I am typing this while on the way home. We should hit Arnold around two or so. I’m not really positive because if I ask Dan (our fearless bus leader and my favorite kid) he will say two and a half hours! Earlier most of the bus was sleeping so Dan gets on the microphone and yelled (hey or hello or something) and scared the crap out of the entire bus and then says “oh did I say that loud?”  I cracked up laughing and thought he would fit right in on a mole family car trip.

Dans little stunt reminded me of my sophomore year in high school. I had missouri history sixth hour in second wing. Back then only first wing had air conditioning. It was so hot most of the class was sleeping including me. Well the teacher dropped his textbook from desk height and screamed everybody wake up. It scared the crap out of all of us and we got a lecture for sleeping. Heat + History + Momotone teacher = coma type sleep.

Ive had a blast this week. One kid that I’ve seen all three years came for a bandaid and I looked at him and said not you again, you are a walking disaster. I told another girl she was going to die. She looked at me like I was crazy and I said well eventually because everyone dies. Another girls middle finger was swollen from being shut in a door. I told her to walk around hold up her middle finger and ask if it was swollen. And I wonder why I don’t lead kids but am the nurse.

Mole moral of the day. I use humor as comic relief. All those kids were cracking up and not so upset about their injuries. I have a humor gift and I decided it’s high time I use it. Now to figure out when we will be home.

I did. I created you! (Lyrics by Matthew West’s song “Do Something”. Every year at camp, Big Stuf comes up with a way for the kids to do something big. Last year they donated money and they got a picture of the kid who got a bible with the money they donated. Kayla has her kids picture in her mirror. This year was compassion international and sponsoring kids from Haiti. My first year at camp they also did compassion. I did not sponsor a kid at camp but that fall one of the kids from my church had a compassion sponsorship drive. They were hoping for 35 kids to be sponsored and over 70 were. My church was not very big at the time so this was really cool. I decided to sponsor Pendo from Tanzania. I have taken massive teasing about this since the beginning. My favorite one is she lives in CA and has wealthy parents and I’m being scammed. Just a few weeks ago, friends of mine went to Tanzania and met the five kids they sponsor. And no they were not drugged and really only in CA.

So I asked Allyson if she wanted to sponsor a kid from Haiti and she said yes so I let her pick. I am not going to lie I was surprised she picked a girl. We have so much here in America and still not happy with all our stuff. Just look at the amount of phones, iPads, tablets, computers, gaming systems. Children who are sponsored know their sponsors names. They keep all of their letters and treasure them. They get to stay in school have food and medical care. Seriously I easily spend 38 bucks a month on coffee and Brian spends it on soda. Isn’t that a small sacrifice to change the life of a child and have their story be so different because one person with so much gave a little to someone with nothing.

Mole moral. I think this years camp was by far THE BEST ONE EVER!! There are many reasons and I am so thankful. Big Stuf was sold last year as the man who started/created it (lanny donoho) was ready to retire. No one was sure how it would change. I noticed small changes that were bigger and better than ever. GO BIG STUF!!!

This is the first thing I saw when I walked outside this morning and it was so beautiful. It was like God was waving from heaven and saying I’m here and I’m gorgeous. I originally was going to write about the morning session but the evening session was so powerful that I am writing about it. Herc had an awesome post about this morning which I was going to copy and paste into my blog. However this stupid phone will not let me and I don’t have wifi for my computer. Sometimes technology is a big fat hinderance.

This is my seventh big stuf camp. 2008 was the first year I went and the theme was broadcast. Looking back I was pretty much a walking disaster. I had been in counseling since October of 2007 and things were going well personally. I was learning I was a pretty cool person after all. My take away experience was I FELT love for the first time in my life. I knew in my head people loved me but I never FELT it. I tried explaining this to Brian but in true dude fashion he told me it was the stupidest thing he had ever heard.

Its seven years later and I feel like I heard the rest of my story. When a person enters a valley or a painful spot in their life they tend to do one of four things all which do not actually deal with the situation and cause their story to veer way off course. A person either 1. Numbs it with alcohol drugs etc. 2. Ignores it. 3. Becomes angry or 4. Shuts down. I would be a 2+4 combo. I am really good at blocking people who have hurt me from my head. This is a bad thing to do. I also shut down and for most of my life I just pretended I was invisible. I still tend to do this when I’m running along the side of the road. I really don’t think anyone can see me which is probably why I rarely ever noticed anyone honking and waving at me. So if I shut down block pain out of my head it totally explains why I never felt love. God tore those walls down at camp seven years ago. My husbands dude comment shot them back up but I did finish counseling and most of the time the walls are down. When people have hurt me in the past seven years, I worked through it, forgave them, kept my memories but moved on. Such a much healthier way to live.

Mole moral in times of pain and trouble turn toward Jesus rather than the other ways to deal with it. He will let you cuss at him and say you hate him and still love you and be your friend!!

So are you today where you thought you would be when you were 15? Did your life play out the way you thought it would. My answer hell to the no! Not even remotely close. Don’t get me wrong I knew I would be a nurse but that’s about the only thing that I was right about. I had my appendix out at 15 and had an awesome male nurse name joe. Now remember this is 1983 what’s the odds of having a male nurse?

I envisioned my life kind of like this. First of all I was never getting married. I mean why would I bother just so my husband could leave me. Warning not the best attitude to go into marriage with. Second I was never having kids. I never babysat as a teenager and kids freaked me the hell out. I almost failed nursing school because of my pediatric rotation. I had to call my mom before my evaluation so she could tell me what to say to keep myself in the program. She was smart and I talked my way through it. So no husband and no kids. I was going to get my masters degree in nursing. I briefly considered nurse anesthetist till I learned you had to pass physics. I failed that in high school and dropped at semester. And then I finished my bachelors and said no way am I signing up for even more stupid busy work classes.

I originally wanted to be a surgical nurse. Three days in the OR took care of that. I was never so bored in my life. The patients were out and no one to talk to. I wanted to work in the burn unit and after two years of med surg nursing I did work in the burn unit for ten years. As my time there came to an end I knew I needed to leave but was too fearful. God took care of that and a really sad event had me leave and go to gyn floor. And for the first ten years I shifted my focus to moms who had lost their babies. And now my focus has shifted again to the women who have suffered injuries from pelvic floor and bladder slings. Dr. Veronikis is one of a very few docs in the country who can do complete mesh removal.

Mole moral if you would have told me at 15 I would marry, have three kids, work on a gyn floor and go to a camp full of teenagers as the nurse for seven years I would have fell on the ground laughing and asked what kind of crap were you smoking!!

We woke up this morning to a double red flag which means absolutely no going in the ocean. Just yesterday someone ignored the flags and drowned. This was our free day to hang on the beach as camp didn’t start until five this evening. There was also no sun and fairly windy and the coolest I ever remember it being. It would have been a perfect day for a run. After lunch the kids started their team building activities. Each group made a sand castle. Just as they were starting the second activity it started raining.  I thought to myself really God this is your plan because it sucks! Will I ever learn?

So tonight I went into session knowing it would be good but the opening was PHENOMONAL! God was laughing at me and said really Rachel you were complaining about the beach when this was coming. The theme this year is stories and how we are a small part of Gods big story and we can’t always see the big picture. So anyway camp opened with te host reading a giant storybook and when he flipped the pages they had a movie screen and the pictures were like a movie. It’s hard to explain but it was totally awesome.

John acuff spoke tonight and he told a story about how birds build nests in lobster cages because it is safe and nothing can get to the birds. But if you asked the lobsters they spend their whole life avoiding the cages so they would tell the birds they are stupid. When you feel called to do something totally crazy who do you listen to the birds and go for it or the lobsters who say it’s stupid and kill the dream. And do sometimes we run our ideas by the lobsters so they will kill it and we won’t have to take the risk?

Yes God I heard the word Haiti again. We shall see who wins birds or lobsters. I’m excited to see what is in store for tomorrow. Also I am doing these on my phone so ignore spelling and grammar mistakes.

Mole lesson of the day be careful what you say to God because you never know what will happen.

Every trip to Big Stuf begins with an 18 hour ride to Panama City Beach. Prior to two years ago we would leave around seven in the evening and arrive around one the day camp started. We would have time to hang on the beach, get our room assignments at 4 and the rush was on to get ready for dinner and evening service. Now we leave at five and check in the night before so there isn’t such a rush upon arrival. This is so much nicer because we aren’t on the bus overnight trying to sleep. However I think I slept the entire time. I was awake long enough to eat. Allyson was on a different bus than me.

My bus leaders are fan and Tara. Dan was awesome and I really felt like I was on a Mole family vacation. Every time someone asked him how much longer he would say 2 1/2 hours. Now Brian’s standard answer to that question is always ten minutes. So today was just a family rode trip. And the bus was pretty quiet except when the bus leaders put in Frozen instead of Hifh School Musical. Dan swore the DVD wouldn’t read. It didn’t matter to me because I slept through all of it except when they were singing Let it Go.

Looking forward to the adventures God has planned for tomorrow and the rest of the week.