Canoes

I don’t keep a diary. Do you? What kind? Do you write everything, or do you just write about specific things? (I’d love for you to comment, or send an e-mail reply to any of my posts. If you give me permission, I’ll post the e-mail for you. I’d love for this to be much more interactive.) If I did keep a diary, and if I wrote in it on February 26th, it would look something like what follows.

This morning, I got a phone call at 6:30 to tell me Ray (my wife’s step-dad) couldn’t go with me to Bloomington to pick up the canoes. He’s sick, so it looked like I would have to make the drive there and back by myself. I started praying that God would supply somebody to go with me, but I couldn’t think of anybody that would have time off on a Thursday, at such extremely short notice, to spend the day driving to Indiana with me.

A few minutes later, they called back to ask if Cammie’s mom could come take care of our kids when they got home from school so that Cammie could make the drive with me! Talk about an answer to prayer! That meant that I could have company on the drive, and that I could have lots of time with Cammie – my favorite person!

The drive up went very well. It seemed to fly by, and Cammie and I each got turns to sleep. She read a little from the book, “The Shack,” to me while I drove. When we got to Camp Hunt, the addiction recovery program for Wheeler Mission Ministries, they fed us, helped us hook up the canoe trailer, helped us find the kayak and paddles we wanted, worked on the truck’s electrical hook-up, and sent us on our way – all with a wonderful attitude of servanthood and grace. Those guys are great!

We got a very nice canoe trailer with a huge mesh basket for storing paddles, lifejackets, coolers, and other things; 4 aluminum canoes that don’t look like they’ve been used very much; a kayak; 1 kayak paddle; and 8 canoe paddles, all for a grand total of $2,000! That is an amazing deal! And our supper was free! :-)

The trip home went well, but we were still worn out. We left Dyersburg about 8:00 in the morning on the 26th and got back into Dyersburg around 3:00 Friday morning – we only stopped for gas, bathrooms, or food. I am so excited to get a chance to use these canoes and the trailer this summer for Camp. We’ll be able to save money on canoe trips and maybe make more trips than we could have in the past. And I’ll be able to think back to that kid that yelled “paddle!” all the way down the river – in a boat of our own – while we make more memories with more kids.