Camp T-Shirt's And Service

As with most things, Church camp was cancelled for this Summer because of Covid-19. The powers that be worked hard, however, to create an online camp for our area where the main focus will be on the youth performing acts of service in their local area and after a little bribery (I suggested if they tried hard to enjoy themselves, I'd pay them to participate) my children agreed to take part. So, when Bishop emailed to say he had a huge delivery of t-shirts and was hoping we'd be able to pick them up before camp started, I emailed back with a time I hoped was suitable for me to collect shirts for my children and offered to collect the t-shirts for the youth aged children of a couple of friends who live nearby.

Somehow, when I got to Bishop's home, this had snowballed into me taking all the t-shirts for the youth that live my side of the town and a thirty-minute errand, was suddenly a two-hour errand. It was an act of service to deliver them to those around me, one which I wasn't planning on but one which felt right as it was presented to me.

Top Ender, who had come to keep me company for the drive, didn't mind the extension to our time out and quickly helped me to map out the best route to deliver the shirts and to get home. I think the fact that she also had control of what music we were listening to had a huge part in her nonchalance, that and the fact that my car has air conditioning and it was a super warm day for us Brits!

It was so lovely dropping the T-shirts off to friends.

Tops and I would fold the shirts, leave them on the doorstep, knock on the door and step back, so we could be socially distant from those we were leaving the T-shirts for. Our friends would then come to the door, and we'd get to have a few minutes of conversation with them. Or if they didn't answer, we'd post the t-shirt through the door and send a quick Whatsapp message to let them know what we had done.

It was so great to see them after so long apart. To see people, no matter how briefly, that we would normally see twice a week, at Youth night and on a Sunday, and just be able to chat about nothing substantial, but knowing that it didn't matter because we were together after so many months and weeks apart and our friendship was no worse off than it had been before we'd been forced to take almost all of our interactions into the digital world.

With the T-shirts distributed, I'm hoping that this means that all the Youth who are taking part will have a great week of camp, (in fact it starts in just a few short hours!) enjoy performing their acts of service and enjoy being able to hang out together even if it is just virtually each day. I know that camp will strengthen them in ways that I can't even begin to describe, will allow them all to go and do and be the best they can.