Day Off

Well, for some of us, at least.  For the rest of us, it’s business as usual, although we’re starting to wind down projects and wrap them up as we only have one day to go.

One day!  It all went by so quickly.  We’re entering that bittersweet time when everyone realizes that things are coming to an end and this group of friends who were strangers just three weeks ago will now go our separate ways.  So we did what any group of friends would do before going every which way: we took a group picture.  Not one but several. Just a couple of them here but I think they turned out quite nicely.

You’re looking at a group of people that I feel super-privileged to be a part of.  Most of them have shared in some way of their lives, either through leading one of the devotional times before work starts in the morning, or in casual conversations.  Each one has a story, and what binds us together is the common thread through all those stories.  And that thread is God’s amazing grace in our lives and His enabling power.  Whether it’s his working in powerful ways during mission trips, or his healing for a serious medical condition, or something else, these stories are an encouragement to us all and a testimony to the greatness of our God.  To God be the glory!

The women took the day off today, all hopping in the one vehicle that would fit six women, a crew-cab pickup truck.  If you want to know what they did, you’ll have to ask them as they did what women do when they go to town together: go shopping.  I’m sure there are many more details that are probably beyond this guy’s comprehension. So we’ll leave it at that.

Back here at camp, we continued our projects.  As projects start to wrap up, the last item on many of those projects is the painting.  So there was a lot of painting going on today.  Bob and Jim continued with the pickle ball court, Denny wandered off to paint the Bridge to Nowhere, and Rich and the other Jim put the finishing touches on the storage room door behind the kitchen.  This afternoon, I came by and found Rich and Jim tearing out an old cabinet in the back of the kitchen, so new projects are still going on.

Me, I just string wire and hang lights.  The wire for today had to be buried as Bo wanted a light over the volleyball court.  The nearest electrical panel was 125 feet away so it was time to dig a trench.  Fortunately, this whole area is sand.  Unfortunately, there are lots of roots in the sand.  It took all morning, but I managed to bury the entire wire, using a shovel, a pickaxe, an axe, and a Kubota tractor.  So now the one volleyball pole has a box on it, but I couldn’t put the mast up for the light because the lift wasn’t working.  I figured out that it depends on temperature.  Above about 75 degrees, it just quits.  So tomorrow morning, when it is cooler, I’ll put the mast up and put the light on top.

At lunch time, I had to lay on the bed for a while.  I’m not used to this kind of heavy work.

I went out after dark and took another picture using the drone of the camp.  With all the added lights, I’m quite sure you can see this place easily from outer space.