Salkehatchie

Helloooo everybody! I'm home! Salkehatchie was a wonderful experience, as usual. I gotta say, things at the JET (Johnston-Edgefield-Trenton) camp were very different from the Columbia camp. I also gotta say, I don't think I could survive living in the middle of nowhere for very long. I need civilization.

But that's not to say that this week was bad. It definitely wasn't. I made friends with several people who I probably would not have talked to much, if at all, had I met them somewhere other than Salkehatchie, which is always nice. And I think I learned a lot about appreciating people who are not the same as you.

There were some truly hilarious moments. Somnambulatory cows, flaming o's, unicorns in space, Monty Python and string theory, vampire babies, coming up with nicknames such as "Cat-Woman" and "the Rev Lupster" (I guess that's how we'd spell it), teaching HB and EN to play hearts, defining "lightsaber," unintentional dirty jokes, very intentional fake-secret jokes, and Spiderman Jason, just to name a few. (For the sake of saving time and not boring you, I'm not gonna explain all those stories here, but I definitely can if you want to know.)

There were some "wow" moments too. Looking at the finished kitchen, marveling over the air conditioner that EN and I had so painstakingly straightened out, being able to pick up one of the kittens, seeing how happy Mrs. Ora May and Mr. Bean (because calling him Mr. Joe is just odd) were when they saw the work we had done and the smiles on their faces when they greeted all of us from their new porch. God really can do amazing things.

What did I do this week, you ask? Well, I helped tear down a porch, and I fixed an air conditioner, and I cleaned everything out of a bunch of kitchen cabinets, and I painted, and painted, and painted, and painted, and painted, and washed dishes, and painted, and washed some more dishes, and painted, and washed more dishes, and painted, and put knobs on cabinets and cleaned out a bedroom and tore out a carpet and put down Peel-and-Press linoleum, and I even got to be a kitchen wizard and put the kitchen back together. It was a busy week, and I got really sick of painting, but in the words of my dear friend HB, "None of us are too good for painting." My frustration with the work was so worth it to make Mr. and Mrs. Bean so happy.

I feel like there should be some moral here about what God can do through all kinds of different people, but I'm too tired and too desperately in need of a real shower and a good night's sleep in a real bed to phrase it coherently right now, so for now just know that God is great and people are crazy and everyone should have a Salkehatchie experience at some point.

Love,
Bex

P.S. Yes, "God is great and people are crazy" does sort of reference a country song. Yes, I left out the line about "beer is good" on purpose. No, I have never tried beer. Yes, I do think it's disgusting. No, I am not a fan of country music. Yes, I do like Taylor Swift anyway.