Today started with me feeling exactly as I did yesterday, flooded with feelings of jealousy. It’s sad, but that’s how I felt. Dance Team was in charge of “PB and J sandwiches”, so I got up at 5:30am to make it happen. The initial plan of the day was to go perform puppets (only at a small tribal school) and then see the tribe. While I was still in my dorm before making sandwiches, I pulled out my mother’s precious, tiny full Bible and set it on my bed. I did not intend to come back to the dorms until we got back. After breakfast, we piled onto the two smaller buses (out of the total of three) and then we were about to go, but we were one seat short on the bus, so J, our head leader, asked if he could have a guy volunteer. Seated in the first row of seats, I immediately put my hand up.
PAUSE. Let me clarify here. I’m not the kind of person that volunteers for something before knowing what it’s about. I have almost always shied away from blindly volunteering since my first day in Junior High when the current youth pastor gave each person a spoon with some kind of red sauce. Lets just say that I was the only person resourceful enough to use a paper towel to clean my tongue before getting a bottle of orange juice from the refrigerated vending machine. At least one girl lost her breakfast. Super crazy hot HOT sauce.
I wanted something to keep my mind off of Bekah and away from the noise. Needless to say, after looking around the loud bus filled with loud teenagers paying little attention to him, he chose me. I was going to ride in the car both ways with Mirco (co-director of the camp), Ron (our church’s head pastor), and Barry (another leader). I was excited to be picked. I mean really, a chance to be in the presence of adult conversation without Bekah in sight.
The drive was convoluted. The police stopped the busses to check driver’s licenses. Apparently, it is a fairly common occurrence. During the drive I listened to Ron and Mirko discuss camp goals, issues, money, etc. while writing yesterday’s journal entrée. Thinking twice about taking my notebook on a canoe, I left it in the car. When we got to the lake, we took two small canoes with small 25HP engines towards the school, although it was small, it was worth it. Before the puppet performance we were eating lunch and these two gaunt dogs came over and we fed them PB and J, and crackers.
The children were so precious. Since we were so far from Panama City, essentially in the middle of nowhere, no other groups had come to this school. We distributed hot dogs and drinks to the children. There was this teenage boy that held his hot dog and let it get cold as he listened to Traci (the other co-director of the camp). He was too interested in listened to the gospel message. Suddenly, eternal food and drink from God was incredibly more important than his mortal need to be satiated with a simple hot dog. God moved. People responded.
When we finished our visit our team headed back towards the two canoes. I carried the extremely heavy bag of puppet supplies the 4th mile of trail towards the canoe. Gladly, I handed it over to another team member (Chris) when I made it to the canoes. I would have just kept it, but accidentally dropping the supplies into the river wasn’t an appealing idea. We then went towards the waterfall water hole to swim. Dakota through me his bag as we left, he needed to help do something and for some reason he figured I’d be dependable. Soon it started to drizzle and then it started to actually rain, while I cradled my backpack and Dakota’s bag in an attempt to keep them dry. Going to the tribe had been cancelled because of how many other groups had come to see the tourist attraction.
As the rain changed to a torrential downpour, I gave up on the idea of actually “trying” to keep everything dry. Pulling up to a small beach, I became keenly aware that I was completely soaked. We headed through a beaten path towards the waterfall. In sandals, I trudged through the heavy mud packing both my backpack and Dakota’s soaked bag. We eventually arrived as a group at the waterfall. It was the most beautiful swimming hole ever.
I dropped my backpack and Dakota’s sack and swam. There were to rock formations on both sides of the hole that served as great places to jump off into the water. Instead of choosing to get more abrasions, I quickly made my way across the water to position myself against the rocks with the waterfall beating against my back. Feeling my feet, I felt very aware of the cuts and bruises that I would have from the rocks, the mud, and one short fall. I rested against the waterfall. The makeshift back massage loosened me up. For the past few days I’d been incredibly tense from all the emotions and physical exhaustion.
We were there for almost an hour, while I stayed under the relaxing water and contemplated some of my past actions. I recalled our early team meetings. With perfect accuracy, I relived the experience with picture perfect quality while I recalled the voices. J sat on a stool in the front of the room. Looking out through the room, he surveyed each group sitting together waiting for his question. “What makes you the most anxious about this trip?” A few hands went up, answers came back. “Culture shock,” “Miskito bites,” and “Sleep deprivation.” Out of my control, my brain conjured “Bekah Ackerman one hundred dollars” and I looked towards her just in time to see her raise her hand. She seemed a little embarrassed, although as an actress, she hid it well. “Fund raising,” she sighed.
If I hadn’t been at this meeting I would have cried out to God for giving me such clear direction. For the past few months God had been putting it on my heart to sacrificially give and now he’d told me exactly what to do. Never in my life have I been given such clear direction from Him. Before this point, I only knew that God wanted me to give sacrificially and that Bekah’s brother was also going on a mission’s trip. Funds were going to be tight. Their single mother already has enough to worry about, and funding two missions trips from the same group of people would be difficult.
Arriving at home after the meeting I opened my wallet and found a sum just over $100. Sure, I have plenty of money in the bank from my jobs, but I never would have guessed that God had crafted me this opportunity so perfectly. About a week later, I made an “anonymous” donation towards Bekah’s account. I gave J the envelope and to this day he is the only person to know of this generosity. I sacrificially filled 1/13th of the total amount ($100 out of $1300). At the very least it would be an encouragement. A few weeks later I had the opportunity to be given a ride home by Bekah’s mother and I asked how Bekah was doing with fund raising. She positively told me about how they’d received some “anonymous help” and I smiled back “that’s great!” This had occurred months ago and had almost been forgotten.
I was jerked from my memories as the rest of the team gathered around the waterfall for a group picture. In the car on the way back, our car stopped for gas and then for tasty empanados and I technically paid for them even though I knew I’d get paid back eventually. Between Mirko, Ron, and Barry, they had several hundred-dollar bills, but no smaller bills. Their excitement had me smiling, “now I know why I was supposed to be in that car,” I joked to myself. As we pulled into the parking lot, I almost felt like bursting in the back seat from holding two meals worth to poop. Fortunately, there was an open restroom nearby.
The rest of the day was simple. I had dinner and enjoyed living. The worship after devotions was beautiful. I needed to wake up at 5am the next morning to go up the nearby mountain but it would be nice. Being back in the camp revitalized a small part of that pain from the day before. Lucky for me, it seemed like the wound was rapidly becoming a bad dream to be forgotten.
