Vacay Dining at the Gorge

As promised, here are the recipes from our family vacation last week at Red River Gorge in Frenchburg, KY....

Monday supper - Chili cheese dogs, BBQ potato chips, and hot cocoa 

Tuesday breakfast - Breakfast bagels with ham and cheese 

Tuesday lunch - Chicken satay skewers and southwest salad (from a Walmart salad mix)

Tuesday supper - Hamburgers, sweet potato fries, and double chocolate s’mores 

Wednesday breakfast - Breakfast burritos with ham, cheese, tomatoes, and red & green bell peppers 

Wednesday lunch - Baked potatoes, southwest salad, and sweet potato fries 

Wednesday supper - Campfire pizza log, southwest salad, sweet potato fries, and cinnamon-rolls-in-oranges

Thursday breakfast - Breakfast burrito leftovers and cinnamon roll leftovers 

CAMPFIRE PIZZA LOG

BAKED POTATOES

BREAKFAST BAGELS

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CHIP S'MORES

BREAKFAST BURRITOS

CHICKEN SATAY SKEWERS

I'll post the hamburger recipe later, by itself. 

Cause the burgers my husband grills are hands-down the best-tasting hamburgers ever! 😋

Thirsty?

 

John lived in the wilderness and baptized in a huge river, the river Jordan. And right after Jesus was baptized in that same river, God led Him into the wilderness to be tempted.

This seems typical of the Christian experience. A lot of times, life can feel like a wilderness. However, God always has a river for us!


"Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools" (Psalm 84:6).

Camp



A few weeks ago, I got to spend some time at the camp where I used to work! It was girls' week, and I had the opportunity to give my testimony to the girls. Then all day the next day, I went with them to meals, morning worship, crafts, recreation, Bible study, et cetera. It was great fun!

 

Two of the staff told me they had been having a big pity party until I gave my testimony, but now they were ready to be happy. And one of the counselors said that one of her campers, who had had a rough childhood, looked at her significantly as if it helped her when I said, "No physical or emotional pain is going to last forever if you know Jesus and are going to Heaven."

 

That afternoon I got to help a little bit with dinner. That evening I attended the campers' talent show and ice cream party, and hung out in a room with most of them until midnight talking, laughing, and playing  mafia. The girls loaded me with gifts - 2 dolls they made in crafts, a handmade bracelet, and a heart-shaped rock one girl found while walking.

 

It was an even greater gift to get to hang out with the girls, the staff, and the mission team. But the greatest gift in my time there was feeling like God used me to be a small blessing to some people! I guess, like people tell me, "God isn't finished with me yet."

 

Pray with me for the camp - for the director and his family, for the staff, for the mission teams that come help, and for the campers. Pray for God to ransom souls, and to work mightily in those who are already His.

Life Is Art

The camp staff were seated around one long cafeteria table, discussing art.

"Photography is art," said one.

"Music is art," said another.

"Communication is art," said a third.

And a fourth chimed in, "Recreation is art."

Laughing inside, I said, "Life is art."

Someone across the table took me seriously and agreed quite enthusiastically. "It's true," he insisted.

Is it really? Is life really art? Well, think about it for a few days and see.
I did, and now I think so, too.

One thing's for sure - food service is art. Did you know how much thought and beauty can go into one salad? Or one fruit cup? One wrap or parfait? It's an art form, and it blesses the eye and the recipient.

What if we carefully arranged our words and actions with as much precision as a painter creating a masterpiece, or as much detail as a food prep worker arranging a salad?

It makes sense, really. We were made in the image of Yahweh, Creator of all that is beautiful. He is an artist. His first recorded act was to create something beautiful.

Then of course we are all artists. Life is art!

"And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,

And establish the work of our hands for us;

Yes, establish the work of our hands" (Psalm 90:17).

The Chocolate Cake "Catastrophe"

Responsibility is not my favorite thing. I prefer to be the person in the background, following the instructions of someone else who knows exactly what they're talking about. But this summer, God took me out of my comfort zone and put me in leadership in a kitchen, feeding up to 300 people every day.

Now of course, God was feeding them and just using me as His human hands. And this work was for God's glory, not for the kids' stomachs or the camp's success or even its reputation.

When it was easy and everything went as planned, I enjoyed the job very much. However, other days came, days when everything didn't go as planned and it certainly wasn't easy.
Days when we ran out of Fritos for taco salad.

Days when we barely had enough French fries.

That one day when both the four-door refrigerator AND the top convection oven stopped working, and we had to make 15 lasagnas plus several trays of rolls. =) I still enjoyed it, and experienced the added thrill of conquering a difficult task combined with the joy of watching God provide. 

And then . . . there was the cake day. We had already fixed chocolate chip cookies and brownies. Peach cobbler was for supper, and banana pudding for later in the week. We didn't have enough cocoa to make nobakes. Peanut butter cookies were out due to allergies. That left cake. Easy enough, right?

We baked four sheet pans of chocolate cake, then slid them onto the cooling rack and raided the pantry for icing. Hmm . . . one large jug with a few cups leftover at the bottom. Guess we'll have to make the rest.

So we rounded up plenty of milk and butter and vanilla and . . . 16 cups of powdered sugar.

Now, 16 cups might sound like a lot, but when you need 32 - that's woefully short.

So we called the lady on grocery run duty, and she agreed to pick some up.

Breathing came a little easier, until the groceries arrived and no powdered sugar. They searched the houses on camp grounds and rounded up 8 more cups, and while they were doing the rounding up someone began mixing up the ingredients sitting by the mixing bowl.

It was my fault.

I should have explained not to start yet, but now the bowl was full of this runny mix of 4 batches of butter, milk, and vanilla and only 2 batches of powdered sugar. And we only had 1/2 the powdered sugar we needed to make up the difference. What could we do? 200 children and nearly 100 adults would walk through the serving line in 30 minutes, and all we had was plain chocolate cake and some random gooey liquidy stuff.

I wasn't thinking about God's strength or sovereignty or glory, only my mess-up and the (hopeless) situation. Crazy thing - even when we're not thinking about God, He's still thinking about us. =)

The director's wife was very gracious and tried to cheer me up, then suggested we try it with what we had and see what happened.

Sure enough, the little bit of powdered sugar was enough to turn the mixture into a thick glaze, and with someone's suggestion of a small container of cocoa added to that, it became a beautiful chocolatey glaze that drizzled nicely over the cakes and turned that dessert into one of the week's favorites. So yummy!

Thank You, Jesus, for being in control and growing my faith once again!

Fire!

It's cliche, I know, but it's hard to believe the summer has gone by so quickly. There are only 3 weeks left!

It has been good to get to know the other staff. As different ones got sick and drank firewater; stepped on nails; overheated, hallucinated, and/or collapsed; or broke bones, we have drawn together to care for each other and grown into a team I don't want to leave.

God has worked in the hearts of many campers, softening hard hearts, transferring children and teenagers from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of His dear Son.

This week was perhaps the most exciting yet, and certainly the most difficult. We got back to camp and visited the pet baby rabbit (who died a couple days later), played a couple rounds of Jungle Speed, and hurried around preparing for a surprise birthday party.

After dinner, we heard an awesome testimony from a newish couple on staff, then hiked down to the lake to jump and swim in those beautiful waters.

Monday morning, 175 campers arrived. They ate, played, and went swimming. They had a powerful worship service where the preacher encouraged us to give ourselves completely to God (Romans 12:1-2). They ate candy and went to bed, then woke up for another day of the same. Or so they thought.

The wind picked up, and around 3:00 it rained - an answer to a couple weeks of prayer! And oh, it smelled so good! The staff didn't eat much at dinner, saving room for the tea party that night.

Everyone had to wear a hat, and we voted on the most creative one. We went around the room and shared stories of our most embarrassing moments, and halfway around the room someone's phone rang.

"There's a fire!" We thought it was just a brush fire, or a forest fire; but it turned out to be in one of the dorms. It was hard to believe, standing there in the dark watching flames lick the walls and roof of a building where so much had happened over the years, an investment of many loving hands and a tool of our loving God. It seemed so purposeless.

And yet, all of the campers were safe. It was understandably traumatic, and those girls shed many tears. While the firefighters fought the flames, two girls were eternally saved from Hell's fire.

Camp will continue for the rest of the summer; it will just require a little rearranging. Please pray for the camp, and for the director and his family. 

First Week

How good it felt to be back at camp this past week! After a summer off, it was a joy to drive down that 15mph gravel road to the wood dining hall and walk around the beautiful property.

One by one the staff arrived and began to bond over jungle speed and ultimate frisbee, washing dishes and cleaning cabins, jumping off cliffs and hauling logs. We gave candy to campers, and we listened to each others' testimonies. We heard a talk on bitterness and were warned not to let any little thing divide us. The director and his wife demonstrated proper and improper ways to hug. We watched The Pineapple Story, and a sermon about meditating on small chunks of God's Word - one verse a week. 

I learned more about humility, and enjoyed seeing how beautifully God is working in my life and those around me. 

A few firsts this year: 

cooking for 100 people all at once

entering the "tower" and climbing to the fifth floor

climbing back up from the lake via the rope

waltzing with a girl in the dishpit

walking Emmaus-style when it wasn't Emmaus

getting lost in the woods

eating surprisingly delicious microwavable potato chips made from only potatos and salt

drinking chai tea

Next week will be the first week of official campers, and we're praying for 100. Please pray for us to be yielded vessels pouring God's love into the heart of every 7- to 14-year-old girl who comes to camp!

4 Days!!!

I'm getting excited about camp at Laurel Lake and thought I'd share some old xanga posts from the last time I got ready for summer camp (2007 at the Word of Life Ranch).

So... summer break was awesome; I didn't realize how long it had really been since being home with my family. We went on a lot of errands - shopping, visiting old friends, fixing up our old house in preparation for its sale, etc. I read the book for this summer, as well as some fiction :) and spent a lot of time with my dear brothers ... bike-riding, playing CatchPhrase and Dutch Blitz, listening to music, etc.

I kind of wish I was still there, I can't lie. But that time will come before I know it, and I know that God has great things in store for this summer in the meantime! I am so excited for those little girls to start coming! I want to be the enthusiastic counselor that they need, not letting any fear of man or discomfort or failure get in the way.... Please pray that I will depend completely on the Lord and His grace, rather than on my own feebleness which definitely isn't strength by a long shot.

This weekend will be fun, as all the camps are coming back and the STC'ers will be coming. I hope to get a chance to talk to my friend Courtney whom I haven't seen for a year, but we'll see.