Sticky Buns are served every Sunday Deerfoot Lodge is in session, every work weekend, and at least once during staff training. During my 23 years as Director of Deerfoot, sticky buns were served over 100 times, and they were always very good to excellent. Every Sunday morning during summer camp, cabin owners were waiting for me to deliver their sticky buns via canoe. And every Sunday they were delivered, though at least once from a station wagon due to lightening. Consistency!
For 23 years, the Director of Tripping Operations had the needed hiking permits waiting for the hike leader, together with information as to route and difficulty of the trip – plus the location and time for their pick up. He had the needed maxi-vans (up to 12) waiting in their designated location so that, immediately following the After Breakfast Bible Study, the campers and their counselors could go to their assigned van…and leave. Consistency!
Each summer there were counselors who were consistently exceptional. Their cabins won a disproportionate number of cabin inspections and their hike group van would arrive at DL full of singing campers – even after hiking in rain for two days.
The consistency of doing what is right every time goes unnoticed until the results of inconsistency become obvious.
The staff should have been counting off during the hike down the Dugs – certainly during staff training!!!!!!!!! One year, when the staff gathered at the Dug’s bottom lean-to, we realized that 10 year old Daniel Tucker was missing. Dan’s father, botanist Gordon, was helping with staff training and asked if Daniel could go with the staff while he taught us about the plants we were seeing. Daniel had gotten tired of waiting while his dad talked, and gone ahead while we listened to his dad. Daniel missed a turn… He was a frightened little boy when we found him 30 minutes later. I was with the staff! We had been firmly reminded of the importance of counting-off when hiking- Consistently
One morning I was so frustrated with a staff member who was consistently late for the 7:00 A.M. staff meeting that I had another staff member take the cannon to the Hutch cabin and….you got it! He was never late again.
Consistently good food is a DL tradition! One noon, on the cook’s day off, his assistant served ginger bread cake – it was beautiful. But it was inedible! Somehow a large quantity of baking soda was mixed into the batter. I told the assistant “It does not trouble me that you made a mistake – just don’t serve your mistake! Bury it!!!!”
During an epidemic of staff inconsistency, I prepared a devotional on the subject for the 7:00 A.M. staff meeting. That morning I accidentally over-slept. Instead of waking at 5:30 a.m. to review my After Breakfast Bible Study notes before the staff meeting, I woke up about 6:55, threw on my clothes and headed out the door…as Ken Hoffman was walking up to the Lookout. When I was not on time for a staff meeting, the staff thought there must be something was seriously wrong with me. Ken had come to check up on me. Inconsistency! A perfect introduction to my devotional.
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us”. II Corinthians 5:20
Do those who know me consistently see the love of Jesus lived out in me? When we live In Partnership with God”, we are worthy ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ. May this be our goal!!