Here's that "more on Orcas later" I mentioned in my last post. It's a pretty big story, so I've broken it into two parts. But it's one of my favorite stories, so I hope you enjoy hearing it!
In the summer of 2011 I was a camp counselor at Camp Orkila, a YMCA summer camp on Orcas Island, the island where my dad's side of the family has been vacationing for decades. We stay on Beach Haven, which is on the northwestern side of the island and the reason I've been blessed to see an unreasonably large number of incredible sunsets. If you stand on Beach Haven and look to the east, you will see a point called Chapel Rock jutting out into the water, which is the beginning of Camp Orkila.
(my favorite sunset from this year's trip)
The camp and "my" beach are mere yards apart, but the first week I was at Orkila for staff training, it felt like a different country. For a week, I stumbled through training sessions, role plays, new abbreviations, chaotic meals, unreasonable and nonsensical enthusiasm (though I got used to that pretty quickly), and a horde of people I had never met. It was all exciting and I was happy to work there, but the newness of it all was overwhelming. Mostly, it was hard to find time to be alone, and breathe, and remember that my Lord is always with me. None of my co-counselors were Christians, and I was feeling very lonely, and a bit afraid that I had made a mistake in coming. What if I didn't have time to be with God this entire summer? What if I got exhausted? What if I didn't make any friends?
At the end of training camp, we counselors took a boat to Satellite Island, a remote little thing on the border of the US and Canada where we would take our campers every week for an overnight camping trip. By this time I was wiped, and spending two nights outside when I wasn't used to it (and without a sleeping pad, a mistake I won't repeat on World Race!) stole all my remaining stores of energy. The next day, Sunday, we would have our first day off, and I had resolved to get to church if it killed me, though I knew succeeding would be a long shot. Satellite Island is about a 40 minute ride from Orcas, and the way things were looking, we wouldn't get back until the service had already started. And besides, our day off didn't start until noon, which was too late anyway. Still, I needed to go and I had to try. So, I talked to my boss and said I wanted to go to church, and could I take off as soon as we got back… surprisingly, he said yes.
But unsurprisingly, the boat docked at Orkila around 9 in the morning, giving me only a half hour to find a seat at Orcas Island Community Church (OICC). I grabbed my backpack and scurried as fast as I could all across camp to my cabin, where I scrambled to find an empty bunk and store my things.
I'd eaten a packet of oatmeal hours earlier on Satellite Island and I was hungry. And I stank. I was wearing the same dirty black Hanes t-shirt and gray pants and purple running shoes the third day in a row, and I hadn't showered in days. I wanted to at least wash my face a little, but the bathrooms were far away and time was disappearing.
OICC was 2.2 miles away, if I remember correctly, and I had no car. So, forgoing the food and hygiene, I put my backpack on again and headed out. I was mostly just walking quickly, but sometimes I'd break out into a desperate run before getting out of breath. Eventually, I admitted to myself that there was a faint chance I'd get to church halfway through the service. And that possibility was enough for me to keep rushing.
After what seemed like an hour but was probably more like 15 minutes, a little white car drove by and I tried to make eye contact with the driver: maybe I could get a ride? (Orcas is such a small place, people tend to feel safe hitching rides from people, and on this road, the majority of drivers were from Camp Orkila.) No such luck: the car zoomed by. Later, after the longest mile of my life, I was upset and I felt sorry for myself, and was near tears. Another car passed me, a gold minivan. I tried to put my face in order as it drove by. Then it slowed to a stop and the driver's window rolled down. An older man stuck his head out of the window. I saw the outline of a woman in the passenger seat.
"Need a ride?" he said.
I replied instantly: "That'd be wonderful!" My voice almost broke.
I ran to their car and got in the back seat.
"Are you going into town?" the man asked.
"Yes, I'm trying to go to church," I said.
"That's where we're going!" said the woman, whom I guessed to be his wife.
"Really? Thank you so much for picking me up, I didn't think I'd make it…"
I think I spent the last mile of the ride with Tom and Vicki thanking them profusely. They had a calm and cheerful disposition that immediately put me at ease.
We got to church at the start of the service. I don't think there has ever been a time I have been so desperate to go to church. Everything made me cry: the announcements, the greeting, the invocation. The first song was one I'd never heard but have since come to love, called I Heard the Sound of Voices. It features the line: "So Father, I am walking, Lord, can you see me walking? Oh, my Deliverer, I am following the Lamb." For someone who had just run/walked like her life depended on it to be with other believers, that made a lot of sense. Talk about "a fragrant offering" to the Lord. I was crying, sloppy, sweaty and smelly. But that might have been the richest moment of what turned out to be a very rich summer.
