Day 3:
Breakfast the second work day was a little quieter than on the first. People made their lunch sandwiches a little more slowly, and some of the older chaperones (okay, that would be me) made the occasional grunt when sitting down or standing up. Part of this is from the hard work of the previous day, part of it from the late night games of touch football or frisbee or -- a Towel Camp favorite -- the card game I know that qualifies as a contact sport, Spoons. Lights out was at 11:00 pm, but since when did lights out ever stop teenagers from giggling or chatting. Still, we only had to make the mandatory “be quiet” visit once.
One thing I’ll say for the team members as they made their lunches: they looked out for each other. The day before an adult team leader had forgotten to pack drinks, which is dangerous in this heat. Team members shared their drinks, but on Day 3 (Work Day 2), a couple of team members packed several drinks for him!
Workship was led by a different team this day, and after that, we were ready to get to work. Amazingly, as the teens got to their work vans, all tiredness seemed to vanish. At one worksite, they painted a special substance onto a tin roof (popular down here) to keep it cool. This included getting on a roof, and while they were not required to go up there, a couple of kids with fear of heights challenged themselves to get up there and paint. Another team did some bushwhacking and interior work)
Our team dug post holes. For the most part, we used an old fashioned posthole digger which is a lot of work. Unfortunately, most of those holes were filled with rocks, some the size of footballs - each of them had to be pulled out by hand. We also built a ramp.
After work, showers at the YMCA felt very good -- except that we were inundated by 6-year-olds ending their day at their own camps, so it took another half hour before we could actually get in them! Then some relaxation, more spoons, more frisbee, more football, and after dinner a powerful scripture presentation by our own Mike Fenwick, and worship that included a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace on violin by our own Liz Handman who played in duet with Deacon Mike Jenkins.
I am sorry that I can’t give more detailed accounts of work on the other teams -- they all include members of our church, but I did not experience their work and only got thumbnail sketches. However, you’ll have plenty opportunity to hear about some rather exciting work they did.
One last thing. Please remember the vehicle we road down in -- the Scooby Van. While our kids are a little tired of its lack of air conditioning (we helped get it fixed last year, but it’s broken again), the kids down here love to ride in it. There certainly is plenty of head turning around town whenever we pass by, and I’ve heard more than a couple small children point and yell, “Scooby!” Yesterday, somebody even offered to buy it. Sadly, I don’t think our friends at Grace Church, Millbrook would go along with it.
