I grew up in a peaceful, suburban neighborhood, and like most peaceful, suburban neighborhoods, when you looked beyond initial appearances, there were some really colorful characters who lived all around us.  One was an older (As a kid, she seemed ancient to me) widowed lady named Priscilla.  She lived alone most of the time, but I do remember an adult son living with her some times.  Priscilla was, to say the least, colorful.

As a practitioner of Sylvan Mind Control, she once asked permission to try to control our family's dog's barking.  This would have been a miracle on par with the loaves and fishes had she succeeded, but even Sylva Mind Control met its match in Heidi, our border collie mix.  It took several days of trying  before Priscilla  no longer stood in the road that separated our houses and , well, we never knew what exactly she was doing in the middle of Edgewood Drive... going into a trance? Meditating?  Summoning spirits?  No matter, Heidi just barked all the louder. 

Being the youngest in the family, I lived in the neighborhood the longest, which meant I had the, shall we say opportunity, to know Priscilla the best.  She would hire me to mow her lawn, insulate her attic, and take pictures of her so she could mail them to a guru in Colorado who would then read her aura.  Yeah, for real.  And I remember one day when I was 15 years old I was at her house and she asked me what I wanted to do after high school.  I told her I was considering working with children with special needs.  She suggested I look for a job at a summer camp for such kids.  Actually, she more than suggested; she told me she was going in to Burlington the next day and I was to come with her and use the University library to find out where camps for the disabled might be located around Vermont.  She'd pick me up after she was finished her errands.

As much as I avoided spending time with this kook, I was not one to lie to make up an excuse, and I was even worse at saying, "No."  The next morning I reluctantly trudged across Edgewood Drive to Priscilla's house and we headed into Burlington. In short order, I had gotten help finding a resource that gave me what I was looking for, Priscilla brought me home, and I sent out letters of inquiry to several summer camps.

The next summer, at 16 years of age, I was working at a summer camp for the first of many summers.  It was Camp Wapanacki, in Hardwick, Vermont.  It was owned and operated by the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, and I was a junior counselor for blind children from all over the northeast.  I returned to Wapanacki the next summer, and worked at several other camps throughout my college summers as well. 

Then, as our juggling and illusion ministry really took off, each summer we did our program at camps in all six New England states, New York and Canada.  Our favorite venue was Baptist Park, a 320 acre camp in the wilderness of northern Maine.  The facilities are among the best we'd seen, but it was more than that.  The local churches had long time commitments to this camp, so we got to work with the same people year after year.  The leaders of the camp always encouraged us to get involved with the counselors, whether being spiritual mentors or merely ping pong opponents.  (There has been only one staff person at Baptist Park to ever beat me at the ping pong table!) There's nothing quite like the energy of high school and college aged people on fire for God and skilled at ministering to kids.  My favorite part of the job has always been  working with the staff.

Then, 10 years ago, when the camp found itself in need of a new director, after a rather hurtful time in the camp's history, we were approached.  We didn't live locally.  It didn't matter.  We weren't Baptist.  Didn't matter.  I had never been a director anywhere else.  Didn't matter.  The job was mine if I wanted it.

I took it on one condition.  I explained to the board that I had worked for years developing my juggling ministry.  I still wanted opportunities to use those skills at camp and locally on the weekends.  No problem, I was told, and it hasn't been. 

Beyond that, our two oldest daughters went from being campers to CITs to counselors here.  Rose has been a camper, and has benefitted so much from the friendships and experiences here at BP.  Sue and I have some of our closest friends here, and many "nearly family members" - Tammy, Katrina, Josh, Jeremiah, Dan, Lauren - have worked with us here.  A couple of our family heroes have been speakers here: Fred Shapiro, and Donnie Brown.

We are on the verge of opening our gates to a new season at Baptist Park tomorrow.  We have spent the last week preparing the grounds as well as holding workshops on everything from camp games to CPR and first aid.  (Those might be more closely linked than they first appear!)  We are starting something new this summer, too.  "Thrilling Thursdays" will be a once a week camp for senior citizens.  My wife, Sue, is the director of this program, and has planned activities such as water aerobics, horseshoes, oil painting and yard games as well as classes such as "Cooking for One or Two", "Local Flora and Fauna" and "Seniors and the Law". 

Who knew 36 years ago when I reluctantly slid into the passenger seat of Priscilla's Volkswagen Bug that I would still be involved with summer cap all this time later.

I guess she wasn't such a bad neighbor after all.