If you have ever camped out, you know how soothing and mesmerizing a campfire can be. But there are many skills one needs to survive in the woods. As a city girl, I had many questions and many skills I needed to acquire:
How much water is needed to take a shower from a bucket hanging in a tree?
How do you make a campfire with dry wood or wet?
How do you cook outdoors in iron pots and skillets?
What snakes are useful and which ones to kill?
To clarify, my husband and I had started a not-for- profit organization to work with leaders in small membership churches and to provide opportunities for them to gather with other leaders to share ideas that work in the small church setting. Also opportunities for leadership training, fellowship, personal retreats and other camps. We started this work by developing a 68-acre retreat center.
Now this was started with no money and undeveloped land, so you can see why those questions might be crossing my mind. It is sometimes hard to understand God’s directing to uncomfortable situations but the Bible is full of those stories.
Soon enough brush had been cleared on the easement road and a small patch of land which allowed us to move a tiny borrowed camper into the land. By the way, have you ever been asleep and had a furry mouse fall into your face?
At the end of the very small kitchen cabinet in this very tiny borrowed camper, hung a plastic shoe bag where various kitchen items were stored. It served nicely as a holder for paper sacks and various other items which the limited cabinet space didn’t afford. At the end of this very limited cabinet was also the twin-size bed that we slept on. The sleeping bag was opened and used like a quilt and if you turned over in the night, the quilt was lifted by both parties, then, the turnover and then the quilt rested down again. Otherwise, you would pull the quilt off the other person. Willis would tell people, “the camper was so small that any turnover at night had to be choreographed before going to bed!” Lift and turn!
Anyway, that night, my face was just a few inches from the cabinet. About the time I heard a noise, I felt the furry mouse in my face. I couldn’t jump up and scream because there was a bunk on top that was used as a shelf to keep clothes, etc. In spite of the tightness, I did manage to get out of bed rather quickly. Not having a light to turn on, Willis began searching for the flashlight which he shined around until he found the mouse hovered in a corner on the top of the bench seat apparently as scared as me. Opening the door, he scurried out.
Another story about camper life was the day my daughter, Duchess, moved to the campground. She had been staying with grandparents in Little Rock to finish her Junior year.
Borrowing another camper from cousins in Memphis, which was about as big as the one we had borrowed from Willis’ brother, (bathroom size) we began to prepare for her move to the campground. Since the mouse adventure was still on my mind, we decided to get a couple of kittens. The one was called “Calley” because of her calico coat and the other pure white one we called “Princess.”
Little did Duchess know, coming from the city, what might lurk in the darkness and I certainly didn’t tell her. I fluffed up the little camper with a new bedspread and some teenage style pillows and the pretty white kitten. However, after saying goodnight, each retired to their own camper. I heard “Mom” two or three times. Maybe she had already encountered things that go bump in the night! When I answered, she just asked if her dad would mind sleeping in her camper and let her sleep with me. I had to laugh out loud as I answered “sure.”
The laughter grew louder as I saw what she was wearing when she appeared in the doorway. She had on a pair of sweatpants, socks and a sweatshirt with a hood up over her head. But the final laugh came when she exposed the socks on her hands. She had covered every inch of her body. You could sure tell she was a city girl!
That changed as she stayed at the campground and encountered life in the wild. Her dad was overheard saying later, “that girl could lay down with the rattlesnakes and it wouldn’t bother her.” I believe it was a compliment to her ability to adapt to the environment and the knowledge that Higher Ground was where God had placed her family.
“I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:12-13