2006-05-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

My name is Meghan, I am seventeen years old today (and other days previous and some days to follow still).
I beleive the world was intelligently designed... created, by an intelligent designer, creator. And every part of my being, existence, lives on that fact.

My family consists of eight people, Dad, Mom, Don , Mel, Dan, Me, Melissa, and Medori, in order of age. When I was 12, the year 2000, we moved to this town, into my grandparents house actually, my dads dads house. The first thing to do of course was get the kids into school despite the fact that there was only about three months left of the school year. After brousing the options I was sent to a private "Christian" school because my parents figured it would be the safest place for me.
Me and my siblings had been homeschooled for the previous three years, (which I will not get into d-tail on at this time) so we had to be sent in for testing to see what grade we where to be put into, I ended up in grade five. On the first day, the whole elementry was going out to a camp to do ice scating and sledding so it was a relaxed way to get into things. There were only about 21 students in my class and they where all very freindly and kind, excited to have a new student actually. Having had primarily the company of my own siblings over the last four years, my social skills where almost non existant, and I was unbelievably shy.
We where at the skating rink and pop and chips where going around, I saw all the other kids sitting together and having fun, but I was afraid, I thought to myself, if they want me to be their friend they'll ask me to join them, so I went and sat at a diffent table, to my delight, someone did ask me if I wanted to come and sit with the group.
For the first while I became friends with the most popular girl in class, I went over to her house, and went to her birthday party... One day I invited her over to my house, which, was actually my grandparents basement. I was still a child and enjoyed doing childish things, so we played on a push car and other adventurous games, she got to ride the car, I got to push it... I supose that after they realized just how uncool I really was and understood that I don't enjoy standing around talking about boys (egad come on guys we're in fifth grade XP) I was sort of, ditched.
I did have two friends, Sarah and Chasidy, who wheren't actually even in my grade so we only saw each other at recess, but at least I wasn't a total loner.
My family had been looking around town and finaly we found a nice house on 209 countess avenue so we started moving in there, understandably school wasn't going so well. My dad worked at a vegitable farm, and my mom stayed home and took care of us. One day my mom sugested that I invite one of the girls in my class over. Her name was Andrea and she was a little more kindly than the other girls who had taken to ignoring me. My mom knew her mom and they were trying to set a friendship up because they saw that it could work? XD She like to draw and that was something I could relate to, something we had in common. So the next day I had her over, we went to a nearby school yard and played on the play structure, we also played on the playhouse in the backyard.
My brother Dan and younger sisters sometimes played baseball with the nabouring kids, a girl my age and her younger brother who I'm not sure about. Our street was so quite we could play right on the road. It happened one day that there was a party with all the kids in my class but I wasn't invited, my good christian teacher being good as he was told them that that wasn't very nice of them and that if your going to have a party where people aren't invited, hand out the invitations secretly. It gave me an idea though, I invited the whole class to come to the towns park, island park, and play baseball. My mom bought me a new baseball and bat and each person was to bring their own glove. It was fun.
That summer Dan and I went to California to visit my Uncle Bill and Aunt Kim, because our cousin Alexs' siblings where all away for the summer and he wanted some company. It was really great, they lived in a house on a ranch, even though they didn't own the ranch and there wheren't any horses, it was cool because there was lots of open roads to walk along and there was an olimpic sized swimming pool in their back yard. The pool was a public pool to be used by other families that lived on the ranch, but no one else used it. I lived in a room that had its own shower and a door that led strait outside to the pool. While we where there my Aunt and Uncle took Alex Dan and I to a camp for a week because my Aunt was being a councelor there.
Back from California sixth grade was going to be starting soon. We where completely moved into the new house, but my dog wasn't doing so well. He was mopy and whinned a lot, we didn't understand what was wrong, my parents said he was just lonley, but no matter how much attention my little sisters and I gave him he was getting worse. We took him to the vet and he didn't come back because the flies had layed their eggs in his long fur and the magots had been eating away at him @_@. I didn't cry. I didn't even miss him, but I guess thats because I had been away all summer.
My birthday is on the seventh of September, so I began making invitations right away. I hoped to make friends this year, and prayed that there would be a person there who could be my friend. School started on the fifth or sixth, can't remember, but anyway. I walked into the class and the desks where set up in little clusters of four, all facing each other at diffent angles. Each of us got to choose our own seat to start off with, some people selected seats with their friends who they had no doupt kept in contact with over the summer, I recognised each person from the previous year and knew all their names first exept for one person, a new girl.
I told the people at my table the story of my dog that died and they thought it was gross, it was gross. The teacher handed out peices of paper on which there where things like, I speak more than one language, Things I like, and we where supposed to go around the class finding things out about each other with these questions. Of course I was most curious about the new girl, hoping that I could be her friend. While we where doing the questioning I overheard her telling someone she likes to draw and suddenly I was like, yes, I can be this persons friend. We have something in common and I can start a conversation of, of it and we can go from there.
After class I ran after her in the hall and came up beside her. "So what do you think of the shcool so far?" I asked her. "Its allright I guess" She said. "I heard you say you like to draw, I like to draw to, can I see some of your stuff".
Soon I handed out invitations to everybody to come to my birthday party which was to be an overnight stay at a camp where my grandparents rented space for a trailer. Everybody came and I got to know Jen better, unfortunately she got homesick and had to be taken home.
She was still a child like I was, and enjoyed doing fun things, the sort of things I liked to do. She lived in the country and I would go over to her house and her mom would help us get dressed up with sheets and blankets pinned to our backs (for cloaks of course) and then we would go outside with our magic staffs and climb on haybales that where our dragons. We would run around the field and pat the neighbors horses and when we got tired of that we would go inside and draw or she would show me neat new art she had found on the internet or screenshots from whatever happened to be our favorite tv show at the time and we would draw pictures from them.
In grade six I also got to know another girl, Johana, she had been there since kindergarden, but we slowly became friends and me her and Jen would do stuff together all the time, she always had the most inventive stories to play out like about secret royalties or whatever. Jen and I would go to her house and play in the basement or backyard or bike around town. She was my friend and still friends with the other people, she was an allaround no group person.
She would tell me the things they said about me, and one of the nicer guys in class would tell me they where saying things about me too. His name was Luke and I liked hime ^^;. That year I had an incredibly low self esteam I remember begging my mom to let me homeschool the rest of the year, "Don't make me go back every day is like a week" I would cry to her as she drove me home from a bad day at school. I don't know what I would have done without Jen and Johanna.
My teacher treated the students like extreme inferiors and would talk to us in a gentle you-are-a-child-and-do-not-understand-the-ways-of-life-unlike-me-who-does voice, to give a picture of what it was like, we had a class pet, it was a guinea pig named scooter, and sometimes he would go over and talk to it (we're sitting there doing a test "Helloo schoozie woozie, how is the guinea pig today") and that was the voice he used with the children, if you remember what being in sixth grade was like, you know that no sixth grader wants to be talked to like a guinea pig, or a child, they think their quite grown up thank you very much.
I wasn't doing well and didn't get my school work done, I didn't have any motivation to do it so I just didn't and I didn't care what the teacher said because I was inferior anyway. I didn't do work in class or at home and technically should have failed. but the school said that I could move on to grade seven because the government testings said that I was intelectualy at a grade seven and a half level so there wouldn't be any sense in keeping me back, I just had to sign a paper that said I would do my work next year.
That summer was spent with my two new buddies having sleepovers, and what not. My mom supervised at a strawberry farm calaled "Patten Acres" and I got to work there for a week which gave me a little summer spending money to go to the movies and Tim Hortons (fast food coffee spot) Once Johanna and I biked to meat each other half way between her house and mine then went to watch Jurasic park three together. Another time I went over to her house to stay for the night and ended up staying for three. I would go with her to do her paper delivery and we watched movies and played with her turtle and I drank her orange juice. for one week I took her paper rought while she was off at camp. and another week Me and Melissa went to camp ourselves.
It was called Turtle mountain bible camp... I decided that I would be friendly and be myself, be honest about who I am and say what I felt like saying instead of being shy, quite and reserved as I was at school. So I was, and for the first day or two everyone was my friend, untill they started teasing me. I got upset that my sandcastle was wrecked so I said I would start my own camp, and no one would be allowed to wreck the sand castles, I was just goofy like that, and they thought it was fun to tease me for it. I hated camp by the second day and wanted to go home, I remember once on the third day I ran into the forest trying to get away from everything I didn't care where I was going I just wanted to be free from it all. My councilor ran after me, I didn't even know anyone had seen me go.
She came and talked with me as I walked, she was kind and caring I told her about how at school the kids would teased me for the clothes I wore and the way I acted and here they do as well and I can't stand it, because it seemed like wherever I went the girls teased me. I can't remember what she told me, but I know I was comforted and decided that I could last it out.
Another time the kids who where in the skill "creation walk" got to go on a canoe ride across the lake and camp out there and while I was laying there I heard them talking about me and wanted to cry or run away again so I went and sat by the canoes and looked at the sky and talked to who I hoped was God and cried. After a while they where wondering where I was so I walked back over to my sleeping bag and told them I was using the bathroom.
It was the second last day of camp and we where sitting around the fireplace, two girls that I hadn't seen all week came over and wanted to sit with me, they knew my name and somehow seemed to expect that I should know theirs. I was so obsorbed in myself I didn't even remember these people. For the last day we hung out together wenever we could and did councilor hunt together I was so happy.
Summer did eventually end though, and I was to be 14, going into seventh grade. This year for my birthday party I just went to Lynches point with the family and had Jen and Johanna out for supper and a movie. That year Johanna introduced me to her nabour, Neica. So my group of friends had expanded to three people and each of us knew each other and could do fun things together. My parents where going to be away for a weekend and I asked to organize a sleepover party. I had Neica, Jen and Johanna over we had icecream, pop, chips and seven movies. For breakfast we had waffles and whipped cream.
School still wasn't going well because I had gotten into the habit of not doing my work or paying attention in class and wasn't about to get out of it. My teacher, Mr. Lowen, was kind and encouraged me to do my work and took me aside and told me that I needed to start getting my stuff done. He gave me sheets to work on at home in order to catch up, but I never finished all of them. I was also not getting my work done around the house, like dishes and cleaning up.
My parents had been talking about what our purpous here was and what we where going to do. They wanted to be missionaries to Canada, and they believe that your faith isn't somthing you tack onto your life style, they believe you base your life style off it (I guess thats where I first got my opinion from) so they had been trying to figure out what to do. And where considering buying a large property outside of town and starting a camp there. Things wheren't really coming together though.
My Brother Don was off at a school that my Uncle Bill and Aunt Kim where running. They moved up from California and started a school called LiMiT (Life Ministry Training) at a place called Winkler Bible camp. And my parents where thinking that maybe we could start something like that here in town. So they talked it over with us (the kids) and we said yeah yeah, sounds good. Now we had to find a building.
It happened that a group which had been running a homeschool program was sellig their building, it was a huge building... being that it was a school. And we bought it. Slowly we began moving into it, the moving thing wasn't so helpful on my marks thing eigther because I didn't have time to do my work, and didn't make the time to eigther.
Don came back from Winkler for the Summer and helped us move, as I said the building was huge, it had a main building where there's a lounge and two offices and a full apartment two stories high on a floor above the main building(thats three floors just to clarify), to the right theres a hall that leads to the boys bathroom and a huge room (the North Wing) and to the left theres a hall that leads to the girls bathroom and a small staff kitchen and another huge room (the South Wing) and strait ahead is a hall to the laundry room and gym, yes gym, like a school gym, stage, and drama closet. Another great thing was that there was a soccer field and out the front door down a hill there was a river with a dock and a fire place... and lots of trees, I used to love climbing trees.
My mom was director of a boys group home called "Home of Hope" (nicknamed by participants "the home of dope") and they needed a new building because the nabors where complaining. We offered for them to use our house and so the boys and their staff moved into the North wing and my family lived in the south end, the aprtment needed renovating so was left empty. She also supervised at the strawberry farm again and some of the boys did picking, Tyler and Ben. I also picked strawberries, but for the whole season that year. They where having trouble keeping workers because it was to monotonous and hot, I was 13 years old and one of their best pickers just because I stuck to it.
This was the summer Jen introduced me to Yu-Gi-Oh, and got me interested int drawing anime and reading manga. I went over to her house quite a bit, she invited me to an anime convention called ai-con. You where suposed to dress up as some anime character so I went to the drama closet and found some cool looking stuff and went as my own original character. She also took me to a huge fair called the Red River Exibition and went on a whole bunch of rides, and... bought vanilla coke for the first time.
It was a wonderful summer, but did eventually end, and grade eight began. Our teacher was a man from Holland named Mr.Vreugdenhil, or somthing like that, but we just called hime Mr.V. The poor man got no respect. Jen and me would throw pencil lead cases with notes in them at each other, or would engrave notes into plastercine and throw them across the room, or I would just pull up a chair beside her desk and we would talke (in the middle of class!) I also spent most of my time drawing rather than listening or working, and by the end of the year had completed a 25 page fan comic of Yu-Gi-Oh.
This year there where two new people in the class, Amy, and Kali. The first day of school Jen invited Amy and I over to her house for a sleepover and I was surprised to find she was allowed to come, my mom wouldn't have let me go for a sleepover until she knew the persons parents. Amy was quite and conserved. After a while we also got to know Kali, she was outspoken and rowdy.
Jen and Kali didn't get along very well, I remember once we where going to play cards at recess and she wouldn't come and play because she was mad at Jen because Jen had gotten mad at her for something she had said to me. I looked over at her sitting there and she looked back at me, "arg, Meghan, your not allowed to look at me like that" I don't know what look I gave her, but she came and played cards. Her and Jen really didn't get along at all... her and Amy didn't really eighther.
One time we where sitting around and she asked Amy, "can you read my mind" Amy was like, "no" Kali said "Well if you could you would see that I want to strangle you right now" it was just a joke but the next day Kali got called to the office, Jen and me had to come along and Amy and her mom where there waiting for us. We where witnesses to the event. After we had told our bit we where told to leave, we didn't want to because we wanted to support Kali because Amy's mom wasn't being very nice and we where afraid for her. But Mr.V said the principle was there to take care of it. Unfortunately the principle didn't do such a good job. Kali got yelled at and told off and in big trouble. She came out of the office crying and hating "christians". Jen Amy and I stayed with her in the bathroom at recess.
This year for my birthday I invited Jen, Kali, Amy, and Johanna over for a sleepover but only Jen and Kali could make it. I had planned to go to lynches point again but we decided not to and slept on the stage in the gym.
My parents started discusing what else we could do with this place, because the Home of Hope was going to be moving out. They came up with the idea of running a kids camp. We mailed some people we had known from before coming to this town, these people went to the LiMiT program back when it first started in 1998 in the small town of Pinawa (not Winkler as it is now) and we asked them if they would come out and be senior staff at the camp, we also decided to have a program for junior staff between the ages of 13 and 16 called Silas. So mom made brochures and posters for campers and Silas and set them up all over town and in churches.
Everybody was rushing around trying to get ready for the staffs arival going to the big city to get groceries and snacks like candy bars and pop for tuck. My grandpa bought us bunkbeds mattresses some coutches and a bunch of assorted chairs at an auction. So we set up the north end for the girls and the south end for the boys, we bought a riffle, some bows, life jackets, paddles and rented some canoes from another camp. Mom began to work on the different things we would be teaching the campers, like, bible stories and what not.
First thing that happened was the senior staff arived there was Ben, Connie, Booie, and Jen (not my friend Jen a different one). Mel (yes my sister) and Booie where going to be the Silas directors, Jen was the camp director and Ben and Connie where cabin councelors. They had many meatings together, which I didn't find to interesting so just did my own thing. Finally the Silas arrived. There was a guy named William and two girls Stephanie Banmin and Stephanie Boze. We also had an exchange student Andrean. Mom decided to give a scholarship to two people at my school for notable displays of servanthood (serving others unselfishly) and Andrea got one, the other guy had soccer camp to go to.
The focus of camp was to be on the staff and making sure that they are in and environment where they can grow and change, so that we don't just take some people, use them for all their worth and at the end of summer their dead and plod through the rest of the year untill finaly they recouparate and are ready to give all they've got for the next summer. So, we had a week of intense training.
Training meant a lot of things, first we where talked to about how to work as a team, take care of each other, and complete the task, and all three had to be in balance to get anything accomplished efficiently. Then we had to do a number of bizzare tasks that where supposed to make us trust each other and get to know each other for who we really are.
There was the killer beam, where we all had to go over a beam that was about six feet off the ground without touching the supports and holding hands in a line without breaking the line. It took us nine hours in segments of forty minutes to get it done because we kept having to start over.
Another one was lady, where we all had to heave this masive log and run affter the trainer (my mom) at whatever speed she went wherever she went. William wasn't doing his share of the work so we had to put the log down and he had to get on it and then we had to pick it up again. Soon Stephanie Boze also had to go up on the log and we where only done when the trainer said we where done.
We also did a number of word puzzles together (we where terrible at them) it so happened once that we did a word puzzle where there where going to be eight missionaries heading out to a tribe of bush people and we had to plan their supplies with a limmited budget... Dan and me knew what was comming but we wheren't allowed to say anything about it.
... we had to go on a three day canoe trip with only the supplies we decided on in that word puzzle. We hadn't asked for any toilet paper X_x and thats actually what in the end inspired us to finish off the killer beam. after we discovered what was going to happen we got sent out to try the beam again and where told that if we could finish it this time, we would get toilet paper.
That night we all packed our stuff and the next day loaded up and headed out. I had been wanting to go on a canoe trip since I was nine years old and heard that my Aunt Kim was taking a bunch of people in the LiMiT program on one (for training as we where doing now) and asked to go along. She said when I was twelve I could come. But a lot happened in three years.
Finally everything was loaded into the canoes and the canoes where in the water. I was in the back of a canoe with William in the front, Andrean, Stephanie Banmin, and Andre all together in another, Dan and Stephanie in one more, and Mel and Booie together in the last.
As I sat in the canoe and went around the first corner I was like, yeah finally a canoe trip, paddle, paddle, paddle... paddle... we rounded another corner... erm, is this all that a canoe trip is? But it was still fun.
The weather was what could be considered miserable, sprinkling rain and lots of clouds. Mel handed around some empty garbage bags and we pulled them over our legs, Andrea called them our sexy leather skirts. For each activity we had to choose a team leader, and I was chosen for this trip which meant I got to choose when we all gathered together and had snack time or lunch time.
I didn't get to choose where we camped though, some of the senior staff had gone ahead and plotted the rought before hand and found a good spot, unfortunately we where much slower paddlers and didn't make it to their planned spot so found another one instead.
Mel and Booies canoe tipped over and all their stuff got wet, so in exchange for some dry blankets they let us use their fire (we hadn't bought fire makeing stuff) and I got everyone organized making the tarp we had brought into a tent, and gathering wood for the fire. After everything was set up we went swimming in the river.
Eventually camp did start and that was all good, but the most memorable thing about it all was my buddy staffs and all the fun things we did together. I did get to go to ai-con with Jen again, but not the Red River X that year. Dan went of on a mission trip back to Papua New Guinea to work in the place we had originaly started building so he wasn't there for most of the summer.
When the end of the summer came about we left with the understanding and hope of seeing each other at the Monthly Silas retreats where we would get to come together again.
So ninth grade started and at the school I went to ninth grade was hi school and hi school was held in class rooms up stairs. Jen me and Andrea became tight tight friends. Any time you saw one of us the other two where not far. Some of the nicknames we got where, the three muskateers, the weird sisters, and the three stooges, because we where just plain goofs. High school was much different what with moving from class room to class room.
Silas retreats happened regularly, at them we would have a couple hours of teaching time on things like, prayer and fasting and after wards we would go outside and play games or swim. Our family regularly was hosting banquettes or letting people rent the place for retreats and the silas kids always got to come out and help. By helping they could earn Silas bucks to pay for the next years tuition (to the program, yes it costed money).
Kali didn't go to our school that year, and one time I was talking to her on MSN and discovered that she had been kicked out of her house and she needed a place to stay. So we went and picked her up from the grocery store and drove her out to our place. It wasn't long before she had been entered into the foster care system and we where being paid to take care of her.
Mom was working at the home of Hope part time. One day she called a family meating and told us there was a nice guy there who wasn't doing so well in the group home attmosphere and she wanted to see if he could get transfered to here. We all said it was an alright idea and soon we had another guy, Wade.
He arrived and was sitting in one of the offices, mom came over to Dan and me and encouraged us to go over and be friendly, we where like, but it's scary, but went over and talked to him anyway.
We turned the south end into six small rooms because we where hopping some time to get the LiMiT program started here. But until then we would use the rooms for all these new people we where getting and rent some out. Back when my mom was director of the Home of Hope she got to know a guy named Tyler, by now he was old enough to be out of the program, but he needed a place to stay, so we rented him one of the rooms.
That year was fun because I got to be with Jen and Andrea, and Being at home was fun because I got to be with Kali and Wade, and sometimes Tyler. We would walk around the country side down trails in the bush to different beach areas along the river, the best was Tods beach it had sand and deep water... only thing was that the natives from the reserve came out there sometimes to party so you had to be careful what time you went. We would have fires down by the dock and go fishing at the waterfall area it was all so great.
Camp was once again approaching, Dad was starting to talk about getting out of his job at the vegitable farm and coming to work at home full time. Mom was all excited about her new idea for what we would teach the kids this year. Back when we where missionaries in Papua New Guinea we where with a program that, after learning the language, would teach the people the story of God from the bible from the beginning to the end, it was called "Creation to the Cross". So she was going to do something similar.
I was asked to do the cover for the booklets she was going to get printed. And soon after summer started our new staff arived, this year we didn't have any of the Senior staff back except for Mel who was again going to be the female Silas director, and we got a new guy, James, to come in and be the male Silas director. He was married and his wife had a baby on the way so they got to share the appartment with my parents. I moved down into one of the rooms in the south end.
This year we had Dan, William, Williams brother Anthony, a guy from school named Jonathan, Wade, Kali, Tessa, Andrea, Melissa, and me in Silas. Oh, we also got another french exchange student, Veronique I tried to convince Jen to come, but she was hoping to get a summer job. We did training as usual but this year we got a part in coming up with what to do in the teaching times and choosing the songs to sing at camp fire. We got to write the dramas, this year the dramas would be of Lucifer betraying God, and God sending him away, and of Adam and Eve in the garden and being tempted and then getting sent out... you get the picture, all the way to the time when Jesus gets raised and that would be the last drama of the week.
The canoe trip was different this year. We had been sent out in our canoes with nothing but the clothes on our backs, sunscreen, bug spray and each of us had our own towl... I think we had a couple of snacks to... yeah, a whole lunch in fact, apple, juice, sandwich, trail mix, yah good stuff. We started off much less far from the part in the river where the camp is and where going to canoe down to a farmers field we had asked to use that had road access so we could do all the rest of the training (like word puzzles, activities and teaching times)But once we got to the site it turned out that the farmer had installed a big noisy water pump since the last time we had been there. We didn't want to stay there and spent the rest of the training time with this big noisy thing, so we had a meating and decided to leave a note and head down river to Tods beach because it has road access.
We wheren't sure whether thats where we would be staying but once we got there we decided to start setting up anyway. We got a fire going and attempted to make a lean to but gave up on it in case we where going to be leaving and went swimming instead. Finally My mom and Dad came in a truck and them James and Mel went away to have a meating about what was going to happen. After about half an hour they came out and told us we would be moving on to a cleared spot in the bush across the river from where the house is.
Dad Mom and Medori where already there by the time we arrived and sitting there was a barbque. We where like, 0_0 wow, we're so good off this year T_T. They told us that there where other supplies hidden in the bushes. It was about an hour to dark, and being the team leader I organized people to search the bush in an orderly fashion so as not to miss anything.
We came out with a huge tent that was big enough for all of us with a dividor in the middle for the guys and girls to be seperate, a huge black tarp plastic sheet thing (big enought to cover the floor of a school gym!), two normal sized blue tarps, a couple milk crates of food, dishes like cups, plates, cutlery, stir spoons nives... and a chainsaw with gas, oil and a spare chain to run it. We also found a nice pile of cut and dried wood but they said they didn't put it there.
By this time we where wondering just how long we would be staying out here but the leaders wouldn't tell us. I got some people to gather more fire wood and start a fire, some people where pitching the tent, and some where organizing the "kitchen". They put one of the blue tarps on the ground for the kitchen floor, and set the bins stuff had come in on their sides and ontop of each other to make shelves and put all the dishes and food into different "cupboards"
We ended up spending three days there. We did activities and teaching times and when we where getting to tired during the teaching times we got sent outside to run some laps around the camp site. We lazed around a whole bunch just laying about in the tent or outside. Meals where always an excurtion. We made macaroni on the barbque and if you have never had barbqued bacon... get out there and make some! The cookies where in a bin with the gas for the chain saw, and tasted like gas, Kali and Andrea where the only one's who would eat them. We washed the dishes in a little bin of cold water.
The whole time we didn't know when it was going to end, but on what turned out to be the last day it rained the whole time, we covered some of the food in the tarp and the rest brought into the tent and spent the day socializing in the tent. It rained all night and I woke up at around three in the morning because it was cold and the walls where getting wet because the tent was cheap.
Then I heard James say, Hey, lets have a meating, and it turned out I wasn't the only one awake from the misserableness, everyone was. so we took down the dividors and made an action plan. Some of us would run outside and take the enormouse black tarp and drape it over the tent and hold the front part up with twine and tree branches and another group of people would make breakfast.
William, Dan, Wade and I where on the tarp crew and took the enormous black thing unfolded part of it and put it over the tent and tied the edges to trees, it looked like an awning, because it went over the tent and then over some more about the distance of the tent. We put the barbque there. So we had a minnie tent inside of our massive black tent.
Unfortunately the truck arrived about an hour later (by now it was around 7 or 8, nobody was allowed to have a watch so I'm not totally sure) and said we would be heading home today. So we loaded everything into the truck and canoed across the river to our dock. The summer was great... Wade and Kali decided they wanted to be christians.
The private christian school was to expensive for us to afford again. So for grade ten I was going to a public hi school, Dan was as well, only to a different one in town because it offered a power mechanic course. Andrea and Wade would also go to that school. Jen would still be going to westpark.
Andrea, Wade and I where friends at school and spent our lunch hours together, but... both of us liked him... and he didn't know eighther of us did. He thought we where just friends. So we where always sort of unconciously competing with each other for his attention. Eventually I got frustrated with it all because I was jealous of Andreas frindship the way that it used to be and I was jealous of his attention because she was better at getting it. And I was lonely because for one thing the friendships I had where not exactly enjoyable to me, and I wanted Jen to be there because she was my best friend and I missed her. And we wheren't really having very many Silas retreats and when we did we didn't really do much teaching time and it wasn't really very enjoyable because each person was selfish and wanted to do what they wanted to do, getting us together to have some team hang out time like we used to do for hours, for fun was like pulling teath.
I met a girl at school in grade twelve, Christine, who needed a place to stay and told her about our place, she moved in. A new foster girl named Ashley Taylor, and another one named Ashley Marie came, Kali moved back to her own house that year because her mom told her she was coming home and they where going to make it work
That summer some of the campers where of the age to be silas, and that was somewhat nervous making because in the past we had a more dominant christian staff base, but this year there was only a few of the staff from last year Kali, Stephanie, Jonathan, James, and Veronique where gone which means we had Wade, Andrea, Dan, William, Anthony, and me for third year senior staff. Yeah, four fifteen and sixteen year olds as the major camp staff (make no mistake we are all very responsible kids... Dan was eighteen) and we where called Titus in order to seperate us from the younger staff. Silas this year was thirteen thirteen year olds, Melissa, Ashley T, Ashley P, Candy, Michelle, Danise, and two other girls who didn't stick around long enough for me to learn their names. Then for boys, Josh, Mitch, Flloyd, Dustin, and Justin.
We didn't have enough staff for the number of junior staff. It took a week of training to get the silas to understand that yes, there would be some work involved in the working at camp thing, it wasn't all going to be swimming and play. (and oh dear there wasn't going to be any dating each other... they tried to secretly "date" each other (goodness these guys are little children what are they playing at!) the staff community was to small not to notice if you even spend extensive time with a member of the oposite gender, let alone date them) The Silas kids actually turned out to be more work to take care of then the campers and it was crazy to try and take care of them and the campers together.
well... that summer was mostly disasterous. Two Titus members hated kids and didn't want to do camp at all (Dan and Anthony), two members where otherwize distracted/distressed about non camp related issues (Andrea and me), one member came and went as they pleased(Wade), and then there was Willaim... pretty much we had one dedicated senior staff. And a bunch of kids who needed at least one dedicated senior staff per child. And... it rained all summer and the basement had three inches of water in it... yes we prepared meals in three inches of water because the kitchen is in the basement.
Andrea and me where not getting on well and I was quite distressed. Wade was friendly with me on the weekends when she went home, because he was just a friendly guy that way. He would come over and sit beside me and hunt me down and want to do stuff with me, because he was just a friendly guy. I couldn't help but hope it might mean something more. I remember before the summer started we where getting along very well and my mom called me aside and asked if I was going to be alright, because Andrea was coming the next day and his attention would be diverted. I said I would be fine. But I wasn't.
That year the rivers where to swollen to have a canoe trip so with the help of grandpa and some of the church people we got all the kids out to lynches point. Grandpa went and talked to the owner man, and the owner man was like, is this a christian thing? and we where like... yeah. and he was like, you can stay for free. So that was cool. we pitched our tents
before we had left my mom called Andrea and me to the office and talked to us about our attitude toward each other and how it was tearing the team apart. But things didn't really change and Andrea and Wade kept focusing extensive attention on each other... thats mostly what made me mad. I wanted her to want to be with me. I was incredibly jelous of her attention, not just his. And she was all focused on him and I was like XP I'm so alone. (keep in mind that during the ages of the three muskateers I was the ring leader because Jen knew me and Andrea knew me and Jen and Andrea sort of got to know each other through me so they wheren't quite so strong of friends with each other)
My mom came and talked to me and asked how I was and if their was anything to be done about it. I was like, I want it to be over.
One night she went and talked to him for a couple of hours, told him the facts, you have two girls who both like you and your stringing them along, make a choice and then things are out in the open. The next morning the silas kids where swimming and I was resting in the girls tent. Mom came in and sat beside me and said "Are you able to give him up and be looking for someone else?" I was like... yeah I guesse so why. "Because he likes Andrea... he didn't even know you liked him." I looked at her and was like I'm fine, it'll all be good I'm going to go and join swim time now.
I walked outside and got to thinking as I headed to the beach area. I saw them together out there and thought to myself about how well him and I got along and how well we had gotten along yesterday during swim time. and couldn't go down. I started walking the other way down the road that lead out of the site. Thinking that I want to run away and leave camp and everything and them.
But I just went back and sat in the area we had set up as a kitchen. Mom saw me and her me and Mel went into a little laundry room that was attached to the bathrooms to talk. I told her about how it wasn't fair, how I had sometimes intentionaly ignored him and his friendlyness when she was around in the past because I wanted her to be my friend and to know that I wasn't trying anything, but that didn't really mattter, he turned his attention to her and she beemed under it. They where always together, she would always choose to be with him over me, to follow him over me, and it wasn't fair! My mom said that I had acted rightly in not ignoring my duties and maybe it wasn't fair, but what would I do about it.
I wanted to go to New York, to visit the Brooklyn Tabernacle which I had heard about, or go to Austrailia, I didn't know, anywhere but there. However, I kept thinking about the silas girls who I had gotten to know and who needed someone to take care of them, so, in the end I decided I had to stay.
When we got home from the camping excourtion the next day, mom took me aside and talked to me, she took Andrea aside and talked to her, then she took Wade aside and talked to him. I'm not sure what she said to them, but to me, she asked me if I would be ok with this and if I would be able to forgive them all for it all, I was like, yeah, sure. after that Andrea and Me where brought up to be talked to and Wade was up there, but he was just there to listen. She told us a story from the bible, it was about a kings son, Jonathan, and his friend who was his fathers servant, David. God had said that David was to be king and Jonathan remained his friend and gave up the kingdom. And how true friends stay friends, how I had to be like Jonathan and give up what I think I have a right to. I was like, yeah, alrighty.
After we where done talking all together my mom sent me away and talked just to them about how dating would work at camp and the procedures, like she had to first talk to her parents, they would be expected to do their work and not focus on each other yada yada. and then on the weekend they could go out or something. After that she left just the two of them to talk and came to talke to me "are you alright" she asked. I'm fine.
Once they where done it was just me and Wade. "So... you had absolutely no idea that either of us liked you?" I said He said he was surprised. He was sorry for any pain he had inflicted "I kind of understand how your feeling" he told me, then gave me a story of something he had went through, where he was going out with a girl then she ditched him for his best friend. I was like, yeah, sounds good. "are you going to be alright?" he asked me, "yeah, I'll be fine" "are you going to be able to forgive her" "..." "you have to, I would hate to get in the way of your friendship, thats why I hadn't done anything sooner" and I'm like, what the heck, I thought that you hadn't done anything because you didn't know eighther of us liked you and because you wheren't sure which one of us you really liked. "please, do it for me" arg. No. I told him "It's my business, I'll see what I can do"
He asked me again if I was alright, I was like, yes I'm fine, and we told my mom we where done. Then I was given the option of just talking to Andrea, and I was like, yeah alright. So we went down to the office and she stayed with Wade. Andrea was crying as she talked about how happy she was and how she had no idea, how she was sorry for this and that, I was like, alright, I forgive you. and we went upstairs again sat around talking a bit. Then went off to bed. I went and joinded Andrea in her bed and we talked more about stuff and how we where feeling, what we where thinking.
To be honest, I felt free. I didn't have to prove anything or fight for anything I didn't have to ignore him anymore because I know he's already thinking of Andrea and I don't mean anything to him in that way anyways. So, camp went on. that weekend Andrea went home to be with her parents and came back with a new purpous and resolve. she had gone and talked with her mom over the weekend, turns out she didn't want to be at camp any more eigther, but she worked things out. And gave my mom the idea to get the rest of us to do the same, we where to go off by ourselves and create a mission statement for ourselves.
However as summer went on my freedome started to linger and I began to feel progresivley more trapped, but I continued working anyway. Wade dropped out of the team and the program because he was angry that no one was speeking honestly in the team debreifings, how people saw things and didn't say them. We where not behaving very team like, we where just going through the motions

I hope someday you will wake up and look up and see me and say "What was I thinking" and everything will be alright again.
I want to be angry, but I'm far to logical to permit myself.

Heart of Glass