Jack and Jill Again

I thought this would be my first weekend to skip Jack and Jill since my first time in 2010.  Again, Jack and Jill is a work weekend at Camp Barakel that focuses on bringing the Summer staff back to impact camp while enjoying a reunion atmosphere.

Well to spite the Jon Ford's weather forecast, the sun was out most of the day, but then some icy showers blew in and out a couple times.  My crew consisted of JD Stanton, Joey Winterstein, and none other than...... Mike Baker.  We were tasked with building a new Octoball ring in front of Boys Dorm on the West side.  By 2pm we were wrapped up with time to send the boys off, fix the door on Danny VanOrman's work garage and then a bit of cleaning to help Mike prepare for an upcoming group retreat. 

The rainbow lands on Ethan!

We're cleat brothers now or something.

The afternoon was capped off by a bit of an ultimate Frisbee game.  I didn't really plan to play any sports, so I was privileged to share one of Dan Krueger's cleats with him.  Never tried that before and it worked pretty well.  I enjoyed spending the evening with other Summer staff carving pumpkins, a little catching up with Mike Baker at his house, and finally a bit of frosty star gazing before turning in at the reasonable hour of 1am.

This pumpkin tried the microwavable cheese dip and then hurled.

Sunday turned out to be quite filled up.  Adela and I decided to hustle down to catch part of Hannah Ford's last soccer game at Delta College in Saginaw.  We were able to catch the second half, a point that left me fairly grumpy.  I like my itinerary going really well and not only did we miss the first half, but I took the wrong directions (didn't specify the correct campus or something) and ended up being an extra 10 minutes late.  After testing Adela's patience and using her GPS we were back on the right track before long. 

My attitude turned around about the same time as some of the girls almost got into a fight.  There was a hard foul (deserving a yellow card) that led to a tussle, then some other girls jumping in, and finally a couple red cards for the main belligerents.  The refs forgot about the original foul though, so I made sure they remembered it (although I think the ref on the line already was thinking about it). 

Beyond that excitement Hannah played excellently, and so did her friend Natalie.  Even if the skill level isn't perfect, it's fun to watch A) someone that has a great touch like Natalie, and B) someone that I trained with for years and then seeing them put together an excellent effort on defense. 

From there it was the usual.  Volleyball in Battle Creek, and then some tv with Adela before she scrambled back to Hope for classes on Monday.

Working with Mike always fires me up about camp.  I always try to keep myself open to Camp Barakel (where I think God might bring me more permanently someday), but in the meantime I am really excited about the work to be done in Battle Creek over the next several years. 

Thanks for reading and enjoy the Fall weather while it's back to being reasonable.  Not long and we'll be buried!