Spring is here!

This is my first real "spring-y" outfit of the year.  The weather is finally starting to warm up, I don't think it even got quite down to freezing last night!  With warm weather of course comes tons of camp work that needs to be done.  At breakfast this morning Daddy scared us all with the realization that our first camp event is less than three weeks away!  How did it come up so fast?  We're not ready yet for summer to come.  We have so much outside work to get the facilities ready for campers, tons of office work that I need to complete and more staff to find than ever before.  If any of you wanted to pray that God would send us good, godly staff for the summer so that we can give kids the gospel, we would really appreciate it!  It's so sad to see these kids come, and know that this is (for a lot of them) the first time they've ever heard the gospel.  And when we don't have the staff to accommodate all of the campers who want/need to come, it's just heartbreaking.

This is the backhoe which has been graciously loaned to the camp along with it's operator for a couple of weeks.  The guys are digging trenches to put all of power underground.  We needed to upgrade the power system anyways because we've added buildings that need more power than the old system could provide, so we figured now would be as good a time as any to put it all underground.  Our poplar trees fall on the lines so often it's ridiculous!  Not having to constantly be up a ladder fixing power lines will be such a blessing! (Not that I'm actually up the ladder, I'm just in the office banging my head against the keyboard for not saving all of my work before the tree fell taking the power - and all my work - with it!)

 We had a gentleman out from the gas company marking gas lines so we didn't hit them while digging.  This guy has come out to the camp four times in the last year to mark our gas lines section by section as we've had time and money to put the power lines in one area after another underground.  Three of those times he's found some excuse or another not to charge us the $150 we should be paying him for his work.  "Oh, don't bother, this one's for the campers." "Don't worry about it, my gift to you for the great time these kids are having", etc.  This time he was just finishing up and writing out the bill when I obliviously walked past on my way to get some supplies I needed from the summer office.  He looked at me, looked at his bill, tossed it onto the passenger seat in his truck and said "It's so good to see a girl in a skirt.  You're obviously doing something right here.  There'll be no charge - have a nice day!"  And he drove off!  The Lord certainly works in mysterious ways!

 I'm wearing: an awkward expression // Joe brand polo (gift) // Jeans-to-skirt (made by me) // brown jeweled flip-flops (garage sale $1)

This is the skirt I embellished with the flower appliques from G. & J.'s summer dresses.  I figured that a flower garden similar to what is on their dresses was maybe a little too jouvenile for me, so I did them kind of spilling down the side of my skirt instead.  I mean, people already think that I'm 4-6 years younger than I actually am, I see no good reason for dressing especially young.  People already don't believe me when I tell them I'm actually 18!  I don't especially like the way the patterned fabric made up into flowers, but it looks better from a distance.  I think I should have used a dark green thread to finish the edges and it would have looked better.  Oh well, there's always next time.  And I do believe there will be several "next-times" for these flowers!

In His grace,

Laurel