Carol's Corner

“We learn best and change from hearing stories that strike a chord within us.” John Kotter

I do love listening to and telling stories. I have the opportunity to tell lots of stories when I speak at children’s Bible camps in the summer. Often things happen that spark another story to be used at another time and place. These go into my story file. Today I want to share one story that happened a few years ago when I spoke at a ranch camp for 10 – 12 year old campers. Because this was a specialized camp of 22 campers, whose main activity all week was horsemanship, within the larger camp, we had all our chapel times outside.

Stars twinkled high above the evergreens. The campers and their cabin leaders sat on the first two rows of rough log benches, in a semi circle around a roaring campfire. I stood at the front, my props resting on top of a few log chunks piled up to be at the right height. The campers leaned forward to listen. I told a Bible story and a modern day story with an application for each one of us that final night of camp.

I loved standing at the campfire telling stories to these campers. No technology in sight. Nothing to distract us except the crackling of flames, the occasional swatting of annoying, blood sucking mosquitoes. As I finished speaking I invited the program director to join me and give instructions for the rest of the evening. I knew what her plans were but as she began to speak she stopped mid sentence. I looked at her, at the campers who waited with an eager anticipation to hear the plans, and became confused. Then I followed her gaze past the campers, past the empty third row of rustic benches, up the small incline to the big evergreen tree. I stared at the shape I saw – a bear stood on its hind legs then dropped to all fours, before standing erect one more time.

She looked at me and then at the campers. “Kids, here’s what we are going to do now. We are all going to go to the first cabin to my right. Once we are all there I will tell you where we are going next.”

One of the boys put up his hand, “But that’s a girl’s cabin and we aren’t allowed to go there.”

“Well,” she answered calmly, “Tonight is something special and for right now all of us, boys, girls, all the cabin leaders and even our speaker are going to walk over there and hang out.”

The campers and staff got up and wandered over to the cabin, chattering happily about this new adventure. I followed at the end. As I shut the door behind me and faced the group of kids, one of them said, “Hey Carol, there was a bear out there wasn’t there.”

What an adventure for the last night of camp. I kept that story in my file. I have used it at other camps when the lesson is on obedience since the campers exhibited a fantastic example of that. I have used it to answer a question at a Toastmaster meeting that needed to involve something cold and wet somewhere close to me one dark, spooky night. I thought a bear’s nose might be cold and wet. I have told the story to entertain a group of adults, exaggerating the darkness, the size of the bear, the scariness – well the scary factor did not need much embellishment since a black bear was too close for comfort and I have used it to illustrate God’s hand of protection on all of us. I do not know how long that bear had been there watching and listening. I am sure that this story will be pulled out again and again.

Do you have a story you have used in multiple ways? How did the various audiences react?