Week 19 - Pine Valley
We made it to the West Coast! This week we worked in the mountains of San Diego at Pine Valley Bible Camp (PVBC). Our name had been passed along from a new friend we met while working in Lubbock, and the camp reached out to us through our website. We always appreciate people connecting us with organizations they are connected to, just like this! (Here is the service opportunity link to pass along to any organizations if you would like to connect us). The recreation department put us to work on a scooter dirt track and painting the inside of a staff house. Working on these projects was great, but as always, the people are what made the week special.
Anderson, one of the recreation managers, and his wife, Kota, were our contacts and were amazing hosts. They took us to lunch, took us to dinner, took us to a great sunset spot, had us over for ice cream, showed us around camp, and more. We were grateful for how well they cared for us. When painting the house, Mark Gappinger was our point man. We all enjoyed our time with Mark, but he was tough to read. While working on the house, he would stop by every hour. I assumed he was micromanaging us, making sure our work was apt. Come to realize, he enjoyed his time with us, too! I realized each time he came, he wasn’t even checking on our work. He was coming to have a chat and laugh. He ate sunflower seeds with us even though the salt is bad for his heart, told Cain his shirt looked LIT after we taught him young people words, informed us he was born a year before Michael Jackson, told us his strengths and weaknesses, played Nintendo switch with us, bought us pizza for dinner, and gave us more pizza for lunch the next day. Mark shared his life with us by living alongside us. Mark is funny, trusting, and loveable. He even saved Cain from a terrible accident when he provided Cain toilet paper while he was in a little “predicament” in the bathroom.
This week was unique due to all our remarkable visitors. Our good friend from Clemson, B-Rad joined us on Wednesday. B-Rad (sounds like Bee [things that buzz around and make honey] + Rad [what Cain says when he sees something that is really cool]) is traveling after finishing his master’s degree and made a point to link up with us while in the area. He gave up time he could be surfing, skiing, exploring, and everything else he sought out to do on his adventure, and instead worked with us and volunteered his time at a camp he had never heard of. B-Rad made our time more enjoyable. Following his arrival was the entrance of the Compton family. Georgia, Cain’s sister, showed up on Wednesday followed by the Compton parents and Jessica, Cain’s oldest sister, who arrived on Friday. This past year before we left for the journey, the Compton family welcomed me into their family while I lived in Charleston to build out the bus. It has been refreshing to be around them again and continue to feel a part of their family. I am grateful for them raising such an amazing son in Cain, whom I can call one of my best friends, as well as the instrumental role they had in helping us get started on our journey.
One thing I have noticed about Cain’s family is they are great at asking questions. One thing I have noticed about myself is I enjoy answering good questions, so this dynamic has been fun! Georgia’s questions focused mostly on our love lives, so I will keep those to us, but Jessica’s first question to me was, “what have you learned about Cain and Davis since setting foot on the bus?” I did not answer right away, but told her that I would get back to her. Hopefully, she reads the blog because this is my way of answering. There are many great things I could say about Cain and Davis, such as their great character and unique habits, but due to recent circumstances I’ve started to notice how much I appreciate and depend on some of their hard skills. On Super Bowl Sunday, the bus broke down. Despite the potential of stressful situations, I have yet to feel nervous or panicked when the bus breaks down. It feels wrong to be so relaxed in those situations, but I have come to realize that I am assured that Davis will take care of it, no problem. It is still unclear to me how he fixes everything that goes wrong with the bus, but he continues to do it. He takes the time to explain to me what went wrong, why it went wrong, and how we are going to fix it. Cain is the same with many of our volunteer projects we work on each week. We often are handed a project that sounds like it is out of our league, but it turns out that Cain will have done something similar in his previous work, so he doesn’t only do it himself, but he also patiently shows me the ropes. This proves true on projects that seem simple, but Cain continues to have little tips to make things more efficient. Even during our painting project this past week, Cain has been showing me cool tricks (for example, showing me how to stir the paint with the drill!). Cain and Davis are great teachers when I ask questions, and they continue to set an excellent example for me to follow. They are quite remarkable.
This week has also included stops in Joshua Tree and playing tourists in San Diego. During these times, two things were confirmed: my parents named me after a tree and not a man from the Bible and San Diego is my favorite city in the country. We will continue to spend time in San Diego County in the upcoming week.
