If a person was bored, it had to be a personal problem! The weekend was full of fun and leisure. Other components of the weekend included:

Laughter         Blitz             Candy               Volleyball Tournament

Rook Tournament                Great Food             Apples to Apples

Feasting Together          Great Singing             Kids Games

Tag Football           Campfire Talks              Cold Nights and Beautiful Days

Warm Fellowship            Relaxation                Discussions

 

The campground was a new one for us and there were a few things that could’ve been better about the facilities, but the good definitely outweighed the inconveniences.

I think the thing I like best about such a weekend is that you get to know each other in a way that regular church interaction doesn’t usually give. It makes you more of a family, spending 2+ days together. You have time to care for each other. You usually put aside differences at a time like this, because how can you truly care for a person, and yet refuse to get along with them?

I was intrigued by a comment Craig (new Choice Books employee) made on Sunday morning: Times like this make the house of God a friendlier place.

 

We (Daddy, Mama, Lois and I) made a quick trip to PA for CAM’s open house. We always enjoy going to Lancaster and being typical tourists: staring at the amish, shopping at places like Kings Homestead, Good’s Variety Store, eating soft pretzels in Intercourse, and eating at Shady Maple. We stayed with Dave and Gina, as usual enjoying their wonderful hospitality!

My BIL Gary was at the open house to represent Liberia, thus the reason for our making the 12+ hour drive to PA. We had fun shopping with Laura while Gary attended meetings. We went to the Friday evening slide presentation along with about 2,795 other mennonites. I knew approximately .75% of them, a benefit of not being from “the greater mennonite world.”  I did find a few people I knew, including Bethanie and Jennifer. It’s been several years since I’ve seen them and it was great having a chance to talk with them again.

I met Beth for supper at Panera Bread, finding out about her life in Lancaster, and telling her news from home. I had a Caramel Apple Spice drink at Starbucks on the way home, using up the last of the gift card she had given me before she moved to PA. It seemed that both places (Panera Bread and Starbucks) were a proper part of the Lancaster non-tourist experience. Clarita, I see why you’re a big fan of Panera Bread. Their food is awesome.

On the way up we stopped for supper just before going through D.C. We called Linda and Freda just to let them know we were close by. Linda met us for supper. Freda was on her way to help friends pack but we got to see her at CAM.

On the way home we saw an accident happen right in front of us. A mid-sized car (traveling in the left lane) went off the side of the road on the left, swerved back onto the road, they must’ve overcorrected because they spun around in the road and went off into the grass, rolling 1.5 times. This all happened within about 10 seconds. There wasn’t really heavy traffic there but there was enough cars around them that it’s amazing they didn’t hit anyone else. The car landed on it’s top and both occupants crawled out about right away, with no injuries other than a sore arm. Emergency personnel arrived within about 5 minutes and we were on our way again in about 10 minutes. We saw the results of 2 or 3 more accidents on the way home. Yikes!

This weekend is the 3^rd annual church campout. Looking forward to spending time relaxing and hanging out with my church family.

Painting on the house should start sometime next week. Looking forward to it and dreading it all at the same time. My patience with painting usually ends after the second or third day.

More sporadic posts to come. Possibly some pics to come too. All the touristy ones from Lancaster.