On Monday, the Health Inspectors came.

If scary music didn’t start playing in your head, then you’ve obviously never had a run in with the Buncombe County Health Department.

Let’s back up. Monday started out like any normal Monday would. At camp, that means that we all wore American themed clothing to celebrate our weekly holiday: ‘Merica Monday. Campers were laughing while they played tetherball and rock-hopped in the creek. Birds were chirping, staff were happily teaching classes and everything was just as it should be.

The door to the office opened and everything changed; there was a disturbance in the force.

“The health inspectors are here.”

Here’s the thing about health inspections: we hate them AND the health inspectors hate them. They routinely inspect restaurants, food trucks, and hotels. We are kind of all of those things, but we’re none of them at the same time. They only have to do camps once a year, and when they’re here every sink, toilet, floor, door, bed, lightbulb, refrigerator, and screen have to be inspected. One hundred and fifty acres of camping goodness.

So what do we do when the health inspector arrives unannounced?

Adam’s instructions: “Bring them to me. Game on.”

Our staff sprang into action, tearing through the cabins in about 10 minutes and double checking everything. We clean every morning, but when 232 girls use four toilets in the dining hall every day, double checking is never a bad idea. In the words of Davie, our CIT director: “I had never moved with such purpose.”

It’s fun to joke about the health inspector now that they’re gone, but as much as we dread their coming, we take it seriously. Paying attention to the details is one of our core values at camp. We do that really well because God cares about the details. He cares about how many hairs are on our head (Luke 12:7). God cares about whether or not our campers are in comfortable cabins. He cares about the way we take care of their bug bites and the way we comfort them when they miss home.

In the end, we got a 99% because one bathroom stall didn’t have toilet paper. Seriously.

From This (very clean) Haven…

Mary Page Boyd