Loaves and Fishes.

So in case you all were wondering, I'm thinking about going back to school. Yup, just thinking. No pursuing at this point.

I spent about an hour online yesterday checking out the creative writing MFA programs at UCR and the University of Oregon. I think those are the only two that I will decide between at this point...and if I do decide to pursue this endeavor, it won't be until after the completion of the PCT.

I would apply this winter, to go to school next fall, right after I'm done trekking the west coast in it's entirety. PS. the invitation still stands for whomsoever would like to join me. On the PCT, not the grad school diploma.

And I have to share with you some incredible highlights of the past two days...

I have to give you some background on the first one.

I work in the kitchen on the weekends. Normally only a day and a half a week. This weekend it was two and a half days due to the holiday. Which holiday is it again? Oh yeah, President's Day.

So Saturday I worked the a.m. shift, and I lead the shift, which means I was in charge of delegating the work crew through breakfast and lunch. Which means I was in charge of serving out two meals. Which means I was in charge of making sure that just over 400 people were served food that was both hot, and plentiful.

Which means I stress out.

Without fail, I stress out, every time I lead a shift. I lose sleep the night before, thinking about all the ways I could fail miserably at one of the most pivotal jobs at this camp, feeding kids.

There are so many outrageously integral parts to facilitating a successful meal, and within each meal, there are actually two meals, because the work crew eats an hour before the campers, which means I'm actually serving out four meals now, instead of just two.

Which means there are more ways for me to fail.

I know I know, you're thinking "fail? fail? those are just more ways to succeed!" Right?

But that's not how my brain operates. I pre-meditate everything, and that means that I find every possible way for things to go wrong, so that I can avoid them.

So the a.m. shift on saturday went relatively smoothly. The kids ate, and they ate until they were full.

But Sunday I worked the p.m. shift, which means I'm only in charge of dinner. Should be easier than the a.m. right? One meal would common sensically amount to less responsibility and therefore less stress, than the a.m. shift.

Yeah, I thought so too.

Until the lasagnas happened.

Dinner last night was lasagna, which should have been outstandingly simple because only one dish has to be served out to each table. The bread, margarine, beverages, and salad are all pre-set. Just lasagna has to be served out hot. Just lasagna.

I had about 8 work crew peeps on the assembly line to help me prepare the lasagnas. It was quite the event considering there are about 8 million layers in our lasagna. I was already frazzled due to the fact that there were 8 work crew, because the task really only needed about 4. More people make the job harder. Especially for me. I've learned that I'm definitely not the most efficient person there ever was. When it comes to preparing meals effectively, I tend to do things the hard way.

There was much spillage of red sauce and ricotta slop. Several bodies ran into each other leaving shmears of said sauce and slop along sleeves. There were too many people and too many toppings for comfort.

But we layered and we layered and we layered...and then we ran out. We ran out of noodles with 16 lasagnas left to top. We searched high and low in the freezers for noodles. There were no more noodles. No. More. Noodles. The three words echoed in my head, echoed into eyes welling up, echoed into a heart starting to race. I almost cried as I consulted my superiors, Tex and Sarah, to see what could have possibly gone wrong. The work crew stood beside us, baffled and with nothing to do but stare. I got really frustrated because it wasn't my fault that we ran out of noodles, but it appeared to be my fault so I regarded it as failure and ended up tearing up three of the pans of lasagna that I had prepared for the work crew in order to use the noodles for the camper lasagnas.

Which means that we would barely have enough lasagna to feed the work crew, let alone have seconds for the campers. And we have to have seconds prepared for the campers. Have to.

So Tex scours the cooler and freezer for leftover lasagnas from last weekend to salvage for our dinner for this weekend. He finds one frozen lasagna, and one lasagna that had already been cooked that we are going to try and reheat.

He continues to reassure me that everything is going to be fine. He reminds me that the Lord is in control, he reminds me of the 5,000 with the few meager fish and loaves. Every time I look a little dejected throughout the rest of the afternoon, Tex just says the words "fishes and loaves Sabrina, fishes and loaves."

I try to no avail to give it to the Lord. The meal is in His hands. There is absolutely nothing I can do.

So then it comes time to cook our lasagnas. And I tried to tell you about the process that is prepping the lasagnas, well the process of cooking them is even more exasperating. Because our ovens are pretty precarious, they don't cook our lasagnas evenly, so we have to rotate them, every thirty minutes. The lasagnas, not the ovens. So two platters of lasagna sit on one sheet tray and those platters are then covered by another sheet tray in order to lock in the moisture so you don't get dry crusty lasagna. The entire awkward lasagna compilation then goes on an oven rack. Six awkward lasagna compilations live in each oven for about an hour and 15 minutes, or until they reach 155 degrees, which is the temperature at which sausage is fully cooked, in case you were wondering.

One awkward lasagna compilation is very heavy. Very heavy. It takes much balance, precision, and strength in order to relocate one lasagna compilation. Plus the ovens are hot, and you have to wear mitts, which then produces an intrusive amount of sweat.

So here I am, a hot and sweaty mess, rotating lasagnas, worrying about children going to bed hungry because there were no seconds for lasagna.

I also forgot to mention that on this day the kids have only had one meal prior to dinner. They had a brunch at 10:30. Dinner is at 5:30. They haven't eaten in 7 hours. They're famished.

And I have no seconds.

In the midst of rotating, I get caught up in transferring the finished lasagnas to a warmer to wait for the meal. Tex then decides to, being the helper that he is, step in and help me rotate lasagnas. Tex is a wonderful man. This tale is not to denote his abilities in any way, or to disregard my appreciation for the ways he picks up my slack.

That said, Tex has large hands. His hands don't fit in the oven mitts. So he has to use the hot pads. The hot pads that aren't nearly as protective as the mitts.

The lasagnas are heavy. And awkward.

As I am transferring a pan from the oven to the warmer, I hear a feeble yelp and just as I turn around I hear a cacophony of shattering glass and splashing lasagna, and a shard of glass then ricocheted off the middle of my forehead.

There was absolutely nothing to do but make sure that Tex was ok, and then laugh myself silly. There's something quite magical about being so utterly helpless that you have to laugh.

Not only did I not have seconds of lasagna now, but I had lost two of my camper platters of lasagna.

So what did we do, the two of us threw our heads back and laughed, as we stood in the midst of the splattered lasagna.

After cleaning up the mess and continuing the rotation, we thought about what we could do to solve this predicament. And the only thing to do was pray. I continued to pray throughout the preparation of the meal and Tex continued to remind me, "loaves and fishes Sabrina, loaves and fishes."

God continues to stun me with His faithfulness. Not only did all the kids eat until they were satisfied, but there was one entire platter of lasagna leftover.

Loaves and fishes Sabrina. Loaves and fishes.

So that's one funny little spiritual tidbit from the last two days. Maybe not so much a tidbit considering it probably took you 20 minutes to digest it...but on to tidbit number two, which actually just happened moments ago..

Us interns are under contract in case you weren't aware. We're under a contract that says we can't drink, we can't smoke, we can't date each other or other staff people. Under said contract we have to read specified books, and we have to memorize specified scripture.

Today was our deadline for memorizing the specified scripture...John 1:1-18.

I memorized and performed for Sarah about 5 days ago, so I've been helping my roommates achieve success over the past couple days.

About a half hour ago Sonia comes into my room to ask if she can recite for me.

She starts dancing as she recites...she's an entertainer, it's the way her mind works I suppose.

So I grab my half eaten bag of sourpatch kids. And for every verse she gets right, I throw her a kid. It could possibly have been one of the funniest moments of this intern year so far, ok Connie and Bonnie definitely beat this one, ask me about them later, but this moment was definitely up there. She was crawling around on the ground panting like a dog, as I tried to toss them into her mouth after every right verse. They ricocheted off of every part of her body except her mouth. I almost teaspooned. You can ask me about that later as well.

Needless to say, she got plenty of treats, and she almost has the entire passage committed to memory.

God has a sense of humor. He really does. I hope that He's finding ways to make you laugh as He does for me.

And He is faithful. If you get nothing else from this whimsical pile of nonsense, get that. He is faith. And He is full.