I knew what I was in for.

Dirt. Lots and lots of dirt. Enough to crest the murky waters of my kid’s baths and stick like a mossy stain on the side of a dock.

Weather. Moody weather. Capricious conditions that drove me to plunge my fingers between the ice in our red cooler just to ease the sweat off my upper lip; then grab my beanie because I start to see my breath, all while I duck from the strikes stabbing the sky and do a quick scan of the woods to make sure my children are not holding their homemade bow and arrow sets into the air like a battle scene from Narnia.    

Walking. Everywhere walking. To eat, to play, to pee; even to drive.

Improvising. Because I always forget something I need to cook or cook with, bathe with, sleep with, or give.

Port-a-potties. Like, more than you’ve ever seen together in one place. Always with a pile on the top unless you were lucky enough to hit them right after cleaning. If you were there, you know what I mean.

Ah, church camp. It’s the same every year. I hit day 5 weary, craving caffeine and fantasizing about the way my kitchen faucet at home can run water for as long as I want it to. I daydream about my family more than 2 inches away while I sprawl on a real mattress, and showering in hot, pummeling streams (as opposed to an ungodly arctic drip) without flip flops. 

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that when I got home I would miss the smell of bark and sap.

Or the gravelly tone of the band leader while he played white and black keys of hymns that made me think of my husband’s late grandfather, who probably often had a sweaty upper lip too. Not from heat, but from tireless work that grew out of a deep passion for young people he hoped, prayed would come face to face with the One person who could change everything.  

I didn’t know that Facebook would seem, inadequate. 

That as physically spent as I was I would feel an ache for hometown friends, laughs and toddler burns around an old-time lantern, the way my throat burned watching a slideshow reeling before a valley green like watermelon skin, and hot chocolate every morning for 10 impatient kids who want bacon. Yes, 10 kids to 5 adults. Yes.

I didn’t know I needed it. But now I remember why I go back.