Summertime

Hello to you there! 

For much of my recent summer, I have been atop Lookout Mountain, spending 5 weeks on Serve Staff at Camp DeSoto.  

I was blessed to attend DeSoto as a camper for 9 summers. I returned for a summer on Program Staff in 2011, taught Climbing, Core and Cardio Fitness, as well as the occasional Archery or Team Sports class. I lived for a month with eight rising 9th graders:

then for a month with eight rising 10th graders:


 Can't really put into words how that summer stretched, challenged, taught and BLESSED me.

"Oh, what a joy, what a sweet unfolding joy, to be lost inside the fellowship of brothers, sisters sharing love. Oh how it's hard, how it's sad a sweet and hard, to leave the cleft of fellowship and the joy and sadness that it brings.

And we will never be the same, for we have caught a glimpse of the glory due His name. And in His presence we've been changed, for we've glimpsed the glory due His name."

Last summer, you might remember, I spent 10 weeks in Lima, Peru. How incredible! 

This is where I worked: 

And this is right around the corner from where I lived:

Talk about stark contrast. Extreme poverty, only a 10 minute combi ride from the ritzy life in Miraflores. 

Ask me about this time in my life and I can talk for hours. Consider yourself warned. 

Flash forward to this summer.

 I went back to camp and spent my TWELFTH MONTH on the mountain. For anyone who likes stats, this currently constitutes 4.78% of my life. 

I hope it goes without saying that this community, these people and God's presence at DeSoto have had a large and powerful hand in shaping me to be the almost 21-year-old woman I am today. 

To fill you in on what I was actually doing at camp:

As a Serve Staff, we served during, cleaned up after, and set up for each and every meal in the dining hall. I got the opportunity to meet and develop relationships with not only my fellow staff, but also the cooks, dishwashers, postmistress, and groundsmen. 

I became especially close with Kristen, who took care of camp's mail for the whole summer. I begged the camp directors to let me help in the mail room, so every other day I sorted mail with Kristen and we got to have lots of wonderful chats about anything and everything. I consider this new friendship one of the biggest blessings of my summer. Kristen and her husband, Keith, will soon be starting the process of support raising for their upcoming year as missionaries in Jamaica. Check out their blog here, and if you feel God calling you to serve His Kingdom through a donation to their mission, here is a printable form that you can fill out and mail to the address provided, using the names Kristen and Keith Miller as the Missionaries/Project Name. 

Now, here are some pics from this summer:

Serve Staff at Opening Party performing our rendition of "Slop" (to the song Wop by J. Dash)

Serve Staff celebrating July 4th! GOD BLESS AMERICA! 

Serve Staff's "Cabin Picture" (which we took smack in the middle of cleaning up from Sunday lunch)  

Making paper flower corsages on Palooza day!

Me as a vendor on Circus Day (giving out animal crackers) with my sweet friend of many years, Tillman

Me and my sissy, Annabelle, at a night activity

Once back from camp, I enjoyed Marietta for a few days, including some mountain biking out at Blankets Creek with Daddy and Chris:

Then it was back to Athens for work at the doctors office. Here are just a few of my meals-for-one I've created since being back on my own!

Not the best quality photo, but homemade tuna salad melt with swiss cheese on flatbread. 

((For the tuna salad, didn't follow any sort of recipe, just a SMIDGE of mayo, yellow mustard and dijon mustard, some parsley, some italian seasoning, a little S&P. Would've loved some celery.))

Spaghetti with italian sausage, roasted yellow squash and zucchini in a tomato and basil marinara sauce. If only I had some fresh parm! 

Tonight I made stuffed sweet potatoes, but failed to get a pic. Cooked some beautiful white corn on the cob, the magic way , and some black beans (requiring an overnight soak and almost 2 hours of simmering but DRY BEANS ARE SO MUCH CHEAPER THAN CANNED, FOLKS!) and then mixed those together with the flesh of the sweet potato that I had scooped out. Mixed in some chopped up turkey lunchmeat and added cumin, chili powder and red pepper flakes. Stuffed the potato skins with the filling and would have melted some delicious mexi-blend-cheese over the top in the broiler but I didn't have any on hand. Not to worry, it was quite delicious by itself! 

Love to you all

and Happy Summer!

Sav