This year's LifeLight Festival wasn't as yee-haw as last year's. I'm allergic to dust, hay, cats, and whatever seasonal allergy is out there. Three of those seemed to be present in the cornfield where we were. Perhaps it was the hour it took me to get out of the parking lot that was the biggest downer. But there were highlights.

I volunteered for MVett, which meant that we ran errands around the grounds after my shift was done. The air had cooled, Michael W. Smith was singing, people were happy, and I was in motion. The world was grand.

The spot of my volunteerism was the Prize Tent, which led into the merchandise tent. It was an excellent place to sit, because oodles of people passed through. For some reason, if you're sitting behind a table in a tent, people think you know something. My favorite was the 7-ish-year-old who came up to me with big eyes.

"Have you seen my mom? She's wearing a green shirt and brown pants and she has brown hair and..."

There are over 100,000 people here, kid. "Does she have a cell phone?" I asked. "What's her number?"

The kid rambled it off, including at least two extra digits.

"Hold on. Write it down." She did, with the appropriate number of digits, and I called. The mother was grateful, and I had the kid stay at the table until she was picked up by family. How is it that I can feel maternal while taking care of someone else's kid?

The other favorite moments were when two different groups of kids came up with mud-splattered skin, footwear, and clothing. "I went into the mud. Do you know of somewhere where I can wash off?" MVett and I sent them back out the door of the tent to a spigot directly in front of them.

"You know where that mud puddle is?" I asked a confused one. "That's where the spigot is--it's what made the mud."

"Ohhhhh!"

Dingbats. But it was fun to help out.