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Camp Rock N' Waters

The beat-up, rust colored mini-van sped across the countryside road. Inside it, my youth group and I chattered and joked, the excitement of fleeing our normal lives for a week at summer camp hovering in the air. At Rock N' Waters, the camp, we would be hiking, rock climbing, and whitewater river rafting, among many other out-doorsy things. We were ecstatic. As our church's youth pastor, Nick, pulled into Rock N' Water's spacious but filled driveway, we cheered, then proceeded to unpack our duffel and mummy sleeping bags, in which we would be sleeping under the stars.

We were given a tour of the lush, green camp grounds, which consisted of a ladder to a tree branch so we could jump off of it and onto a gigantic rope swing with a precarious disc-shaped seat, a mess hall with old, wooden tables and a big sink so campers could wash their dishes themselves, a volleyball court that nobody wanted to play on barefoot for fear the too-hot sand would burn their pink soles, and easy access to the river for catching trout or taking a dip in the river water. After that, we sat around a table, filled burritos with toppings, and filled ourselves with burritos. This gave me some time to think.

Although we would be spending practically all our time doing some insane, courageous activity or another,- and don't get me wrong, I was thrilled - something was bothering me. All the time we would be spending had one deadly element in common: water. Although I wasn't aquaphobic, my hearing aids may as well have been. A puny splash was one thing, but if my pink, glittery and jewelry-like hearing aids were drenched, like they would be while swimming, they were done for. Being hard of hearing didn't bother me in the slightest. If anything, I loved it, but I didn't love asking my friends to repeat what they said again and again for lack of hearing aids.

After I victoriously took the last of the corner pieces of a huge tray of brownies, the youth-groupers started changing into our super warm PJs and bundling up in our sleeping bags. I lay on my back, tracing the outlines of the redwoods' strong, dark profiles against a sky filled with what must have been billions of stars winking down at me, as excited to see what happened next as I was.