Ghetto Camping on Pineapple Beach

Going up Bald Mountain

I live in the little town of Lake Cowichan now. Can you believe that? If you say no that makes sense. It makes a lot more sense that I don't live in Lake Cowichan. Except that God wants me in Lake Cowichan and fighting God is like fighting your own fist times eternity in Pandora's box. That makes about as much sense as me living in Lake Cowichan. But guess what? I love it here. I love living in a beautiful house on River Road with eleven beautiful people: Jim leading us, Sarah his wife supporting us, Jeremiah the male RA, the girl students Katie, Shayla, Gussie, Jen and Stephanie and the boy students Matt, Eric and Brad. Of course, this is only the beginning of the second week of eight months with these people. And what's even more disconcerting, they like me. Which means it is only the end of the first week of eight months of having to keep these people liking me. I don't know why they like me. I have this beautiful room with a bed twice the size of the one I have at home while the five girls share two rooms and live in bunk beds. But I don't feel too guilty because I am living in a house with a dog. I am allergic to it. I have quickly found out that living with the embodiment of what I am allergic to gives me allergies.

This is how the first week went: we hiked up and repelled down Mesachie mountain on Monday and then cleaned the camp on Tuesday and then canoed to Pineapple Beach to camp for two days on Wednesday and then decided it would be a good idea to hike up Bald Mountain (which is three times the size of Mesachie mountain) on Thursday, canoe home and spend all day cleaning the camp again on Friday. I'm telling you, these people mean business. It's Jesus' little boot camp over here. And yet there is nowhere else I'd rather be or anything else I'd rather be doing than going on amazing adventures with these amazing new friends and serving an amazing God with joyful hearts. We are all learning what servant leadership is all about and can't wait for what God is going to do this year in us and through us! FYI Bald Mountain like Pineapple Beach is a misnomer. It is not nearly as bald as you would think it would be, but a lot higher than you would think it would be and a lot harder and scarier than my definition of a delightful hike through the wilderness with the fairies and leprechauns should be. And yet... there is that satisfaction of having hiked up a mountain that no one should ever hike up to see a view that no one should ever see. And you know, the bonding experience and all (they say danger brings people together).

Coming down Bald Mountain. As you can see, some are more enthusiastic than others. Some are pretending to jump...

My greatest memory of that camping trip was washing dishes with Jeremiah and Matt. No one knew what they were doing but we all thought we knew what we were doing and we ended up washing the dishes in three different contradictory ways trying to figure out the most sanitary way, without leaving food in the water to encourage the bears to eat us and without putting all the soap in the water to pollute the planet but also rinsing the soap off the dishes enough that we didn't give everyone diarrhea yet keeping the dishes clean from the lake water which we were told was not clean enough to wash our fruit and vegetables in but was clean enough to wash our hands after going to the washroom. Are you confused? Just imagine how confused we were. All I know is there was way more laughing than is generally acceptable when doing the dishes. At one point Matt rudely asked me for the soap which I told him was no way to speak to an RA and ended with Jeremiah telling him to take out his anger on the lake. At which Matt turned to the lake and yelled, "FAITH, PASS ME THE SOAP!" a la Batman voice. Life doesn't get much better than that.

We call ourselves a family. You know you are a family when you can pass wind in front of each other and everyone feels a little grossed out because let's face it, a fart is a fart (there's no getting around it, only through it) but you still have love for the person that did it. That is the definition of family.

If you want to see more pictures you can look at our Auxano facebook page here!