Random Stories

I met this old man named Roy at camp and I got a chance to listen to his life story. He told me about how he lived in the times of segregation in Nashville, Tennessee. He told me that it was so segregated that the school districts wanted to bus his two boys an hour and a half away from their home just to make sure they would go to a white school. This was when intergration was legal but people were still reluctant, and sending white kids to a black school was unheard of. But Roy and his wife ( whom I met and she just told me to call her Granny), decided that it was just stupid to put their boys through that and decided to send them to the black school. Not only did they send them to the school, his wife applied for a teaching job and worked at the school. It was really awesome to see people that were part of the struggle of intergration, I mean they really help paved the way for intergration in there area. I felt honored that he shared that with me!

Roy also told me how much he valued education and how he made sure his sons got an education. But one of his sons did not listen to him and decided to go to work at an electrical company digging ditches after high school. But after two and a half days of working he decided that college was the place for him. So both of his sons got degrees and are working good jobs. Roy also wanted his wife to go back to school to get her doctorate, but she said she would only go if Roy began to learn how to play piano. So he told me when he goes home he knows a lady that will teach him to play piano so his wife will go get her doctorate. Then he looked at me and said as soon she goes I can quit though. He was real funny. And to end this story I will write my favorite quote of the conversation, “Been married 47 years we haven’t always had the most money, but at least we didn’t argue.”

Now the Skunk Killer story.

At the Tennessee camp there was a youth leader named Josh. Josh was definately from the south. We went to the creek the first day of camp and he caught (forgive my spelling of this word) crawl dads, and scared many girls and Luke with them. But the most interesting thing he would do was after all the campers had gone to bed, he would take his gun out and kill skunks. He did catch a couple in a bucket too. I never knew people hunted skunks, but one less skunk in the world to spray on me is not a bad thing. Anyway Josh was a really cool guy and it was really cool to see his heart for youth ministry.

So, Check back to see my Ohio camp experience. God was there through many trials and it was wonderful to see how he worked there.