And Finally, the Work

(Once again we are so rushed that we can't post pictures.We promise to get them here soon!!!)

As I noted, Camp Dayspring is run with military precision. There’s a reason for that! Doug Mallow is the MTW staff member who oversees the Fairmont project and the camp. Doug is a retired Marine chaplain. We’re learning that there are ways to do things and then there is a way that will, literally, pass muster!

While here for the week, each team receives assignments for kitchen cleanup and bathroom cleanup. We were on duty last night for both. By the time we left dinner at the community center, there was precious little that hadn’t been scrubbed down and sanitized. Some of us even learned that though we thought we knew how to mop, there is a right way to mop. (Kate Wheeler’s house probably will never look the same! She is now a trained and certified mop queen extraordinaire!)

After our evening orientation—covering details such as how to handle wasp nests, what to do with construction trash, and much, much, much more, everyone was ready for a little down time. At this point, we had about 45 minutes before we all had to be in our cabins readying for bed. Our brains were on overload. It was time to chill. Our outlet came in the form of 15 punch balls. We had thought the children would enjoy them. As it turns out, the adults took over many of them and had more fun that the kids!

The males on our team gave the females a true gift. They volunteered to handle the evening bathroom-cleaning duties for our group. If any of them weren’t before, they are now well trained in how to properly clean a bathroom. And poor men, clean they had to do. The 45-minutes of chill time resulted in more mud being carried into the bathhouse by the whole camps’ last-minute bathroom trips than it has probably ever seen!

The bathroom cleaning would have been uneventful (unless you think Todd Anderson and Denny Ragland with mops is an event), but Michael Megginson took care of that. In a freak accident with some toilet bowl cleaner, enough got into his eye to yield a trip to the Fairmont Hospital ER for eye irrigation. All is well now. There should be no damage, and he says it doesn’t even hurt. Pray that his eye doesn’t become irritated this week.

Bedtime came—finally!

After breakfast and a team devotional where we were reminded of all Paul says to the Philippians about attitudes, it was off to work.

The nature camp group went to the park to scout out how they will set up camp there on Wednesday. Sean and I visited the Fairmont Police Department to get the final approval we needed to include gun safety and archery courses in the camp. For those of you who have prayed for this, thank you. God has answered this prayer just as we asked him to. More or less by default, we have permission even though they usually don’t allow either in the park. Pray that we will wisely choose how to position these ranges. The nature team then spent the day promoting the camp. Looks like Tuesday will be the big prep day for them. Whew! Where are Dan and Leslie when we need them?

By late morning, girls on the construction team had scraped, primed, and started painting some doors for Mrs. Ann and Mrs. Robert. Some of the guys had prepped the area, set up saws, and starting laying out plans for the deck. Others have become siding experts.

All the construction teams here this week will be breaking for lunch soon. Pray that lunchtime each day will provide opportunities for them to talk with others—especially neighbors who are watching—about God.

Of concern at this moment is ballet camp that begins at 2 p.m. EST. We were led by the MTW staff to consider Windmill Park for this camp. In the past it has been a prime ministry spot for Dayspring teams. We keep hearing that it is not the safest place in town. It certainly doesn’t resemble the area of town we all know at home. Pray for safety for today and wisdom to know if we should move it to another park. All of our promotion around town directs girls to Windmill. We need to understand if this is God’s leading to another spot or the enemy’s distraction.

Our cool days have warmed somewhat today. Pray for heat endurance for all members of the team.

Continue to pray that God will lead to nature and ballet camps those children He has for us to reach. The word is out about both. The children now just have to respond!

Pray for our worship time this evening. Our camp pastor, in addition to teaching from Philippians, will be teaching from Samuel about making decisions. All 32 of us can use God’s guidance here—as is obvious from the comments above!

As always, we thank you for your prayers. They are of great encouragement to the whole team.

And Six Came (Monday afternoon)
We went to Windmill Park nervous about what we would find. All our worries were for naught. We were the only ones there. A few cars drove through, perhaps looking for trouble, but no one stopped or bothered us.

More importantly, six precious little girls showed up. They LOVED ballet camp. We are pretty sure we will see at least five of them tomorrow, plus they were excited to hear that they can bring friends. Katy Beckett and Mary Ann Friday did a wonderful job of teaching ballet and then a basic lesson about why Jesus came to die for our sins. Two mothers and one grandfather stayed to watch. The adults supervising got to sit and talk with them. Pray for more opportunities like these, and for the relationships begun today will just deepen as the week continues.

After camp ended, we talked about how it went. Mary Ann admitted she had asked God to bring one girl, and six came. Lynn Beckett admitted she had not had the faith to believe any would show up, and six came.

The girls we are calling our 14s (because they are!) did a great job of being camp “participants” and buddying with the girls. Please pray for Catherine, Sarah, Claire, Emily, and Bailey to know how to best reach out to the girls the rest of the week. We can’t wait to share the end of this story!