NaCoMe

NaCoMe is one of my favorite places on the planet.  How strange it is for me to try to explain how wonderful it is, and such is probably the case for anyone who has beloved childhood memories at a church camp.  My family started going to NaCoMe, which is a little piece of heaven tucked into the middle tennessee valley and is shared by many, mostly in the NAshville, COlumbia, and MEmphis areas, in 1984 when I was five years old.  Though I was almost eaten by the swamp in our first five minutes there (never have I been accidentally so muddy), our family fell in love with our NaCoMe family camp experiences there and went twice each year until Dusty and I were in college.  There is something so sweet about the ways we were loved there by our church family as we grew up--something so rare about the freedom NaCoMe always offered me to play, to dance, to get to know other people, to be known, and to explore.  God has truly used the investment He made in me during all of those family camps in some sweet ways--I feel like He used them to help create in me a heart for youth ministry, and for that I will always be grateful.

The first weekend of this month Jeremy and I had a rare chance to get to do something I never thought I'd ever do.  We were asked to be the speakers at the First Presbyterian Church NaCoMe family camp.  We were honored by the invitation, and because we prayed before we had children that maybe one day God would give us some chances to do ministry together, we were excited enough about the offer to accept it.  We were also scared out of our minds, mostly because the tall, tall task of creating a program that would engage all ages seemed to grand for us--we certainly aren't representative of the caliber of speaker that FPC usually pursues for the weekend's nurturing.

We worked really hard for months to create something that felt like a fit for the weekend.  God gave us an idea through Isaac and Ada's children's bible through a sentence that says "God created everything in his world to reflect him like a mirror--to show us what he is like, to help us know him, and to make our hearts sing."  We divided our time up into three sessions, and ended up learning a lot from it.  It felt very life-giving to lead the families at family camp.  We loved leading them in recreation, worship, and even speaking wasn't as scary as I thought it would be.  It was awesome to get to do this with Jeremy.  We have a far-fetched dream that maybe one day we could have a camp or lead camp sessions of some sort.  If this was a taste of what it would be like, I'm in!

I chipped my front tooth while we were eating lunch on Saturday.  I bit down really hard on a broken fork and it took part of my tooth out.  In a panic, I showed Jeremy, and said, "my teeth are all i've got!"  clearly the session we led on being made in the image of God is a struggle for me to really understand and believe.  It was good for me to be reminded that I was speaking to myself all weekend.  (on a side note, so was ada.  we all slept in the same room and discovered that she says "no mommy!" in her sleep! and i hear it in mine!)

It was a real treat for me to watch our little ones enjoy the place i grew up enjoying.  RuRu came with us and babysat while we were busy leading.  The kids had a blast.  Ada even won a silly award for getting in the creek in the first five minutes we were there (and for getting in it so many times during the weekend that we ran out of clothes for her).  I am pretty sure RuRu never thought to dream that she might be playing in that creek with her grandbabies.  God proves faithful from generation to generation.

"The heavens are singing about how great God is; and the skies are shouting it out, "See what God has made!"  Day after day...Night after night...They are speaking to us."  Psalm 19: 1-2 (paraphrase)

Isaac loved climbing up the climbing wall this time!  He has gotten so big!

This is one of my favorite pictures of Isaac his very first trip to NaCoMe.  He was 19 months old and loved collecting rocks to put in his fishing net.  He drug them everywhere.

And then he threw them in the creek with his daddy.  He still shakes him arms like that when he gets excited.  love, love.