A few days after seeing the properties and speaking with the owner’s son, John, he called me and asked me to come to the Ice Palace for a meeting. As I walked into the ice-rink, he started to ask me questions like: How many kids? How would they get here? Who would be staffing them? Where would I store our equipment? What would we do for lunches? What rest- rooms would they use? What about garbage pick-ups? What kind of insurances do we have? What hours and days would we be using the grounds? Who was going to be in charge?
I began answering each of his questions, calmly and as a matter of fact. We would be there from 9-5 Monday through Friday. The children would be dropped of at the “Y” earlier, and then busses or vans would bring them out to the camp grounds. (About a ten minuet ride.) We would have a 100 foot tent, so we would have shade.
In the huge tent we would have craft classes at different times during the day, and they would eat their lunches in there too. We could store their lunches (a federally funded program, where lunches were brought to us by van two hours before lunchtime), in styro-foam ice chests. We could keep the lunches cold under the sides of the ice rink, We would get ten Porta John’s for out on the property, and we would arrange for a dumpster garbage service to pick up twice a week.
The staff would be the regular “Y” staff, plus volunteers, junior counselors in training, extra life guards, etc…
NONE OF THIS WAS PLANNED BEFORE. GOD JUST TOLD ME TO ASK AND SPEAK AS IF IT WAS DONE!
I did just that!
In the middle of the conversation John (the son) got up, and said, “follow me,” and showed me where things would go. I followed him. He started to walk faster so he was some distance from me and all of a sudden he turns around and shouts ‘LADY, WHERE DID YOU COME FROM?” And then turns away again and he continues walking.
My heart was pounding and I was walking as fast as I could. I said, “I don’t know how into God you are, but he told ME that the brick building was to be a school to teach all of God’s Glory! And then he told me to ask you for the use of the rest of the property for camp.”
He walked away from me, never saying a word, went into an office, and slammed the door shut.
I was stunned, shaken, and confused. BUT, HOW DO YOU LIE ABOUT GOD? I prayed, “God what do you want me to do? Did I blow it? Does he think I’m some kind of religious, fanatic nut? HELP HIM UNDERSTAND.”
Well back at the “Y” I never told anyone except Francis (the Grant writer) because we needed all the things for camp including a bus, a van, lunches, and the tent.
But I continued praying and believing IT WAS SO! GOD SAID IT AND THAT’S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!
Three days later John called again and told me he wanted to see me. Again, heart pounding, I went!
John said, “I have good news for you and some bad.”
I said, “OK, What is it?”
He said, “I told my father (the famous Doctor, in the area) EVERYTHING YOU TOLD ME… EVERY WORD! And my father said to me…
“A few days ago a priest came to me and said, ‘YOUR BRICK RANCH STYLE BUILDING IS TO BE A SCHOOL DURING THE YEAR. IT IS TO HOUSE HIS CHILDREN AND TEACH THEM ABOUT ALL HIS GLORY!’
“So the bad news is my father gave that building to the Priest during the school year and said, ‘GIVE THAT WOMAN ANYTHING SHE WANTS! GIVE HER THE USE OF THE OTHER BULDINGS, (The Ice Rink, The Outback courts, the Racquetball Club, the swimming pool, and the 13 acres of property…”
THE COST OF USING THIS MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR PROPERTY?
Take a guess…
We had to pay for the dumpster, $100.
GOD ONLY GIVES THE BEST!!!! AMEN
© Carole Devecka God Given Daisies CaroleDevecka@comcast.net
To see the first story in this series: The Promise