Church Camp Chaos (21 page)

Last night was fun, but I think today will be even better. It’s our day for the high ropes course!

EJ

EJ wondered if it was just her imagination or if the wooden tower she was sitting on—thirty feet off the ground—actually swayed a little bit. It didn’t help that the sound of the gentle summer breeze seemed extra loud in the helmet strapped on her head.

EJ, Macy, and the rest of the girls from dorm E sat on the large platform, each girl strapped into a harness fit around her legs and waist. Susan had already talked them through safety procedures for the high ropes, and they had just broken into pairs and were assigned to a counselor. EJ felt like the luckiest girl in the world because she and Macy were with Susan.

“Okay, girls, ready to climb to the tall tower?” Susan pointed to the zip line tower about forty feet above them.

“Let’s do it!” Macy slapped palms with Susan in a high five.

“I think I can, I think I can,” EJ chanted under her breath.

“EJ, I don’t understand why you’re nervous,” Macy said. “You spent hours and hours up in a harness like this during the nativity play last Christmas when you were the angel. This doesn’t seem that much different to me.”

“Well, first of all, I was only like ten feet off the ground,” EJ said. “And second of all, Dad had the other end of the rope, and I knew he wasn’t going to let me fall.”

“So you trust your dad more than you trust the safety harness,” Susan said. “Right on—I totally get that. But do you trust
me
enough to at least climb up to the zip line tower with us?”

EJ gulped and nodded. No way was she going to disappoint Susan.

The counselor checked their safety equipment, and then the trio began to climb the ladder—Macy in the lead followed by EJ, and Susan bringing up the rear.

“Do you girls want to know a secret about me?” Susan asked as they climbed.

“Ooo, yeah! I love secrets.” EJ glanced back at Susan but snapped her head forward again quickly when she realized how high up they actually were.

“I’m afraid of heights.” Susan laughed.

“Good one.” EJ reached the top of the ladder and stepped onto the zip line platform. “Now it’s my turn to tell a joke. Knock-knock.”

“No, really, I’m actually afraid of heights,” Susan said as she hopped onto the platform, obviously at ease even seventy feet off the ground. “Getting my high-ropes certification was almost impossible for me because of it.”

EJ mentally scratched camp counselor off her career list.

“Then why did you do it?” EJ asked, clutching her safety line so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

“I’ve wanted to be a counselor at Camp Christian since I was your age, and I had to get my certification to do it,” Susan said, turning toward the girls. “So I worked with my instructor on the ground until I trusted the safety equipment. Then I knew that even if I fell off the very highest platform, the safety equipment would protect me. So really, I don’t have anything to be afraid of.”

EJ didn’t look so sure. “Susan, how much weight can these safety lines actually hold?” she asked, eyeballing the rope she was clinging to.

“Waaaay more than what you weigh, EJ girl,” Susan said. “Watch.” Without warning, she bent her knees slightly, leaned back, and fell off the platform. EJ and Macy gasped as they saw her free fall, but in the blink of an eye, the safety cable caught her so she was dangling only about two feet lower than before.

“See?” Susan grinned as she pulled herself onto the platform with ease. “We’re completely safe.”

EJ loosened her grip on the cable, a little less terrified—even peeking over the edge of the platform.

“There are lots of things you can choose to put your trust in,” Susan said as she unhooked the zip line equipment from the cable above. “But I’ve learned that if I put my life in something I know I can trust, I don’t have to be nervous when something crazy or scary happens.”

Like moving away
, EJ thought.

“So, EJ—you’re going first and showing Macy how it’s done!” Susan said.

“I—I am?” EJ stammered.

“Yeah, come on, EJ—I know you can do it.” Macy gave her a reassuring smile.

Susan had EJ lie facedown on top of the zip line sling, and she attached EJ’s safety harness. Then Susan wrapped it around EJ’s torso and legs, leaving her arms free. Finally, Susan flipped a switch that lifted EJ about three feet off the platform. The harness hugged her snugly, like she was a human burrito.

Looking down on the top of the platform, EJ saw there were words carved into the wooden planks underneath her.

“Hey, what’s that?” EJ pointed to the words.

“Read them out loud,” Susan said.

“ ‘This is my command—be strong and courageous!’ ” EJ read. “ ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.’ Joshua 1:9.”

“No matter what’s going on—whether I’m flying high on the zip line or if my feet are on the ground—
that’s
what I choose to put my trust in,” Susan said. “
Who
I put my trust in.”

“Okay, I’m ready,” EJ said. “Let’s do it.”

EJ closed her eyes as Susan counted off: “Three, two, one—fly!” As soon as Susan let go, EJ felt her full body weight tug on the zip line sling, hugging her a little tighter in an oddly comforting way. Gravity kicked in, and she heard the
zizzz
of the zip line above her, slowly at first. A gust of warm summer wind blew her hair off her face as she prayed, “I trust You, God. Starting now, no matter what happens—even if we have to move to Antarctica—I trust You.”

EJ opened her eyes just as she soared off the edge of the platform, gaining speed by the second. The beauty of the clear sky above her and the green valley below made her chest swell with excitement as a laugh exploded from her throat.
I wonder if this is what people mean when they say I have my head in the clouds
, she thought.

EJ stretched her arms straight out in front of her….

Wonder Girl zooms over the top of the city buildings, making a game of dodging the skyscrapers and flying as low as she can over the shorter buildings. She uses her super eyesight to scan the ground for trouble—a kitten in a tree, a lost child, a bad guy scheming to take over the world—but all seems well, so she settles in to her flying pattern, enjoying the view. With her cape flapping behind her, Wonder Girl glances to her right and sees her loyal sidekick, Bert the Power Pooch, flying a few feet away. She gives him a thumbs-up, and he wags his tail and barks a happy yip before twisting into three perfectly executed barrel rolls. She laughs as Bert flies off to scatter a flock of geese. The only thing he loves more than crime fighting is messing up their
V
formation. In the distance, EJ hears excited shouting of her adoring public
.

“Woooooo-hooooo!” Susan cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. “Get it, girl!”

“Yeah, EJ!” Macy yelled. “Looking good!”

EJ sat in the grass on the hillside overlooking the lake, her legs stretched out in front of her with Dad’s Bible and a pen on her lap. She took in a deep breath, puffed out her chest, and held in the fresh camp air a moment before exhaling. The lake water looked so smooth and perfect in the late-afternoon sun—just like a mirror that reflected the billowy cotton-ballish clouds in the sky. A second later, the glass shattered when a fish jumped near the shore and sent a thousand ripples out in all directions—circles within circles. A dragonfly the size of a large paperclip landed on the toe of her left Converse All-Star, the insect’s green and blue body glistening like a jewel in the sun.

This might be my favorite spot in the entire universe
, EJ thought.

She gently shooed away the dragonfly, sat cross-legged, and opened the Bible across her knees. She flipped through a few of the thin pages before she came to one of Dad’s handwritten notes in the margin in the Old Testament book Jeremiah. First she read the highlighted Bible text. “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ ”

Then she squinted to read the note, written in Dad’s recognizable handwriting:

God’s plans > David Payne’s plans

She smiled and ran her index finger over the writing, imagining Dad as a camper, maybe sitting in this exact spot by the lake when he wrote these words in his brand-new Bible. She uncapped her pen and wrote underneath Dad’s note:

God’s plans > EJ Payne’s worries

The dinner bell rang. EJ capped the pen and stuck it in her pocket. Then she shut the Bible and tucked the special book in the crook of her arm before skipping up the hill toward the dining hall. What was that she smelled? Garlic! Spaghetti and meatballs, maybe!

“Attention, girl in the Converse sneakers—!” EJ jumped and whirled around to see Gene, speaking a little too loudly as he stood behind her in line for supper. Apparently without his megaphone, he thought he had to shout to be heard. “You’re EJ Payne, right?”

“That’s me,” she said.

Gene thrust an envelope toward her. “This came for you in yesterday’s mail. I’m sorry you didn’t get it then, but it was caught in the front flap of the mail bag, and I didn’t see it till now.”

EJ took the letter and recognized Mom’s handwriting.

“What’d you get?” Macy asked as EJ tore open the envelope.

“It’s a letter from Mom,” she said, smiling. “I was starting to think she forgot about me!”

Uh-oh, here we go
, thought EJ.
God, are You still here? I need You to be with me right now … these are Your plans—not mine
.

“You’re PREGNANT?” EJ yelled in excited surprise at the paper in her hand.

“Wha–?” Macy’s question got cut off by EJ, who held up a finger in a “wait just a minute” motion. She had to read on to see what else Mom had written.