Yesterday, Monday, was filled with lots of anticipation. We spent the morning completing our preparations for our 70 or so campers (2nd grade through 8th graders). When they arrived at about 11:30 a.m., we were ready.
I started off working in the kitchen – because baseball teaching did not begin until Tuesday morning. We had to prepare meals for the 70 campers, the 20 Israeli counselors, and the 33 of us from Abilene (123 meals in all if you are counting). The kitchen work was structured and organized, which I really liked. And as a side benefit, I really got to know some people that I did not know very well. Our first meal – lunch – went off without a hitch. However, we did learn a few things that helped us improve for the next meal.
In the afternoon, I got to go shopping with Randy Turner (our leader from Beltway Park) and our driver/handyman/interpreter/maintenance guy/man-of-many-talents (essentially, Israel’s version of our very own Craig Loper). Grocery stores are considerably different here. The grocery store was extremely customer friendly, but the other shoppers were not. There were stocking clerks on every aisle, who were prepared to restock the shelf as soon as a customer removed an item – it was crazy! The whole store was immaculately clean – they had a floor cleaning person who rode a device that looked like a riding lawn mower. When we checked out, the checkout clerk would not even look at us (we noticed that all the clerks did the same thing) – it was very customer unfriendly. One last thing, the grocery store had no produce – we had to go to a separate store for produce!
The afternoon and evening at camp were good – as we got to know the campers and the Israeli counselors better. I worked in the kitchen again – I am certainly gaining a new respect for restaurants and commercial kitchens!
So, the question is what am I learning here? Several things:
- How to submit to authority (the Israeli leaders of the camp) – when the authority is not completely organized (Randy keeps reminding me that this camp is so much better than the prior 3 – I am thanking God that I was not here for the prior 3!).
- My wife and kids are really good at interacting with new people. In addition, they are all exceptional with kids – and the kids love them!
- How to let God work through my lack of experience, lack of ability, and lack of patience.
- How to “go with the flow” (this is the most difficult lesson – for whatever reason, I like to be in charge!)
I got started with baseball training today. It has been an incredible morning! I will update you on our progress here in my next blog – stay tuned!