Brittany

My son wanted to go to camp a little further from home this summer so we sent him to Northern Grace Bible Camp in Gillette, WI. I drove him there and back last week with the baby and found that 7.5 hours in the car was a bit much so to pick him up, we decided to drive up Friday night and stay at a hotel, pick him up the next morning, visit some friends that have moved up there and then head home - just to break up the driving.

We stayed at this dive hotel which we fondly re-named the Oompa-loompa suites. The bathroom feature extreme tiny-ness, which I suppose was great because we were travelling with kids. The bathtub was seriously 12 inches high and the sink could have easily been mistaken for a urinal. Seriously, I'm 5'1" and had to bend over to wash my hands.

Since it wasn't a four star place, I decided to scope out the free breakfast before dragging the whole family downstairs instead of to McDonald's. There is one other person in the breakfast room and the continental breakfast looks like it's some Little Debbies, Froot Loops, and your choice of warm milk or warm orange drink. I must have had some sort of look on my face because the other guest started a conversation with "Yeah...there's not much here."

We talked a little bit. I have an uncanny ability to either find people who are willing to tell me their life story in 3 minutes or I just am very approachable in the life story kind of way. It turns out this girl was living at the Oompa-loompa suites after being kicked out of their apartment. She was 18 years old and 3 months pregnant. Having once been 18 and 3 months pregnant, I felt like I HAVE to encourage this girl. All of the sudden, out of my mouth comes "Can I pray for you?" YIKE! Where was that from?!?! I am NOT a church lady - I mean, I tease my church friends that we are church ladies, but we are sooo not church ladies and here I am pulling a church lady in the breakfast room of the Oompa-loompa Inn. She accepted and we've been keeping in touch through email. She's found a more permanent place to live and she's hanging in there so far.