Last weekend, myself and three other Stewards spent our
Saturday at Camp Whip Poor Will helping teach Girl Scouts how to canoe. It has
been one of my favorite weekends this school year.
We started out in the campus ministry van, talking about our
weeks, singing along to only the best cheesy radio pop and navigating our way
there with absolutely no guidance from our smart phones (it was a proud
moment). When we got there, a few of us realized we had been there as Girl Scouts and the nostalgia ensued. We realized what a great day it was going to
be when we walked up to this:
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| Cue the instagramming and the “ohmygosh this is so pretty”-s. |
We met John, an energetic Girl Scout leader who is kind
enough to spend EVERY weekend teaching Girl Scouts to canoe and, admittedly the
most exciting part of the whole shebang, to tip their canoes. Additionally, he
had two “program assistants”, girls in 8th grade who also spend
their weekends working with younger Girl Scouts, to help him.
We knew we would work with two groups of girls that day, but
besides that we had little idea about how the day would go. So when John
introduced us to them and sent us off in groups to teach them how to paddle, we
jumped right in. Our first group was adventurous and almost all of them were
happy to jump right into the canoes and spread out on the water. When it came
time to tip the canoes, we got our workouts swimming out to and dragging back
canoes that had been tipped over but never tipped upright. The second session
went much the same, however when it came time to go out on the water I nabbed a
“Fun-Yak” for myself instead of sharing a canoe with one of the girls.
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| This is a Fun Yak. And yes, they are fun. |
Sitting out on the lake/giant pond with the chaos of 20 Girl Scouts canoeing around me, I realized how good this day had been for me. I felt refreshed and light hearted and happy. I felt peaceful and like I could finally take a deep breath again. I had been stressing out over midterms, school, work, relationships, bills, cleaning my house and general life stressors all month and sitting there, I realized I completely forgot about all of it that day. When we got in the van to leave at the end of the day we all shared a similar sentiment.
On Friday, Leslie shared with me that she had run into one
of the moms of the Girl Scouts who told her how much fun her daughter had. It
made my heart happy to hear that the girls had also gotten a lot out of what
was such a rewarding experience for us Stewards.
And now for some pretty pictures:
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| I can't even..can I just live here please? |
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| Four happy Stews! |
As always, River Love!
Maddi
