See Something More

When we reached the top of the mountain and stepped out onto the bluff, I could finally feel that refreshing breeze - the one that I had been looking forward to ever since we started this hot hike. In the middle of the afternoon, the temperature soared passed the one hundred degree mark. Today the only breeze that could be felt in camp was from this bluff. So I closed my eyes and soaked it up. "Wow, you can see everything from up here!" one small sweaty camper remarked with wide eyes. "Over there," I pointed to the left, "you can see the road that leads to Camp Tahkodah." I then pointed right. "And over there is the horse bluff. See it?" The group of campers all nodded their heads. "I see the mess hall!" One added. "And look at all the swimmers in the creek! Let's yell at them!" So we all yelled "Hellooooo!" at the top of our lungs and waved as the tiny bobbing heads in the water turned our way and yelled ba...

A gentle tap awakened me, and I turned over when I heard my name whispered, almost whimpered, in the sleepy darkness of cabin 1. "Ashli, I can't sleep. I want to go home." I swung my legs onto the wooden floor and held her hand in mine. "Come on, let's go back to your bed and I will sit with you a while. Do you like your back scratched?" She snuggled back into her own bed as I gently tickled her back. She sobbed, "I just want to go home so bad. I am so homesick. I don't even want to be here anymore." "Oh, but think about how much fun we have had so far. Do you remember going off the ropeswing today? That was your first time, wasn't it? And you were so brave! Did you know I was watching you the whole time? I am so proud of you." Her sobs quieted as I continued whispering slowly in her ear and stroking her hair. "And we've played capture the flag and hiked down Indian Slides and had a hayride where we cooked smores and...

Several years ago, when I was in junior high school, I left Camp Tahkodah one hot July afternoon and said goodbye through the rear view mirror. It was there that I learned how to ride a horse and shoot a bow. I loved swinging off the rope swing into the creek and licking on frozen grape juice every afternoon at the canteen. Camp reminds me of shaving cream fights and trash can milkshakes. I have so many fond memories of making new friends, meeting cool counselors, and learning from influencial Bible class teachers. Faith and fun were interwoven, and it was there at Camp that I began to learn that my joy and my faith in God could be one and the same. It was a little hard to leave the dusty camp road and all the memories with it behind on that blistering hot summer afternoon. But as I said goodbye, I thought that it was time to move on and that I would never return. Until now. Now, as a Harding student, I have the opportunity to be that "cool counselor" who has tons of fun ...

"If you are really good, I will pull over at a certain place and show you a surprise," our guide told us at the beginning of our white water adventure in the Royal Gorge in Colorado. With that promise and a few simple instructions, we began to float toward our first rapid. We came laughing and splashing over our first few rapids, laughing even more so after half the raft fell out of the boat in the second class II rapid. But then we got the nerves out of our way and manuevered solidly through the following class IV rapid. "Paddle five!" our guide yelled proudly as we all lifted our paddles in the air towards the middle of the boat, clanking them all together and smiling wide with water dripping off our chins and noses. As promised, our guide pulled us into an eddy and instructed us to sit down on the bottom of the boat. "Now lean back and look up," he said. Oohs and Aahs came from every mouth as we gazed up from the bottom of the canyon. We were lookin...

"Give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known among the nations what He has done. Sing to Him, sing praise to Him; tell of all His wonderful acts. Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face always. Remember the wonders He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced." I used to read "remember the wonders He has done, His miracles..." and think about the parting of the Red Sea and the feeding of the five thousand and the single stone that killed a giant. But now, this Psalm has a totally new meaning for me after I have been to Tanzania and back. I have seen miracles personally, and I never want to forget them. Because of this, I rewrote Psalm 105 in my own words, telling my own recount of God's miracles that I have seen. Just like Psalm 105 tells the story of the Israelites and God's miraculous interventions along the way, so my Psalm tells the story of God...

The Tanzanian people are a people of gratitude. Thankfulness is something that they learn from their culture. For example, I tried to start an IV on this one poor woman about four times. Every time I stuck her, she looked at me with pain in her eyes and said, "Asante". Thank you. I'm said to myself, Woman, I am failing and causing you pain and you are thanking me? Imagine how different the scenario would have been if it had happened in the United States. But this just shows what kind of people they are - a people of gratitude. They truly were thankful for our work and our efforts. As one of our doctors was stitching up a man's ankle after an open fracture, he held my hand, squeezed it tightly in pain, and thanked us over and over again. A baby came into the pediatrics ward one day on the brink of death. We did the only things we knew to do, but still the baby passed away. The mother, through her tears, thanked us. I wanted to scream in disappointment, ...

Thank you, Allison Park, for your excellent photography. Your pictures are worth a million words.