March Break Camp and Near Misses

Next year I will charge for March break!  I didn't know I was running a camp, but apparently I am!  I have to say, though we hardly needed the time off (we take too many breaks to mention!), it was a super fun week.  We ended up having several extra kids at our house.  Some for just a few days, and one for the whole week.  On the first night that everyone was here, we had 11 kids, most of whom were teenagers.  It was so loud!  It really felt and looked like a camp.  Camp dishes, camp meals, camp dorms.....people were everywhere.  This might normally be quite overwhelming, but, being the ever-social person, I quite enjoyed it and ate up the extra conversations that were going on all the time.

I was, of course, the camp director and the camp bus driver.  Each morning I drove everyone to their daily activities which included volunteering at a maple syrup farm while the others worked at a greenhouse full-time.  I should have added up all the hours I spent in the car that week.  If I had a dollar for every hour........it was crazy.

Meanwhile junior camp was also going on.  I had such good intentions of doing a super huge mega-clean on the house, but we were never home!  The library always offers fun almost-free programs and the homeschool group put on an amazing Shakespeare play which we went to see, so I was also driving those younger ones all over the place.  But again, being busy for me is oddly fun.  I do wish I had a camp maintenance guy as well as a custodian for all the chores that need to go on.  Will I ever ever ever get on top of all that has to be done?  Not likely....

I also ended up at an airport dropping my niece off in Buffalo as she wanted desperately to be a part of camp, too!  She flew in from Illinois to be with cousins and had a great time.

All during this experience, we were praying.  I know my parents were praying.  I don't know if I prayed specifically for safety.  I think I was more praying that I would have strength to get through the week and money to pay for all the food and gas!  But, someone out there was praying for us cause we had a number of incidents that could have gone extremely badly, but by God's grace, we got through the week unscathed.

One of my son's had a minor car accident.  It could have been quite serious, but God protected him and on one of the iciest days of the year, he slid into a ditch, no damage to himself or the car or anyone else.  I hate to think what would have happened if he had slid into oncoming traffic.  That same day a local girl died in a car accident just down the road.  Another son had a major slip at the greenhouse on cement.  He reflected on it later and was amazed that he didn't hit his head on the floor which could have also caused major damage.  He ended up with just a bruised hip.  Our Olympic son, who is only 7, thought he was also a flying superhero and jumped down 8 steps at breakneck speed in a church.  He landed on his foot in a bad way and limped for days.  Why didn't he break it?  Why didn't he fall back and hurt his head or break his back?  Don't know.  My youngest son had a close encounter with our pond.  Suffice it to say, he could have been a story in the newspaper if my other sons hadn't been right there.  I shudder to think. 

Our cats didn't fare so well.  One of the new kittens got discovered by our dog and met a quick end.

I don't think it would be wise to just write it all down without stopping to thank God for His obvious protection.  I don't have any answers as to why we were spared tragedy while other families experience it, not to say we won't some day, just not in the last two weeks.  I know we have guardian angels working overtime for our family.  I put in so many hours of driving as did my oldest daughter last week.  We had no breakdowns with cars, no incidents on the road.  I am so grateful. 

The only thing I know is that they were all wake up calls for me.  I never know when it will be the last time I see one of my children.  I want them to know that, too, which is why when they are mad at each other, I remind them to love one another as tomorrow might be a different day.  I was sitting with a friend having a tea this week, a few days after the near-tragic pond affair.  She said to me, "We could be at a funeral right now."  Yet, there we were drinking tea.  Drinking tea, not sitting in a church somewhere.  I didn't want to think about it, but at the same time I felt like I had to.  I felt like I should be more grateful.  I wanted to really soak in God's goodness to me in that moment.  Boy, was I grateful.  It puts everything in perspective when you come so close to losing someone.  I've looked at all of them differently this week.  When I feel bothered by something, I quickly say a prayer of thanks for the fact they are on this earth to bother me!  I'm grateful to drive them places, grateful to be woken up by my 5 year old who sneaks in my bed at night, grateful to be homeschooling that 7 year old who gets into more trouble in 5 minutes than all my other kids do all day.

I pray I won't need a real tragedy.  These wake up calls were enough.