Voice

Have you ever been camping?

One evening when I as a young child, some “old” friends of my parents came to visit. They were vacationing…camping!…at the state park near our home. We were all invited to join their evening campfire. I was hooked from the moment Dad parked the car.

The aroma of the campfire. The hot sticky sweetness roasting marshmallows. Sitting on the ground, not worrying about getting dirty.. Night noises from critters in the trees and the lake. The easiness of conversation. Stories from the bright faces that ringed the campfire.

Much later I would embrace the challenges of braving the elements, living for days without electricity in a fabric “house” with only our own resourcefulness between us and the great outdoors.

There is an odd conundrum about being ministers. The work of being on a church staff is so demanding that periodic vacations are imperative for physical and mental health. Yet the salary of church staff members will rarely allow for the expenses of even a modest vacation. Enter the additional benefit of camping that my childish self did not understand: tent camping is incredibly inexpensive!

So when our boys were very young, we began to collect camping gear. Sleeping bags were Birthday gifts. Cookware for Christmas. Flashlights came in Christmas stockings.

The last major piece of equipment was a tent. The most expensive item as well! We had decided that we were going to camp the summer when Nathan was four and Joel was two. We charged the cost of a large tent, knowing it would take several months to pay off.

Months before, Keith and Suzanne had decided to get married that same summer. For their wedding present, we offered to play all of their wedding music. No charge!

Two weeks after the wedding, I went to our local Sears store to pick up the much anticipated package. As I arrived home with that precious package, I stopped at our mailbox for the day’s mail. In the stack of bills the was a card from Suzanne’s mother, thanking us for the wedding music. And she included a “small token” of her gratitude….her hand written check was exactly enough to pay for our new tent

We went camping at Hungry Mother State Park in Marion, Virginia two weeks later.