Lightning!

i'm not sure why i'm an idiot and always put off blogging until 1am when i have to get up at 6am for camp...it may have to do with my sunday afternoon napping habit, which was not a pleasant experience today as i dreamt that i was dying from some ambiguous disease which made my hair come out in big chunks. scary stuff. speaking of scary, you should check out some of my pictures on facebook from scaring kids on the hay ride. it's a treat really - each week i get to test the strength of my self-esteem as kid after kid tells me how ugly i look.
case in point:


so i really feel there's not too much to tell about this week at camp. it was a much smaller, more tame group than normal, which by now you may realize translates into a not-so-exciting week. i mean, what fun is it if the kids are not breaking irreplacable projectors or making death threats? so i had the youngest boys cabin this week, which felt suspiciously like babysitting, except the parents skipped out for the whole week. but my boys were really very sweet. i had two boys who were identical twins named...get this...devin and devon. really? really. AND their mother packed them plastic bags labeled for each day of the week with matching outfits. so as if the challenge of telling them apart was not hard enough, i had the added difficulty of making sure i said the right name. i got to play a lot of frisbee with them, though. and the best part was, one of the boys from week 3 was there - the one who nicknamed me lightning - and so all my boys called me lightning as if it were the name my mother gave me. whenever any of them couldn't find me, they seriously walked around yelling, "Lightning! Where are you?!" until i came. the boys were also young enough that i got to read Bible stories to them at night before they went to bed, which was new for me and made me feel extremely maternal...which is a good thing, i guess? embracing femininity?...

anyway, this next week is our last at camp and we're supposed to have the most kids of any week this summer. i know we have a few returning campers - some of which i've told you about. one girl i had in my cabin week 4 is coming back to be in my cabin again, so pray for chances to deepen our friendship. also pray for a heart of perseverance and the motivation of a servant for me. i'm pretty tired and ready for camp to be over, but i am asking God to keep me engaged in this final week in His work.

me with my lightning-happy boys:


there's one other bit of news: there is a pretty good chance that kristen and i may be interning up here for a year with a Christian hunger advocacy organization called Bread for the World. we had a meeting at their offices on friday which went well and made us even more excited about the opportunity. they just have to make sure they can afford to have us on and will get back with us this week. so you can be praying for the Lord to work out housing logistics if it's in His will for us to be up here.

[sigh] ok, sleep is calling me. i've really loved getting to talk with a bunch of you in some capacity lately. there is no greater blessing God has given me on this earth which quite compares to my community of friends and family. please know that you are cherished and missed.