Camp Murphy and the MCC Retreat - by John

Camp Murphy

It’s been almost two weeks since my last blog entry, and those two weeks have been as different as possible. First, let me describe the week before this last one. I will call it the “if something can go wrong, it will”, or the “Camp Murphy” week. The week started with the start of the kid’s camp, and everything started well. However, there were two important things that you had to know. The first was that we had a terrific thunderstorm a few days previously. The thunderstorm brought with it some bad lightning, and one particular bolt hit a nearby pole, and took out the power for about five hours, all the telephones on campus, the security system, the fax machine, and unbeknownst to us, one of the two water pumps. The other thing to note was that camp brought the number of people on campus to a new level, never before seen. There were about 40 campers, 25 young leaders, 25 caregivers, five or six Canadian camp volunteers, and all of the staff (including us).

Well, the thunderstorm also announced the beginning of a week of rain and cool weather. The tents started leaking (we suspected that they would), we dug drainage ditches around the tents to prevent them from floating away, and whenever it wasn’t raining everyone hung out their sleeping bags to dry. Because one of the pumps was burned out, the other water pump decided it was bearing too heavy a load and decided to burn out its controller, and suddenly we were without water. While this was happening, the septic field decided that too many people were using it, and overflowed, while at the same time the kitchen drain, which attached to a different septic field, decided that it too would add to our troubles and get itself plugged up. The new toilets for the camp, which we had just finished installing, decided to start leaking, as if to mock our efforts. Oh, and we also had a big important meeting happening in a few days, for which we wanted the campus to be in top shape. And the rains continued for four out of seven days of camp, causing all our best plans to be altered on the fly.

Nothing to do but roll up our sleeves and attack the problems! I personally dug out and fixed the sewer (with help from one of the local guys) (Yeech), the electrician fixed the water pump problem, which took two days of very intermittent supply, the security system guy came in and diagnosed the security system (a total meltdown, complete with burned out motherboard), etc. etc. and by the end of the week we were in pretty good shape.

What was amazing that everyone kept up their good spirits and didn’t really complain, and by the end of the week camp was deemed a success.

The MCC Retreat

All of last week we were at a regional MCC retreat, which was held near White River at the Ekukaneni (yes, just like in the song “Siya Humba Ekukaneni Kweiko”) Retreat Center. In a word, it was great! We met the MCC people working in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland and South Africa.
What a great bunch of people! We really connected to everyone, and found a number of interesting and surprising connections (i.e. oh, I know your cousin). It was really good to find out what everyone else was doing, particularly because most of the folks were veterans and could offer us all sorts of insights into how things worked. Perhaps the most interesting and moving sessions was when the Country Reps from Zimbabwe described the difficult situation in their country, and some of the underlying racial tensions between the Shona and Ndebele people, seemingly egged on by the government. Dear Readers, I’m not generally into political statements, but I would encourage you to look into the situation in Zimbabwe and pray for the country, it looks like another Rwanda in the making.

The Retreat wasn’t all serious discussion however. We had a very moving Christmas service
some wonderful worship times, and a hilarious talent night, complete with (so bad it was good) disco dancing, a complete recitation from memory and with authentic accent of “A Childs Christmas in Wales”, Christian Rap, two teenage boys wearing dresses and lipsynching the “Barbie”song and Limbo dancing. A good time was had by all. At the end of the week everyone was sorry to see everyone else leave, and I can say that our family made a bunch of new friends. I was very impressed with the dedication and spirit of all of the MCC volunteers, especially those in difficult circumstances and remote locations. Mind you, they all described South Africa as “not really Africa”, so we are planning a number of visits to other countries to see what they mean.

Christmas is only a week away, and today we bought our Christmas Tree. Actually, it’s a palm, we have potted it, put it in our living room, and hung it with a few decorations. It’s in the mid thirties today, and hard to get into the Christmas spirit. My thoughts have been drawn to remembering Christmas past, going to Oma and Opa’s in Niverville, eating Halvah from the white Camel box, and going home under a very cold and crystal clear night sky, when the snow would squeak underfoot. That’s not going to happen this year, but we are creating interesting memories none-the-less.