9/18 Baking!

Today was supposed to be a work day, but because we have all become cleaning pros, we finished by 2 and had the rest of the day off.

As far as love languages go, gifts always seems to be low on my list for both giving and receiving. I do, however, love to give the gift of sweet treats to others. Absolutely LOVE it. I tend not to be the most creative person in the kitchen and everyone ALWAYS seems to be watching their sugar intake, so it hasn’t happened as often as I would have liked it to, but I did know that it would be something that I missed doing when I came to camp.

So what did I do when I realized that I had an afternoon off? I ran up to the Mi Casa kitchen and whipped up a quick batch of snickerdoodles! It felt so wonderful to bake again, and it felt even better to know that I had at least 17 other friends here that would love the surprise of a freshly baked cookie. There is nothing more disappointing than seeing your sweet treats go stale on your kitchen counter (or feeling cookie guilt after you finish the leftovers on your own!). So I packed up the cookies in my bag and biked around camp like a little cookie fairy, rushing around because about half of our group was about to leave for Rocksprings.

Every week, a group of Walkabouters go to FBC Rocksprings on Sunday nights for youth. Last year, the walkabout students stepped up to take over that youth group because they had never had any real leadership before. It’s an incredible ministry that about 8 students have committed to going to every Sunday. They spend their free time planning lessons and activities for these kids who live in a small town where the gospel is largely unknown. There is very little for the kids to do in Rocksprings and because the town sees a lot of drugs trafficked through, there are a ton of drug problems there. Each year, a huge percentage of students drop out of high school and it is common for a girl to have a child by the time she is 15 or 16. These kids have heartbreaking stories of how common abuse and hurt is in their lives and I am so glad that Walkabout has taken the youth group under its wing. I’m not a part of the core group, but I really hope to go throughout the year and just help that ministry in any way that I can.

While they were gone, five of us went over to our director’s house to do homework and eat leftover food. While we were eating and talking, the most incredible thunderstorm I have seen in months began. We turned off all of the lights in the house and just watched the lightning and listened to the rain for hours. The storm was incredible, but the best part of the night was the conversation that occurred during the storm. Because there were only a few of us, we were able to get to know one another on a more intimate level. It can be really hard to bring it in when there are 18 kids just hanging out and being silly, so getting several of us together to talk was refreshing in a very emotional way. I crave intimacy with others and that was exactly what I got from our lightning watching party.

I would definitely call today a success.