In the morning, I felt tired and subdued. I had spent all night thinking about those lights and campfires by the pond. I couldn't quit seeing the faces as we drove through their camp. None of them tried to prevent our passing through but it seemed that I could feel their eyes and fingers pulling on me and they seemed desperate because we didn't stay.
Tom's dad said he was surprised that we stayed down there as long as we did. He said he had always been uncomfortable down there after dark and would head home way before he got caught down there. At the time, I have to admit that I understood how he felt.
As the week wore on, I kept thinking about the camp. The biggest problem I had with the camp was my Christian faith. I couldn't reconcile what I was seeing with what I had always been taught and believed. I just don't believe in ghosts. I do however believe in angels. I also knew then as I do now that not all angels are good angels and that there are different kinds of angels. The more I thought about it the more I felt that the camp and its people were being shown to me as a message. I studied scriptures to make sure that I wasn't being deceived. I read everything I could find about angels, messages, visions and people in the Bible who were given a message and a task. The more I searched I believed (and hoped) that I could prove that these people were something to ignore. What I found instead was that I needed to quit running and get serious about doing what I was being CALLED to do.
I saw the camp as my personal Noah's Ark. I saw the campfires as pinpricks in the night drawing people towards the Ark and refuge in some future catastrophe. I made the decision that I would quit denying or questioning the message. I decided that I would accept this calling and learn everything I could in order to survive what the future would bring.
I had learned to can food and to grow a garden but I knew it wasn't enough. I bought books and checked them out of the library and began to seriously study. I taught myself to do anything and everything that I could think of to survive in the woods. I studied history to see how people of the past did things. I also read about the histories of wars and the survivors of wars. I read about governments and how they treated the people.
I realized that food is important to surviving as well as a way for governments to control the people. I knew that I would have to be not only able to grow and raise food but to preserve it from one year to the next. I also realized that I couldn't rely on just canning food but that it would be smarter to learn other ways to preserve it too. So I studied smoking, salting, sugaring, larding and drying among other methods. I researched how foods were preserved hundreds of years ago. I practiced making kraut, kimchee, century eggs and any other form of preservation I could find. I packed meats in salt, brines, lard and all manner of old style preserving.
I didn't stop at just preserving food. I decided that I needed to learn to raise animals and that part of that included butchering them. I got chickens and rabbits to start. I learned to raise them, breed them and butcher them before preserving the meat. I taught myself to cook inside, outside and on many different cooking surfaces. I cooked in cast iron, over campfires, on rocks and on hoes to name a few.
I also learned to grind grain and make bread and pasta from scratch and in a machine. I milked a cow and goats. I separated cream and made butter. I rendered lard and used it to cook and make soap or candles. I cooked and tasted some of the offal from butchering livestock even though I didn't particularly want to. Some things were surprisingly good and others not so much. Either way I had the knowledge I was seeking.
Basically, I was driven to learn anything and everything. Each new project seemed to create opportunities to learn even more related projects. I didn't do everything at once. I would learn and practice one thing before moving on to something else. It took many years to learn so many new things. Even though I spent so much time learning new hobbies and skills, I still had my regular life too. I had a full time job and family. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who doesn't require much sleep so whenever I was awake at night I was either reading or working on something.
The fact that I was keeping busy and felt I had discovered the purpose of the camp didn't make the visions go away. It also didn't make it any easier emotionally when it creeped in at odd times. It did become easier to accept which in turn made it easier to observe things about the camp.
One thing that began to happen is that I started noticing the people more as individuals. They are people that I watch and have gotten to know. There is one particular little boy that I find a curiosity. He isn't like the other children. He doesn't come with a family and stay with them. It seems that he will come and go. He will come with a single person or a couple or even a family. He comes to the camp with them and spends time with them as if he is their little boy but then he will eventually leave again only to come later with someone else. In all ways, he seems just like a little boy except he has never laughed or cried. He does smile and comfort people. He has dark curly hair and dark skin. He wears sandals on his little feet. His smile is missing a few teeth. He is always helpful and polite. He stays with people when they first come until they are comfortable in the camp. Eventually, he always seems to leave again although I never SEE him leave. He just won't be there one day until he shows back up with his next family. I have come to think of him as a "guide". He seems to help people who are searching to find the camp. He stays with them long enough to make them comfortable and then he leaves to help someone else. It also seems that there is also a young blond girl and an old man that serve the same purpose. I have watched them through the years and find them fascinating. Whether they are guides or guardian angels I have no idea but they definitely seem to find and lead people in need to the camp. I felt more then ever that the camp was an ark of safety and while I was tasked with getting it ready these guides were meant to lead the people to its safety.
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Tom's dad said he was surprised that we stayed down there as long as we did. He said he had always been uncomfortable down there after dark and would head home way before he got caught down there. At the time, I have to admit that I understood how he felt.
As the week wore on, I kept thinking about the camp. The biggest problem I had with the camp was my Christian faith. I couldn't reconcile what I was seeing with what I had always been taught and believed. I just don't believe in ghosts. I do however believe in angels. I also knew then as I do now that not all angels are good angels and that there are different kinds of angels. The more I thought about it the more I felt that the camp and its people were being shown to me as a message. I studied scriptures to make sure that I wasn't being deceived. I read everything I could find about angels, messages, visions and people in the Bible who were given a message and a task. The more I searched I believed (and hoped) that I could prove that these people were something to ignore. What I found instead was that I needed to quit running and get serious about doing what I was being CALLED to do.
I saw the camp as my personal Noah's Ark. I saw the campfires as pinpricks in the night drawing people towards the Ark and refuge in some future catastrophe. I made the decision that I would quit denying or questioning the message. I decided that I would accept this calling and learn everything I could in order to survive what the future would bring.
I had learned to can food and to grow a garden but I knew it wasn't enough. I bought books and checked them out of the library and began to seriously study. I taught myself to do anything and everything that I could think of to survive in the woods. I studied history to see how people of the past did things. I also read about the histories of wars and the survivors of wars. I read about governments and how they treated the people.
I realized that food is important to surviving as well as a way for governments to control the people. I knew that I would have to be not only able to grow and raise food but to preserve it from one year to the next. I also realized that I couldn't rely on just canning food but that it would be smarter to learn other ways to preserve it too. So I studied smoking, salting, sugaring, larding and drying among other methods. I researched how foods were preserved hundreds of years ago. I practiced making kraut, kimchee, century eggs and any other form of preservation I could find. I packed meats in salt, brines, lard and all manner of old style preserving.
I didn't stop at just preserving food. I decided that I needed to learn to raise animals and that part of that included butchering them. I got chickens and rabbits to start. I learned to raise them, breed them and butcher them before preserving the meat. I taught myself to cook inside, outside and on many different cooking surfaces. I cooked in cast iron, over campfires, on rocks and on hoes to name a few.
I also learned to grind grain and make bread and pasta from scratch and in a machine. I milked a cow and goats. I separated cream and made butter. I rendered lard and used it to cook and make soap or candles. I cooked and tasted some of the offal from butchering livestock even though I didn't particularly want to. Some things were surprisingly good and others not so much. Either way I had the knowledge I was seeking.
Basically, I was driven to learn anything and everything. Each new project seemed to create opportunities to learn even more related projects. I didn't do everything at once. I would learn and practice one thing before moving on to something else. It took many years to learn so many new things. Even though I spent so much time learning new hobbies and skills, I still had my regular life too. I had a full time job and family. Fortunately, I'm one of those people who doesn't require much sleep so whenever I was awake at night I was either reading or working on something.
The fact that I was keeping busy and felt I had discovered the purpose of the camp didn't make the visions go away. It also didn't make it any easier emotionally when it creeped in at odd times. It did become easier to accept which in turn made it easier to observe things about the camp.
One thing that began to happen is that I started noticing the people more as individuals. They are people that I watch and have gotten to know. There is one particular little boy that I find a curiosity. He isn't like the other children. He doesn't come with a family and stay with them. It seems that he will come and go. He will come with a single person or a couple or even a family. He comes to the camp with them and spends time with them as if he is their little boy but then he will eventually leave again only to come later with someone else. In all ways, he seems just like a little boy except he has never laughed or cried. He does smile and comfort people. He has dark curly hair and dark skin. He wears sandals on his little feet. His smile is missing a few teeth. He is always helpful and polite. He stays with people when they first come until they are comfortable in the camp. Eventually, he always seems to leave again although I never SEE him leave. He just won't be there one day until he shows back up with his next family. I have come to think of him as a "guide". He seems to help people who are searching to find the camp. He stays with them long enough to make them comfortable and then he leaves to help someone else. It also seems that there is also a young blond girl and an old man that serve the same purpose. I have watched them through the years and find them fascinating. Whether they are guides or guardian angels I have no idea but they definitely seem to find and lead people in need to the camp. I felt more then ever that the camp was an ark of safety and while I was tasked with getting it ready these guides were meant to lead the people to its safety.
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