The Great Lost Shoe.

So this weekend was the College and Career group's Camp in Paradise, Ut. Steve and I were blessed to be able to go this year and had been looking forward to going. We had sessions Friday and Saturday then church on Sunday at the camp then came home on Sunday after lunch. I would love to share everything that happened throughout the weekend but honestly there is just too much, but the one thing that impacted me the most was the part of the weekend that wasn't even planned.

It started with a lost shoe. We were all trying to hurry to get out of the Camp and on the road so that we could get to Brigham for the fireworks and we were already running behind. When I walked past Kandi and Shane's tent they asked me if I knew how to get there. I didn't even really know where we were going, I just told them to hurry because we were leaving. Everyone piled into the least amount of cars they possibly could, Steve and I in the Calvary van with some other leaving only 2 open seats. Shane came running up to ask if there was an extra seat for them and then went to get Kandi. We all sat there wondering what was taking so long and why weren't we on the road yet. Feeling rushed, Scott went to find out what the hold up was. As it turned out Kandi couldn't find her shoe. So she came running up anyway with only one shoe and about 30 seconds later Shane followed with her other shoe. So all was well and we were on our way. I had been thinking we were only about 10 minutes behind schedule but it was probably more like 30. We lead the line of about 10 cars for Brigham City fireworks. Shane was feeling really bad, he even said there is nothing worse than having a bunch of people waiting for you. I reassured him it wasn't a big deal and he didn't bring it up again. Scott was driving the van and he had driven the road a few times before so he knew where he was going but still missed the turn. He decided to keep going to the next road but as he got closer to the road he saw a car in the ditch. I didn't think he was going to stop. I thought he'd be worried about being even later than we already were and missing the fireworks. I was wrong. He pulled over and jumped out as did every guy in the cars that followed as did some of the girls and both the Pastors. The car was wedged with it's back end in the ditch and up against a fence so it didn't really look like it would be easy to get it out. The girl, who was alone in the car, had to defend herself for a minute when some of the guys were teasing her about if she was drunk or texting, but then the settled down when they realized that she was pretty upset and it wasn't really the time for jokes. A few minutes after assessing the situation, the boys gathered around the car and pushed it out of the ditch in about 10 seconds with little effort (see the video here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/video/video.php?v=127110924571&ref=mf ) Why not? God had placed us there to help her, he wasn't going to leave it at that. Then after some cheers and a crowd full of "praise God" shouts, everyone piled back into the vehicles and were off to the fireworks. I was reminded of how down Shane had been about holding up the group and I made sure he knew if it wasn't for that we would have passed by there before the girl drove her car into the ditch. His spirits were up after that and so was everyone else's. We were all amazed at how God had put us there to help her and no one cared about being late for fireworks anymore. So we joked a little about just watching them as we drove down the road, or getting there just as it was ending. Hey, we'd miss traffic because we'd be going to opposite direction as everyone else. So sure enough when we made the turn for Brigham the fireworks were already going, so Scott pulled over and so did everyone else, except one car (I guess they decided to risk it). Everyone got out and watched fireworks for a minute. We sang some songs like Neil Diamond's "Coming to America", "God Bless the USA", also the national anthem, "glory glory hallelujah", some Christmas song, just for a joke and then every one started to form a circle for prayer but we were still in the singing mood so people started doing the "Hokey Pokey". Even throughout prayer some people began to sing praise and worship songs. I had never seen anything like that. We stood on the side of that road united for prayer for probably a half hour. It was amazing! Even after we got back to the Camp, a lot of people were still talking about the girl in the ditch. Pastor John pointed out a part in the bible that talks about how our actions can be the biggest witness of God. I know that sometimes it's hard to do something for someone and not see if it impacts them at all, in this case we will probably never know until we enter into God's kingdom and I'm perfectly ok with that. I'll continue to pray for her anytime I think about what happened and praise God for the great lost shoe.