Camp Noah Biloxi

Many of you have heard my favorite marriage quote - "The secret to a long happy marriage is Low Expectations."

I went to Biloxi on Monday prepared for being told, "You're not on our list. Please leave." I didn't have Low Expectations, I had ZERO Expectations.

This one is being held at another Lutheran church, but it's "LCMS" and all the ones I've been doing were "ELCA". Don't ask me, I don't know and it turns out, I don't need to know.

The first person I saw when I walked in the door was Karen, a lady who had volunteered at the camp I did two weeks ago. She is the Site Coordinator at this one and welcomed me with open arms and some well placed sarcasm. So I felt completely at home.

The next person I met was the lady who is the Site Coordinator for next week and she immediately invited me to work there, too.

The inbetweens just keep comin'.

This week's camp is about 2 miles from where Karen Parker of Camp Hope works her regular job and next week is actually at the Church where she works. So my truck AND motorcycle are not getting much use for a couple of weeks. After breakfast I ride the Honda 3 miles to Karen's house and then ride with her.

Ivy, her 11 yr old daughter is attending this week and having a ball. She wasn't here for Katrina. Her parents sent her to Tallahassee with her grandparents while they stayed here. So my first thought was, "She wasn't really impacted that much." Then I found out that it was 5 1/2 days before she and her grandparents found out whether her Mon and Dad were alive. I don't know if it will last, but I sure see a much happier kid after just two days with these wonderful volunteer camp counselors.

Of course, I'm still helping here at Camp Hope in the evenings and in the morning before I leave. It's starting to wear me down a little, but I get so much energy from the kids that I think two more weeks is very doable.

And there are only 85 to feed instead of the 172 last week, so it seems a lot easier.

Just to recap - I started off the week not knowing if I'd get to do another Camp Noah before I left MS and by 9am Monday I knew I was doing TWO more.

I've a new phrase,

"Life's not fair. THANK YOU GOD."

Because if life WAS fair, I'd not be having NEAR this much fun !!!