trial by flood

Last weekend the boys and I went to the youth camp grounds at Turner Falls. Mostly, the grounds are used for summer camps in June and July but they use them for weekend retreats throughout the rest of the year too. Last weekend was Youth Pastors Retreat! I was helping Robin and Jill set up and work the event but I took the boys with me so that they could play with their cousin, Elia, who was their with her parents too! They had a blast! Just a few days before we arrived at Turner Falls for the retreat they had a massive rain storm move through this part of the state that caused alot of flooding! We have been in a severe drought for so long here in Oklahoma and so much rain fall in such a short period of time did some damage! I've never seen the camp quite like this before! It's amazing what water can do!

These pictures were taken in the game court area of the camp. There are flag football courts, volleyball courts and basketball courts scattered over the grounds. When the creek overflowed, though, it carried most of the sand from the flag football courts up into the walkway leaving them filled with nothing but rock. This is one of the flag football goals! It was completely torn down and crumpled up!! All by nothing but rushing water!!

You can literally see where the water forged its own path between and through all the game courts. It carved its own path and left its mark.

As we were walking through and looking at all the damage, Rae pointed and said from a distance, "What's that shiny thing in the tree?" We walked over and found a TRASH CAN completely flattened and tangled in the tree!! We don't even know where it came from!! We don't have trash cans like that one at our camp!!

When the water came through it carried with it a bunch of leaves, grass and other debris leaving it wrapped around the volley ball court poles and trees..it was pretty gross!!

This was ALL GRASS only days ago!! Now it just looks like a dried up river bed!!

The water moved this picnic table from its original location up onto the basketball court!!

OK...this was the craziest damage of all!! The caregiver who lives at the camp said the creek rose to well over the top of this bridge! We use this bridge every single summer to walk from the girls side of the camp to where the tabernacle is. Ever since I can remember, this bridge has been an old, rickety, wooden bridge with metal railings on each side. Well, if you notice, there are NO METAL RAILINGS ANYWHERE TO BE FOUND!!!! The flood tore them down and carried them to the other side of the creek!! They are all bent and crumpled!! Crazy!! You can't see it very well in this picture but there is also a dumpster lodged under the bridge. Again, it's NOT OUR dumpster! It's marked "Turner Falls" on the side which is the tourist attraction across the highway!! Weird!!

There used to be a sewer pipe running across this portion of the creek but it too was washed away!! Gross!! Now all you can see is a portion of the pipe and a bunch of debris. As we got a closer look we could tell that there were TWO picnic tables trapped at the end of the remaining pipe amongst a bunch of yucky grass and leaves.

Casey found a live clam and kept teasing Elia that he was going to eat it!! What's crazy, though, is that I'm pretty sure he would have eaten it except that he said it was "too sandy"...sick!!

This tree is close to the creek and...yes!...that's another picnic table wrapped around it!!

Pretty far up the sandy shore from the creek we found this icky dead fish...Elia didn't believe me that it was "real"!!

This USED to be a tree!! Ha!! It was literally pulled up from the roots and laid over across the road. The camp caregivers had already come and chopped the branches off that were blocking the road. It was so weird to see roots sticking straight up into the air!! Especially where you can remember a tree being ever since you were about eight years old!!

Elia collected a bunch of "goodies" during our walk!! She grabbed leaves, rocks and shells and shoved them all in her pockets!! Then she chose the prettiest ones and put them in a cup to take home. I'm pretty sure she gave some of them away too!!

The boys and I left the camp Friday evening right at dinner time. We grabbed McDonald's to eat on our way home and then the boys passed out!! They were so tired!! Thank you YP Retreat for a quiet drive home!! Ha!!

It may have been a "working weekend" but I'm glad I went!! I had fun visiting with friends and even better I got to hear Jill speak two different times!! I don't get to hear her speak as often as I would like to. She always receives something from the Lord that is so relevant to us as women and mom's. The way she looks at scripture is inspiring and she always, ALWAYS, sends you away with a little souvenir to remind you every day what you learned during the session!! I still remember what each little trinket means too and what she has taught me over the years!! I'm lucky that I get to go to stuff like this so that I can learn something in the process...amongst setting up tables, decorating centerpieces and serving food!! Ha!!