in the moment". just BE here, support the others, help where help is needed. sometimes i just want to have such a defined "job", as if that identifies WHO i am. a visitor asked me tonight what my job is here at camp. i had nothing, and felt less than useful because of it. when in reality, my "job" is many things... that DO NOT define me. my identity is in Christ. I need a post-it note on the tip of my nose to remind me of that EVERY DAY. well, more on that subject as i grow and learn how to find my identity in Christ.

God gave me an opportunity to share His love yesterday as a woman, very frazzled in her life, accidentally backed into a ditch while turning around in our driveway. She came asking for help to get her car out, and hopefully left with the knowledge that help is waiting for her in the person of Jesus Christ. She was very concerned about sharing personal information, not wanting others to know of her scenario, but i was able to calm her enough to get her name and phone number, and plan to call her next week. She was willing to pray before she left and i told her, though i only knew her for a few minutes, that i loved her. She could not understand how a person could love someone she has only just met. I don't quite understand either, but i have never felt more love for a stranger than at that moment. She is a perfectly made child of God, and just needs to run into His waiting arms. Please pray that my future encounters with her will be fruitful.

Tea Time!

Well, Jenna just never seems to get enough of parties in her honor. Jeremiah, an intern here at camp will be leaving at week's end for a job downstate and had discussed having an ACTUAL tea party with jenna before leaving. Well, she latched right onto that and took off. We made invitations, baked chocolate chip cookies, and got out the real tea set from great gramma Loryce. Jeremiah and Meredith got all dressed up; Jack was unable to attend because of a death in the family, and JD stayed as far away as possible ;) and we had our official tea party. Daddy and Jeremiah even got out their swords for a mock swordfight. It was very laid back yet "formal" and absolutely MADE her day.