Tuesday Traditions : Hide-and-Go-Seek

During team camp week, we stay in a large church on the east side of Angola. The church has many different areas; a nice large sanctuary with youth rooms behind, a gym with classrooms overlooking it, a children's wing that doubles as a daycare center. Because of these places, and the sheer size of the church, and the fact that we are there all night, this is the perfect spot for an awesome game of hide-and-go-seek.

There have been many awesome hiding places throughout the years, but the best was Courtland Jones. Courtland played a year on the tennis team before switching over and becoming the backup on the soccer team. That was actually too bad, because he would have ended up being a pretty good player, maybe even on the varsity this past season. But the thing he will always be remembered for is his hiding spot.

At the bottom of the stairs, behind the sanctuary, the church was building a new office for a new pastor. The office wasn't completed when we stayed for tennis camp. It had just been an open space, so they were in the process of closing it off a little. Come time to play, Courtland thought that it would be awesome to hide in this construction zone.

Except, he didn't just stay there. He climbed a ladder up to the top and into an open space in the ceiling. Once in the ceiling he realized that if someone climbed the ladder and looked in (unlikely) that he would be spotted. So to make sure that he won, he climbed the metal beams of the roof all the way around the sanctuary to the other side, ended up a good hundred feet from the opening in the roof!

There he sat, on a beam, for hours, while we searched and found everyone else. Then we circled the church and started calling. "Game's over! You win Courtland, come on out!" Which was great, but he was so far into the ceiling that he couldn't hear us! So, I worried around trying to figure out where he might be, if he was hurt, etc. A couple hours later, he came out, saying that he finally heard our calls but it took him a while to climb back across.

That's the lengths that hide-and-go-seek and go to. We've calmed it down a little since then. I'm looking forward to more chances to find more spaces this year.