"Church Camp"
Our church’s children’s pastor called me explaining he was looking for counselors for the boys at our church camp coming up within a week. He told me he was a bit desperate as more boys had signed up for camp than had been expected, and he needed more counselors to attend because they were required to have one counselor for each group of seven boys. I informed him my schedule was booked solid, in fact one of my busiest ever. I asked him to give me a call at the end of the week if he didn’t find anyone, just in case.
That next week my thirty-plus appointments started canceling or rescheduling one by one so that on Friday at 3:00 p.m. my last appointment was cancelled, and my schedule had completely cleared. The children’s pastor’s request came to my mind and right then he called. I explained to him that all my appointments had been cancelled, and that I was free to go to camp.
We left that next day and arrived at a beautiful camp in the mountains. The recreation field separated the boys’ cabins from the girls’ cabins. We were unpacking the van when I looked across to the girls’ cabins where they were unpacking too.
Standing there beside her van was the woman of my “The Room” dream, absolutely unmistakably her. I just stood there looking for a few seconds just stunned that this was happening.
Recently I realized it had been about 13 years since I met Lori and had thought about the dream. Since Danny had died, I had just not been myself and was most assuredly “in my grief” of which my “The Room” dream had shown.
Even so, I had hoped that I would never meet that women as the things that I had been shown to follow meeting her, I had really hoped could be avoided. Especially the “Times of Trouble” and “The War that would never end” dreams. My thinking was avoiding her might prevent those things from happening too. It didn’t matter that I knew these things just don’t work that way, I still hoped.
I went immediately to the children’s pastor and informed him that I needed to leave right away and just couldn’t stay. He told me I would have to take seven boys with me if I left. I begged and he relented and told me he would try to find someone to take my place the next morning, but I would have to stay until he did. I committed to stay the night.
That night at dinner, a counselor was assigned to be the head of each dinner table with their assigned group of kids at their table. I went to my assigned table and upon looking over at the table next to ours, was the woman I so desperately wanted to avoid. I made it through the meal without having to speak to her and avoided eye contact as much as it was possible to do so without seeming rude.
The next morning before we all went to breakfast, the children’s pastor informed me that no replacement counselor could be found and could I just stay for another day. I had made it this far, so I agreed to.
When the meals were over the kids were to pick up their plates and take them to the dishwashing area. The night before none of her kids took their plates and she was left doing the chore.
That morning after breakfast, the woman’s kids next to me started to leave again without taking their plates. I went over and instructed them that it was their responsibility to take their plates to the dish area and they all did so cheerfully. The woman thanked me for helping her explaining she didn’t have the heart to confront them as they were all so cute. She introduced herself and we chatted briefly.
Next on the schedule of the day, each counselor was assigned a task working with a group of children and that morning, I was assigned, along with three other counselors, to take a group on a three-mile hike. I showed up at the designated time and place only to find that the women was one of the other three. The other two were married and had been on the hike before and took the lead. The woman I was desperately trying to avoid and I brought up the end of the line with the kids between us for safety reasons.
This woman was quite gifted spiritually and as we hiked, she began to tell me things about myself that I had never told anyone before. I had done that to others, but I had never had anyone do that to me. It was astonishing to say the least and extremely helpful. By the time the hike was over, it was like we were lifelong friends.
That evening, the children were rolling around on the ground laughing with the Holy Spirit all around them. She informed me that that they had experienced the movement that came out of Toronto that had been brought to their church by a pastor involved in the movement. I, too, would soon experience this outpouring of the Holy spirit which would radically change my life.