Light in the Woods

By Eszter Koller

This book is both rib tickling and serious, and its message is intriguing and moving. It not only discusses God and a camp but also deals with ones faith; thus, every moment spent among the sometimes melancholy, other times hysterical pages compels the reader not to let it slip out of ones hands. Accordingly, we discover that one should not wait for miracles to happen but that they need to be recognized, for they come and go. If we notice them in time, our lives may very well turn into a blessing.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Dec 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477249727

Eszter Koller

ESZTER KOLLER was born in the United States but moved to Hungary as an adolescent. She attended an Austrian High School. She currently is working on becoming a neuroscientist. Koller started to write whilst in High School. She wrote many successful books in Hungary. Light in the Woods is an honest account of the adventures Eszter Koller experienced during a period that changed her outlook on life. The story begins in a Bible camp that promises not only to be boring but hair-raisingly mundane. As she accustoms herself to the circumstances, she slowly realizes that appearances may sometimes deceive . This is where the calamity begins.

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© 2012 by Eszter Koller. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/03/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4971-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-4972-7 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Dedication

There is no escape

About Me

The Arrival

How Things Go

Around Here

Now Begins the REAL Survivor Camp!

The Gift in the Swamp

Sinister Preparations

Aspirin and Prayer

For Our Survival

It’s Not the Shoe That Makes Us Who We Are

A Little Canoeing, Anita, and the Strange Island

My Savior

Epilogue

Based on a true story

DEDICATION

I never would have thought this…

At least not five years ago…

There were a lot of things that I did not think would happen, but I definitely did not think this would…

To tell you the truth, it was one person who gave me that extra push, who made me realize that I’m capable of doing this.

I loved chemistry and biology above everything else. I may have gone a little overboard with it, but I think that science is really important in this world, because only through science can humanity take a step forward… If there were no doctors, slowly, the human race would die out. And therefore I always laughed when my grandmother—a well-read person—tried to persuade me to believe her when she said literature should also play an important role in our life, in my life. Pff… The writers and poets don’t help humanity; they just amuse them, nothing more. And then my grandmother always responded, Just watch, Eszter in the end you will be working with literature. I just brushed her off with a motion of my hand.

Great—I thought to myself angrily. I was sitting at my desk trying hard to think about what I should write my essay about and how to do it. I had barely started high school, and my form master, who was also our Hungarian teacher, gave me a punishment essay. Such a dumb punishment to give, just because I talked during the lesson! I’m unable to do this. I’m a science kind of girl, not some kind of writer wannabe. I complained about my teacher and his punishment for ten minutes. But I knew that somehow I had to do it, because a first impression is always important, and my teacher was already angry with me for talking when not allowed.

I looked at the paper in front of me on which I had written only the given title: What Was So Important to Tell My Classmate? or What Couldn’t Wait Until Recess? Any ideas? Of course there were none.

Okay, I told myself. I will just write down everything honestly, the way it was. I can’t really do anything else, now, can I? And that is exactly what I did, and the next day I turned in my essay, of course not hoping for anything good. I hoped I wouldn’t get the worst mark—I mean, at least I had worked on it.

After a couple of days, my Hungarian teacher came to me during one of the recesses to let me know that I had done a great job on my essay and that he wanted to put it in the school’s magazine. I hardly could say anything. First of all, I never got praised for my essays. Second, I thought he was exaggerating, because I’m really not a writer type. I thought I should ask him not to publish my essay, but as it turned out, I had no say in the matter; I had to see my essay in print.

And with this, the ice broke. After some time I started to like these punishment essays a lot. I always just wrote down what I felt deep inside me. In one or two years’ time, there were even nights when I got up and wrote everything down that made me tense.

During this time I continuously gave those essays that I felt were well written to my teacher. And he just kept on encouraging me not to stop. At first I didn’t believe his words and felt awkward when he praised me, but in time I got used to it. Moreover, I specifically was happy when he came to me just to pat my back and say what an artful person I was. His praising changed my whole life.

Even to this day I’m amazed that the writing and literature were so distant from me, just as the moon is from our Earth. But today scientists say that Earth would not exist without the moon. This is kind of how I am with writing. There are so many thoughts and feelings just racing through my nerves and soul that I have to write them down. If I didn’t, I would go nuts.

So in a nutshell, this is how I started to write.

After many years I will obviously forget a majority of my writings, what I wrote down. But I will always cherish the memory of my teacher.

Yes, I will never forget Mr. Fuxreiter…

I also dedicate this book to one of the most amazing people in the world: Ms. Ona Pickett.

THERE IS NO ESCAPE

Tree. Tree… and another tree.

Trees everywhere.

But I guess I deserve this, because my acting skills are not the best. If I were a really good actress, my parents would believe that I’m really suffering from a deathly illness, and so this time I unfortunately must skip the camp for which they signed me up.

Why is it that parents always know when their kid is pretending? I must say, though, that I got many compliments on my fake sneeze, which really seemed like a real yucky sneeze. Okay, maybe the reason they didn’t believe me was that I was whining for days before we left that I would not go to this stupid camp.

—I will not go, and that’s that! Even if red pigs fall from the sky, nope. Never!

. . .

And where am I now? I’m sitting in the car and going to the stupid camp, up in the mountains.

And not even one red pig fell from the sky! My parents only said this as a peace offering:

—Don’t be scared. Etelka will be there as well.

Pff, like it really matters to me that my sister will also be there.

My mom turned around from the front seat and gave me a brochure about the camp.

—Just look at how many adventures you will have!

Christian Survival Camp

for Christian youths who will get closer to God through extreme adventures

This is what was written on the brochure’s cover. I quickly looked it over. It’s true; one really could do a lot of things at this camp: kayaking, canoeing, mountain biking, paintball. This all sounds good, but how will it all pass off? This is a Bible camp! I have already imagined the two weeks to come. First of all, before and after every activity we will pray. Obviously, I will have to tell stories to everyone about the miracles God has done in my life. Or when we are kayaking we will be singing Bible songs. And I can’t take one bite of anything before I thank God for it.

Adventure… I can only imagine, what kind of adventures: who can say Our Father the fastest backward, in ten minutes who can list the most things that we can be thankful to God for, who can say Proverbs 3:14 while doing a headstand… Ahhhhh! And I am really going here.

—Supposedly there is a beautiful lake there—my mother said. At least you can swim a lot. According to the meteorologists a huge heat wave is coming in the next week.

—Well, that