We're going on a summer camp

We're volunteering at a summer camp for grades 6 to 8 from tomorrow afternoon, run by Scripture Union. We've volunteered at this camp twice before, once as cooks just after we got married and one five years ago. See here for my blog post from that experience. Looking back at that blog post, one thing that stands out is this:

The other great thing about being here [ at camp], is that it is service that is NOT about us. Deputation is full of us running around talking about Japan, our experiences and answering questions about us and Japan. 

Here it hardly matters here that we are missionaries and that we've lived most of the last decade in Japan. Yay! I love it.

So much of our lives we stand out, we're not average. In Japan we're the foreigners, at CAJ we're the Aussies, most Sundays in Australia we're the missionaries talking about uncomfortable realities. 

At our home church we might be approaching some kind of "normal". But if people stop and think they'll remember that we're only there a year. If I open my mouth at Bible study, more often than not something comes out about my experience that isn't "normal". I've been embarrassed on at least one occasion in the last couple of months by someone "in the know" identifying us to strangers that we were "missionaries to Japan". Sometimes you just want to blend in!

However, at camp it hardly matters what our "day job" is. This time I will be working with the campers, not just putting sunscreen on my own kids, so we'll see how different that is.

As for now, I'm up to my ears in baking. I'm wishing for my giant dinosaur American gas oven I have in my house in Japan. I'm baking goodies to take for snack times at camp. Thankfully it isn't a seriously hot day. But as a result it's taken me hours to write this much here, between rounds of biscuits going in and coming out of the oven.

I doubt that I'll have time to write at camp this time, but I'll try to take some photos to share with you. It's going to be a fantastic time.

PS If anyone would like to pray for us and the camp while it's in action, there is a short-term prayer list we can sign you up for.