Project Serve

You’ve probably guessed from previous posts that we love our trips to Fort Wilderness.  So far this year, Rosie Girl and Wild Man have each been to camp on separate weeks, the whole family went to Family Camp, and I went to the Women’s Retreat.  But it wasn’t enough.  This weekend, we took a couple of teens up to do Project Serve for the weekend.

Project Serve is a program where groups can go up to Fort during the Fall, Winter, and Spring for the weekend and work wherever they need help.  Mr. Math Tutor proposed this to his small group of teens that meets for Bible study on Sunday nights and they thought it was a great idea.  Originally, there were going to be 5 teens and the 4 of us in our family.  Early in the week, we lost one teen to illness.  Thursday, we lost another one to influenza.  Friday morning, we found out that another one wanted to come, but several people in her family were being treated for influenza.  We told her that we just couldn’t risk taking her.  Later that afternoon, we got a text from her that she had gotten sick, too.

When we finally left Friday afternoon, it was just six of us instead of the original nine – thank you, H1N1.  Nonetheless, we had a great time!  The weather on the drive up to camp was awful.  In fact, I had had a migraine since Wednesday evening and was still taking meds to keep it at bay even Friday afternoon.  By the time we reached Rhinelander, the rain had turned to snow.  Thankfully, the roads weren’t icy!  We got to camp and got settled into our rooms in Jay Lodge – some of the older accommodations, but still nice.  And we were warm – good thing since it snowed a couple of inches overnight!

 

Saturday morning, we started working!  I worked in the kitchen, alongside Janet and Kathy.  My job was to do whatever else needed to be done in the kitchen, mostly getting food ready to serve, chopping veggies, cutting up bread, etc. before the meal.  After the meal, I helped clean up the kitchen and deal with the leftovers.  Bob and Karla, another couple who have helped several times before, were also working in the kitchen.  The work wasn’t very hard, and everyone was so pleasant to work with that it went by very quickly!

The rest of the group was on dish crew so they worked significantly harder!!  They had to set the tables before meals then get all the dishes clean and put away after the meals.  This weekend, there were about 200 campers at Fort for a retreat and we served four meals.  Wild Man wasn’t old enough to be able to work in the kitchen or the dish room, but he was able to help set tables and clean up afterward.

 

 

 

Rosie Girl worked as a stablehand on Saturday.  If her jeans and boots are any indication of how hard she worked, it must have been pretty intense!!  She got to go on a couple of trail rides in addition to the general labor of mucking out stables and filling mangers.  Unfortunately, she developed a fever Saturday night.  I was quite paranoid about influenza, given the issues that we’d had with losing team members to the illness, so I sent her to bed and wouldn’t let her go to the dining room for breakfast Sunday morning.  It turns out that her fever didn’t return and she probably has a sinus infection.

  

Now that it’s all said and done, the whole team agreed that it was a successful weekend.  We enjoyed the work and had a blast!  I was also very glad that we got to hang out during our free time with the two teens that we took with us.  We played games in the coffee shop and talked.  They are really great kids.

 

 

I did manage to get everything unpacked today and the house cleaned up, but I think it will be a day or so before my feet and legs are willing to talk to me again!  And, I may just sleep for another 12 hours tonight!  Yep, I’m worn out – but in a good way!