Into the Woods, Part I

A few weeks ago, Alex and I joined a new church-- Grace Fellowship Presbyterian. Our parents joined us as the congregation welcomed us into their fold, and we have been really thrilled to be a part of this fantastic church community.

99% of the time, that is.

See, my dear friend Clay, the youth minister at GFPC, took advantage capitalized on my apparent love of teenagers, based on my being a middle school counselor, and asked me to chaperone the winter youth retreat. Excited to dive into community with our new church, I agreed.

The cabins are heated, he said.

We'll hardly be outside, he said.

We arrived at beautiful Alpine Camp in Mentone, AL, around 6 pm on the Friday night of our retreat weekend. My 9 middle and high school girls and I unloaded into our cabin, prepared our bunk beds, and headed to the Lodge for a surprisingly good camp dinner: chicken fajitas. Since I was coming off a 7 am- 4 pm workday of dealing with my own 450 middle schoolers, I started funneling coffee at dinner. I sensed it would be a long night because of games, giggling, and even a little Bible study.

How naive I was...

After dinner, we had a little free time before evening worship. The girls and I settled into our cabin and got to know each other a little better. At this point, I realized that I had not yet even taken my down "puffer" jacket off. Realizing how cold it must be in the cabin, I go to turn the heat on.

And I turn. And I turn. And I turn.

I'm hardly an expert on space heaters, but I eventually realized we weren't even working with a pilot light at this point. So when we returned to the Lodge for worship, I notified the camp person (manager? groundskeeper?) of our heating situation.

No problem, he said.

After worship, we gathered in the cabin with David-the-camp-man and one of the male chaperones, pondering over our heating situation.

Note: outdoor temperature-- 27 degrees, indoor temperature-- slightly higher than 27 degrees.

Eventually, the heat began working. And it was glorious. I can feel it now: those first flickers of rejuvenating heat...

So off we went to play ice breaker games with the other churches. Around midnight, we returned. And what did we return to? Glad you asked.

A cabin hovering somewhere around freezing. Once again, our heat had gone out. So, I called David-the-camp-guy once again. Good news: he restored the heat. Bad news: it's not going to stay on long because he doesn't have the tool to actually fix it.

Turn the smaller space heater in the bathroom on, he said.

That'll warm the ENTIRE cabin, he said.

Shortly after David-the-camp-guy left-- you guessed it-- the heat goes out again. Minutes later, the fire alarm begins beeping. Not a blaring alarm... just the super high pitched once-every-60-seconds kind of alarm that lets you know that the battery is dying.

Meanwhile, my happy campers are going about their business-- braiding hair, giggling about boys from the other churches, and so on. Head Counselor Ruggles here took care of the fire alarm by calling Clay, the youth pastor. Called him once. Called him twice. Called three times. Left a voicemail message not quite worthy of a church retreat, and shot off a few text messages. And then, I waited.

Approximately 45 seconds later, I gave up. Off into camp I went, because really what did it matter? Same temperature out there as it was in the cabin-- might as well take a stroll. I tracked down the boys' cabin and drug Clay out. Like a knight in shining armor, he fixed the alarm. Or, rather, he took it down, took the battery out, and left us defenseless against a night fire. It's not like we had a small space heater blaring in the bathroom or anything... Nevertheless, the beeping stopped and we were able to, at long last, lay our heads down and crash.

That was the plan at least. See, Clay ASSURED me there would be heat. So Big Girl just brought a set of sheets and a queen-sized quilt that I doubled over. Meanwhile, my sweet campers had sleeping bags worthy of camping on frozen tundras. So they snoozed right off as I lay there staring into my own frozen abyss. And then, the snoring started. Snoring worthy of an obese man suffering from sleep apnea. All from a petite sixth grader with a stuffy nose. The snorer was to my right, on the top bunk. Unfortunately, she was out of arm's length or I would've taken matters into my own hands-- literally. As it was, I was paralyzed by the bitter cold in my bottom bunk. Furthermore, my bunk buddy on the top bunk repositioned herself every 45 seconds or so-- not that I was counting each and every tiny budge. I had other things on my mind-- survival, for one. At this point, I am layered in nearly everything I brought: sweat pants, wool socks, long-sleeved t-shirt, fleece pull-over, down "puffer" jacket... I thought I had overpacked seeing as how we were staying in a "heated" cabin and all.

For hours, I lay awake, sending a periodic SOS into the Twittersphere and one desperate text to my dad, thinking he might drive out to Mentone at 2 am and rescue me. Evidently, once you're married your husband is responsible for middle-of-the-night rescues... My husband wasn't quite responsible enough to keep his phone charged, though.

At long last, my shivering and quaking exhausted me enough to drive me into a shallow sleep. Altogether, I slept about two and a half hours, and that may be a generous estimate.

My final illustration-- graphic though it may be-- should truly show you the depths of my despair. On one midnight pilgrimage to the restroom-- truly a Mecca in our cabin, being our one and only source of heat-- I couldn't help but notice that as I relieved myself, steam arose from the toilet. And that, friends, should tell you something.

So there ya have it, folks: night one of our adventure in the woods!