Four letter words for the end of the week: Dump and Camp

Disclaimer: I started typing this right after our weekend at camp…and here it’s Thursday already. How? I have no flippin’ clue. And I got to give photo credit to Conner and Peter for 99% of these pictures. You're both beasts. 

Whew. It’s only been a few days since my last post, but I feel like so much has happened in the last few days that I need to start writing or else the blog will be way too long (probably too long to begin with) and I’m going to forget exactly how some of these hilarious moments happened. Many were probably had to be there moments and we were so stinking tired that made everything else hilarious. So I’ll begin with Thursday at some point. A bunch of people arrived at our house to drop off some more guests for the next few days. We were going to have 15 people living at our house. I whipped up some Bermuda brownies (in the cookbook) for supper for our rapidly expanding household. Micah couldn’t remember the name of the brownies and kept calling them “whities” even though I said you could just call them blondies. This was all going on while Conner kept flipping out that they were chocolate chip cookies but not in the cookie form. Micah asked if he could have another “whitie” and then proceeded to eat it and stated, “These whities are TIGHT!” I thought Kayla was going to fall off the stool from laughing so hard. I just shook my head and laughed. Wilmer brought down 14 seasons of ER for us to binge watch in my last few weeks here. I had gotten Yelsi addicted when I first arrived. We had a good time hanging out that night and playing apples to apples. At one point, a beetle dropped from the ceiling, landing directly on Kayla’s cards as she was taking a picture of them. She screamed and flew out of her seat so fast. Hysterical how these 2 (Conner and Kayla) can’t handle those beetles. There has been a lot of screaming this past week because of that.

On Friday, Conner and I went to the clinic at the dump. Conner was able to get great shots and videos while there. We had a bunch of kids and mothers with diarrhea, cough, and fever. There was one little girl, about 5 years old, who wanted to answer all the questions. Mom was concerned that the girl didn’t have much of an appetite, which could mean that she has worms…or just that she’s a picky eater. She piped up right away “solo pollo!” Only chicken. We asked if she likes to eat anything else. “Um, solo pollo con queso.” Ok, so she only likes chicken with cheese. Then we started talking to mom about what symptoms she was having: abdominal pain, worse after eating. We asked if she drank a lot of coffee and before mom could get a word in, the little girl piped up again, “Oh sí! Mucho, mucho café. Más, más!” We all started laughing as she basically threw her mom under the bus and said that she drinks way too much coffee…and continued to say she ate a lot of spicy food. Mom gave her the hairy eyeball look and shook her head. Another mother came with her 3 children who all had impetigo (really contagious rash) all over their faces…and of course they wanted to show you some love, hug you, hang all over you, crawl all over your lap, etc. In addition to treating the impetigo, they all had worms. As we started handing out the meds, other kids came and wanted the “candy.” We ended up deworming 8 people at one shot til it was all said and done. We had so many people who came by foot, walking for over 2 hours to be treated. We had a group from a Bible College in Indiana visiting who helped with the soup kitchen. One of the women on the trip was interested in going to nursing school. So, we chatted for a while, and she sat in at our clinic to see how it was run. The doctor that came with us (who plans on coming once a month) was great at explaining everything to them. While we were finishing up, a lot of the kids continued to hang around, play, and I had a few stragglers come over to say that they fell, twisted their knee and ankle, and wanted Tylenol. Another kid came over after we packed everything up to say that he had a headache. And then there was the mob of kids that came to tackle me to see if I had soap to hand out.

When we got back home, the plan was to get a shower, grab our stuff, and go to Peter’s house to finish getting ready for camp. When we got back, Drew mentioned that we couldn’t get a shower because the pump was out. I said, “You’re kidding, right?” Peter’s house didn’t really have much water either since their pump was broken for a while tool. My skin was black from all the dust and smoke and you sweat like a pig…or like a DOG! (according to Yelsi. Video of that to come soon…as long as Conner holds up his end of the deal to post it!). Drew said, “Make it quick!” The shower after the dump is one of the most rewarding ones. Like when you get a shower after clipping 64 cows and body clip the ones who don’t believe in shedding on their own, or after a nasty night at work. By the time we got to Peter’s house, we were hungry. I made bacon wrapped chicken and potato wedges as fast as possible and we jumped right into cutting out the lions’ eyes for the masks the kids’ craft. We were laughing so much. I honestly don’t remember what all was considered funny. Pretty sure half of it was we were tired and the stuff that comes out of Conner and Yelsi’s mouths especially is just flat out entertaining. We finally went to bed around 1 or 2am after making 3 batches of brownies for the kids…and ourselves.

Saturday morning, we drove down to Peter’s hometown, set up, and got camp started! We had about 32 kids from age 3-12 ish. We had such a great time playing games, singing songs, watching Daniel and the lion’s den and Joseph’s stories being acted out, crafts to make lion masks and Joseph’s colored coat (And as much as it pained me, I sucked it up and used glitter. It was for the kids. That’s what I kept telling myself. At least it was the glue kind and not just straight up glitter that goes everywhere). As we were getting ready for lunch, the one girl who is autistic wasn’t feeling so hot. She was whiter than me (that’s saying something), dry heaving while talking to me, and looked like she just wanted to spew chunks, and pass out. Peter had already gotten her water to try to drink. I helped to get her upstairs to lie down for a while, and Peter grabbed me a…sock (He insisted it was clean) so we could put a cool rag on her forehead. After she was lying for a while, she was able to chug some water, eat, and then join the rest of the group for the afternoon of games and activities. That afternoon, we got one of the girls to say “Conner is cheesy.” It was great! Came out more like Conner es cheesy. But it works! So Conner ended up with 2 name tags: Conner is cheesy and Father Conner. Yelsi’s said Daughter Yelsi and mine was Grandma Donna. We’re bad.

After the kids left, we had a little bit of time to prepare for wave 2: the teens. We had over 30 kids from age 11-17 Saturday evening, about 24 for overnight, and 27 the following morning. We started out with ice breakers and the kids were to guess our ages. The kids guessed my age to be between 19 and 36. The reaction when we said that Conner was 15 was absolutely priceless! We split them up into 3 groups and had them put together a skit of a Bible story. They did such a great job. The older kids did awesome with leading and getting the others to act it out. That night, we played a ton of games. I have never gotten a grass stain playing duck, duck, goose. But it has been done now! And now Conner’s nickname is “ganso” (goose in Spanish). Another game we played consisted of groups of 3 and the middle person had to be carried by the other 2 people. Well, I got nominated to carry almost everyone in our group. This one kid, nicknamed Chilly Willy (Yes, Shake, I can’t get away from that name! He was later nicknamed Little Chicken), kept smacking my biceps while I was trying to pick up these kids and run. He kept asking me if I lifted weights. When I said no, he looked at me so confused and just kept saying about how big they were and that I had to have lifted weights. Nope. I told him I was a nurse and him and the kids around him were like, “WHAT!?” Later on, we had a neon party, blasted songs that we could dance to, had black lights, glow sticks, and Conner used highlighters to color on their skin to show up under the black lights. It took a while for the kids to get up and moving, but by the last song, they were all going nuts. After that, we played capture the flag, in the dark, with glow sticks attached to the soccer balls to semi-see them. Then, we settled down around a campfire, roasted marshmellows, sang songs, and Peter talked about how our lives can be a complete mess, but God can use us and bring good out of the crappiest situations. We went inside and put on the movie Home for the kids while the adults got bucket showers. (Hot water heater died. Water pumps not functioning have been a theme for the last month). Once again, amazing shower. We all looked like we were about to drop over from being so tired, hot, and sweaty. But after the shower, everyone said, “I could stay up another 3 hours!” We played apples to apples for a while that night, ate chips, salsa, and brownies. It was so funny when the kids started cheering as Peter’s mom started passing out the brownies. Shake, you will be happy to know that I won the card “ugly.” (My little sister, Danielle, aka Shake, has called me ugly for years as a nickname. I tell her that she looks just like me…so what’s that saying about her? So she has been really excited that pretty much every time we play apples to apples down here, I have won the card that says ugly). Around 2:30am, we finally tried to get the kids to bed. The girls went to bed without much push. The boys…well, I was tempted at one point to text Peter to see how it was going since we could still hear them running around and yelling upstairs. I figured he’d flip, so decided not to. They finally settled down around 3:30 ish. That was after they were asking Peter if I played sports since I was strong. He told them that I work in the ED and see and do all kinds of stuff. That appeased them for the time being.

The following morning, the kids thought getting up at 6am was a great plan. So we started breakfast: eggs, nachos, refried beans, and fried plantains. The kids played soccer while we made the breakfast. And right as we were going to get started, I had an older teen challenge me to arm wrestling. If we weren’t getting started right then, I totally would have done it. 2 kids played their saxophones…from memory…to Hillsong songs. Um, what!? That’s not easy! Psh (just pulled a Yelsi…I’m doing more sound effects while talking). They did great! Afterwards, I shared about how crappy this past year has been, and how I felt like I wasn’t going to ever get back to how I was before all of this. But now I feel even better than before. God can bring something good from the crappiest situations. I shared that there may be times in this life that we may never understand why something happened, but we have to trust that God knows the big picture and we don’t. But there have been so many times that I have been able to use what I have experienced to help others going through something similar. We just need to keep trusting in God. Yelsi, Conner, and Peter all said what I shared was great and a lot of kids were touched by it. It was hard for me to tell since I was just trying to keep track of what I was saying between Peter translating and the fact that I was totally winging it. Didn’t plan out anything beforehand. Not like me at all, or at least I never used to be like that. I used to always write everything out ahead of time. Not anymore. Afterwards, we made cross necklaces, played volleyball and water balloon games. We tossed the balloons from one towel to another. When Conner, Yelsi, Peter, and I did it, this one white balloon would not pop for anything. The balloon went flying behind me and we couldn’t get the towel over there fast enough, so out of softball instinct, I reached with my left hand and as I’m grabbing for the balloon, I’m thinking, “Crap, this is totally going to pop in my face. I’m going to be soaked in about 2 seconds.” Nope. I caught it right in the middle with it twisting in the middle and it still didn’t pop. That balloon was a beast.

After camp ended and we cleaned up, we drove to a drive through safari. We were all so tired and hot. The stuff that flew out of our mouths…oh my wooooord (Thanks, Conner. We’re all saying that now). The giraffe walking right up to our car, the monkeys that Peter was convinced were going to throw poop, the goats that decided to…yup, that…in front of our truck, the toucan that started doing it’s mating call when Conner walked right up to it and Peter’s comment that just wasn’t thought through before it came out. “Conner, it must really like you. That’s their mating call.” Oh my word, we laughed so hard. When we went to eat, Conner was freaked out that Peter was going to send him into the wrong bathroom. (I told them about how Dad totally did that to Doreen years ago at the Meyersdale fairgrounds. We had both come out of the bathroom at the same time. She looked over at me and asked why I was in the other bathroom. I asked her why SHE was over there. Now, Doreen works there all the time. Ha). We got our ice cream and hung out at the pool, people watching. This peacock went up on the roof of this building and came into the pool area. It jumped up on a table and was eating someone’s food. Conner went to take a picture, got too close, and it flew off, scaring the crap out of Conner. I laughed so hard. He was shaking his head as he walked away since he could hear me the whole way across the pool. On the way home, we were all so tired, but needed to stay awake, and stuck in traffic for a bit, so that called for singing songs…loudly and laughing hysterically! I had officially lost all my marbles. We finally made it home after a long, but amazing weekend! I would do it again in a heartbeat! We packed so much in just such a short period of time. Can’t say thank you enough to my awesome friends who put that all together. You guys are awesome!

Here are some more pictures from camp: