Pancakes....

It's Saturday. I fixed pancakes this morning for breakfast. Pancakes and Saturday morning: they go together, don't you think? At least, they always have at my house.

Saturday morning, the little ones in their jammies, watching Tom and Jerry or Porky Pig and his friends. Pancakes, bacon, orange juice and maybe, scrambled eggs. Afterward, we started the day's activities.

As I was cooking the pancakes this morning, I thought about a time, long ago, when I was fixing pancakes over a campfire in Morro Bay State Park. I was there with my husband and my three small children, another couple from our church, and about a thousand teenagers.

Well, maybe there were only about 25 or 30 teenagers but, it seemed like a lot more at the time.

We had brought our church youth group to camp at Morro Bay State Park, on the central coast of California, for a weekend of fun and fellowship. And Saturday morning started with pancakes...

Someone else was cooking the eggs and bacon, I was just in charge of the pancakes. Just about the time I thought I was through cooking for all those kids, one of them walked up to me and asked for another pancake. Just one. He just wanted one.

For whatever reason, I decided to make the pancake in the shape of the first letter of his first name. When it was done, I placed it on his plate and he grinned and said “thank you.” As he walked back to his table, I started scraping the griddle, preparing it to be cleaned.

I looked up and was a little bit surprised: almost every kid in camp was in line, waiting for another pancake. A pancake in the shape of the first letter of his or her first name. It was amazing: how could they be hungry for just one more pancake? How could just one more pancake satiate their teenage hunger pains?

Or, did they just want something made specially for them....