A Day Not About Me

The day started with banana walnut muffins from Luci's. We piled into the car and headed up north. 

We made a pit stop to see the World's Largest Kokopelli. 

Clearly, this was a must. 

Then, about 3 hours later, we found ourselves in Williams, AZ. 

bex, gabby, and me

I think that train would take you to the Grand Canyon if you wanted it to. That is why a lot of people go to Williams. The other reason is the awesome Young Life camp that is there. 

We made our way to the YL camp, Lost Canyon and checked in.  

This week at Lost Canyon, they were hosting YoungLives, which is the teen mom ministry. My good friend, Veronica, is a leader with YoungLives and that's how I knew about this opportunity for me to go up there. The scenery is beautiful and the camp is relatively new, so it's really nice up there.

   

The girls spend the week up there with their child(ren) and with their leader. They participate in all the activities from the ropes course to messy games to zip line and everything in between. They take childcare workers up there so the girls can leave their children to go have time to... be kids, I guess. They also listen to a speaker share a message and then they have "cabin time" to discuss in a small group about things they are learning and going through. All these women heard about Christ's love this week and had an opportunity to accept Him as their Lord and Savior. (I think all the girls that Veronica's group had up there accepted Christ, which is amazing!!!!)

After almost a week of playing hard, getting messy and having tough discussions with mentors, these ladies got to enjoy a spa day experience. They got facials, massages, manicures and pedicures. This is something many of these girls would never get a chance to experience. I got a give manicures to some of these girls and chat with them for a half hour. It was an honor to be up there. It was an honor to spend the day doing that. I hope they felt God's love for them through people serving them in this way.

Was this the best manicure someone could have given them? No, I'm no professional and won't claim to be. I tried to be kind, gentle, and do the best I could. I think I gave 10 manicures yesterday and I was abundantly blessed by the end of it. The day wasn't about me. It wasn't about how I was feeling about our adoption situation. It wasn't about the things on my to-do list at home that I felt like I should be doing. It was a nice reminder that everything is not all about me. 

We ate dinner at a pizza place and met a bear. Then we headed home. 

On the way home we sang 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall and made it through the whole thing. I'm not sure I've ever done that before and maybe you haven't either. So, if you're wondering how long the whole song takes to sing I'll share that with you. It takes 16 minutes from start to finish. I thought that would have taken up more of our 3 hour drive, but I was wrong.

It was a wonderful day full of reminders that God is big and great and He has so much going on in this world. Things are not all about me. Have you had a day like that where you were reminded of how things aren't all about you?? Please share, I'd love to hear about it.