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Lousy Trailers and Sewage-filled Ponds

June 9th, 2010 | 5 min read

By Jake Meador

There were a thousand reasons to hate the small campsite nine friends and I called home for three days last summer. Our "cabin" was more like a trailer. There were four mattresses and ten of us - and making room for four mattresses was tricky. They had a nine o'clock quiet time policy that we had to respect. The ceiling of the bathroom didn't extend to the roof, which led my friend Jason to try sleeping in the space between the top of the ceiling and the slope of the roof. He quickly climbed down from his helterskelter bed coughing and covered in dust.

All this is to say nothing about the sewage drain they called a pond that was directly across from our trailer.

Like I said, there wasn't much to appreciate about the camp. But to a man, I don't think it bothered any of us. It was our first reunion of a membership begun in Lincoln amongst the ten of us and we were too busy enjoying our favorite beverages, food, folk songs, and old theology debates to be much bothered by our less-than-ideal lodgings.

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Jake Meador

Jake Meador is the editor-in-chief of Mere Orthodoxy. He is a 2010 graduate of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he studied English and History. He lives in Lincoln, NE with his wife Joie, their daughter Davy Joy, and sons Wendell, Austin, and Ambrose. Jake's writing has appeared in The Atlantic, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Fare Forward, the University Bookman, Books & Culture, First Things, National Review, Front Porch Republic, and The Run of Play and he has written or contributed to several books, including "In Search of the Common Good," "What Are Christians For?" (both with InterVarsity Press), "A Protestant Christendom?" (with Davenant Press), and "Telling the Stories Right" (with the Front Porch Republic Press).

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Church