Barnabas Letter for August 15, 2006 Just Jeremy
Barnabas Letter
# 4
August 12th 2006
Every Hair On Their Head
Matthew 10:30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered.
Hello my dear friends,
It has been a bit of time past since my last letter. I have been rather sick as of late and not feeling much up to doing any writing. I made a decision as of today that I was going to write, whether I felt like it or not…..so here we go.
Again please remember, if you have read my book, to please post a review on Amazon.com and BookSurge.com for me. E-mail me if you have any trouble with the reviews and I will help out as I can, and I thank you in advance.
Last weekend my nine year old son Elijah, and I, loaded up the old, gray, falling apart, 1979 Chevrolet pickup with all the fixings for roughing it out in the woods. We packed a new dome tent, pots and pans, food, and a ton of fire wood. After hooking up the ski boat and throwing our bikes on top of all our camping stuff, we headed out.
We rumbled down the highway a good twenty minutes before Elijah and I, as guys will tend to do, decided we could go no further without loading up with some food.
Stopping off the highway at our favorite hamburger stand, “The Blue Caboose”, we ordered our hamburgers and waited, as patiently as two guys in a hurry to get to the lake can, for our meal to be prepared. As we waited, I noticed the man standing next to me.
A towheaded man, unshaven, with stooped shoulders looked back at me with that, “What are you looking at”, look on his face. I smiled and received no smile in return, which left me with an empty feeling for this man. He snatched his sack of food from an extended hand, grumbled off to his truck and roared away into the distance, leaving behind him, nothing but a lingering plume of dust.
After paying for our meal, Elijah and I headed out once again to our lake campground, munching on BooseBurgers and having happy thoughts about the coming days.
It was all of thirty minutes before we were unloading and setting up our campsite for the next three days. Elijah’s job was to run around the campsite, investigating every trail and mysterious hole in the ground, or log, using every bit of imagination he could muster up. Mine was to set up the tent, which I had not done prior to this, as it was a new tent. It went up without much fuss, to my amazement. Before long I had the campsite set up, the wood was stacked, the chairs arranged around the fire pit and Elijah corralled.
After launching the ski boat and a quick trip around the lake, we set about preparing dinner for the evening. I got the barbeque started and when it seemed ready, I threw the steaks on.
Well friend, in my attempt to be somewhat frugal, I had purchased a cheap table top, propane barbeque specifically for this camping trip. The new barbeque was not working quite like the picture on the front of the box it came in, and looked as though it would be a millennium before the steaks were done enough to eat. Out of desperation I tossed into the barbeque a few chips of the wood we had brought for the evening campfires. Mind you now, these chips were not dry, seasoned, wood chips, in fact, I had failed to notice they were still dripping with pitch. I now know, pitch is not a good flavor for steak. Our poor steaks tasted much like a freshly cut fir tree, but we managed to drown out most of that with an abundance of barbeque sauce.
That evening, Elijah and I set out to check on the boat, which we had pulled up and tied off on the bank of the lake. Everything seemed secure enough and because our tent came minus the restroom part, we headed for the campground restroom.
As we entered the restroom there were several boys out front washing the evenings dishes, their appointed duty I supposed. As I was minding my business in one of the stalls of the restroom I kept hearing the boys coming in and out of the restroom and the loud bang of someone hitting the knob that starts up the blower on the hand dryer. What I inevitably discovered was, a couple of the boys were doing the washing and the other was bringing the dishes into the restroom and drying them with the hand dryer. Hmmm…wish I had thought of that years ago.
Sitting around the fire that night was certainly peaceful. The smoke, chased by the dancing light of a flickering fire, disappeared up through the trees, which much like the still slightly snow capped mountains around them, pointed up toward the heavens to our loving God. You could hear, in between the trees, diverse family groups, some whispering, some laughing loudly, but all enjoying a too short break in life.
As the laughter, along with the whispers, chased the stars across the heavens, silence began to take it’s place, leaving only the distant lapping of lake water against the bank, and the lullaby of wind in the trees, singing their guests to sleep.
Awakening the next morning, Elijah and I ate a breakfast of pancakes cooked over an open fire (they had never tasted better). We then took up our towels and headed for a day at the beach.
I sat up on the beach for a time while Elijah swam in the lake. I admit, I am a people watcher, and admirer of boats.
As the boats were launched, I would go down to the dock for a closer look at the more interesting boats. Some of them were old and restored beautifully to original condition. Others were just old and ready for the scrap heap, but it’s owners were proud as they jetted off across the lake with a roar, trailing a generous quantity of popping, and snorting smoke from a weary outboard. The boat, I am sure, loaded down with an extra ration of duct tape, bailing wire and a very large bucket.
Other boats were newer and more powerful, the envy of many who were much less in debt than they who owned them. Never the less, all seemed just about right for all, as the sun began its sweep across the summer sky.
Sitting lazily on the beach that day, I enjoyed the beauty of God’s world. The sun glistening in the lake water, which was trembling in the slight afternoon breeze. Children were in the water laughing gleefully as they shoved each other off the dock or floated lazily on whatever floating object they had brought with them. Off in the distance, much to the delight of a young girl, the family dog towed her through the water by its tail, the dog looking pleased to serve, for dual rewards of joyful purpose and a pat on the head.
Off to my left stood a young man of about fifteen, short, stocky, with a pile of long, curly, blonde hair covering his ears to the top of his shoulders. A striking young fellow, he sported a summer tan sure to impress the girls when returning to whatever school, in whatever state he was from. I watched him for a few minutes as he worked his way down the beach skipping rocks in the water, something he had done before, as each rock skipped multiple times.
Listening to the people, I could hear most speaking English, but here and there you could pick up Russian and Spanish…..nothing I could understand, but translated the tones and smiling faces to a time of joy.
Elijah tracked wet footprints in the pebbled beach to my place on the towel. Scattering wet pebbles on my once dry towel, my young son required my presence in the water to swim with him. We swam together out to the log boom which separated the skiers from the swimmers. As we approached the log boom we each touched the logs with one hand at a time, and gave each other a high five with the other, a moment to treasure.
As the sun began it’s slow decent behind the western trees, only to dip into the Pacific Ocean, and disappear for the day, Elijah and I headed back to camp for a dinner of hotdogs and chips.
We ate our dinner together mostly in silence, the fire growing brighter in the dimming day. The little squirrel came down from his tree once again, scrambling back and forth across the picnic table in search of any formidable morsel.
Elijah set part of his dinner on a tree stump, which was quickly picked clean by the little bird he had named Mohawk.
After dinner we sat and watched the fire, listening to the night settling in. The smells of campfire meals, mixed with chattering families nestling in for the night was pleasing to my mind, as my thoughts drifted off to the concerns of God.
I wondered to myself if anybody but me had noticed God today.
The man at the Blue Caboose. The boy skipping stones. The boys washing dishes. The dog serving its family with a tail tow through the water. The Russian and Spanish families. Some rich, some poor.
Had any noticed God today?
Maybe, maybe not, but there was one thing I knew for sure. God had noticed them.
As per tradition, Elijah and I finished up our day with a trip down through the woods, and across the beach to the store, for our evening icecream. Coming out of the woods I noticed a small group of people sitting around the lonely picnic table on the beach. As we drew closer I noticed their heads were bowed in prayer, I am sure for all who camped in our campground that night.
One more trip to the restroom took us past the camp of the dishwashing boys, who were now sitting around the campfire, quietly listening to a kind looking lady reading a story from the bible.
I drifted off to sleep that night pleased that our loving God, who had known us all from the beginning of time, loved each the same and knew us all, right down to each hair on our heads, had been noticed.
May God Bless You, Jeremy
