Serving the Son...rise

Sign of the cross...

2008-06-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

One of the persistent images that we worked around at Camp Sonrise was the cross. That constant reminder of our call to serve, to pick up our cross and follow Christ to His. To experience the love and fun and purpose we felt while working at the camp under the constant shadow of the cross we follow was indeed God's great gift to us!

Before, During and After...

2008-06-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

The above photos show our team in various stages of travel...from top left, going clockwise: Getting ready to head out, in the shopping center parking lot at Christiansburg, VA, getting ready to do the groundwork for tent platforms at the camp, and upon our return. Notice that the smiles exist throughout the trip, even after 2200 miles of travel and a weeks worth of servant work. Proof positive of the love of the Holy Spirit and His magnificent work in our lives.

Who knew?

2008-06-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

There we were getting ready to go, with this wonderful stack of donated snacks...chips, and crackers, and breadsticks and cheese...mmmm...and then the bottom fell out. What the heck!?

Not to worry, though. A quick thinking pastor with masking tape did wonders, and we were soon on the way!

Doing the Hip(pie) thing

2008-06-24T18:54:00.000-07:00

We decided that before we could all climb into the family van...and car...to go to New York to serve Jesus, we needed to create our own shirts. Of course, we couldn't all create the SAME shirt, given our idiocyncratic tendencies, so tie-dye seemed to be the way to go! Above, Aaron is taking a less traditional dying approach; rather than immersing entire parts of his shirt into particular colors, he chose a more deliberate way of coloring his cloth...the same way he chooses to do many things...

Travel days...

2008-06-22T20:10:00.000-07:00

Well, we made it home to Georgia; still no rain here. A week's worth of work bookended by two trips of 1100 miles, and our journey has come to an end. We had no idea what to expect from this trip, but whatever we expected, we found much more than we could have imagined.

We found friends. We found a wonderful worshiping community that started and ended our days in worship to the God who made and saved us. We found opportunities for service. We found opportunities to challenge ourselves, to go to a deeper part of the lake, to go canoeing, to go kayaking and hiking and hole-digging. Most of all, we found a way to glorify our gracious God and to share His love with others. What a wonderful blessing, to hear the faint whisper of God's voice in every action you take, even if only for a week...

June 21, 2008

2008-06-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

June 20, 2008: Sonrise....Rain Day

Well, sort of. We still found work to do sending out a mass mailing for the camp in order to drum up more campers for the remainder of the summer, and we cleaned the dining hall/church sanctuary, setting it up for Sunday worship. I'm off to vacuum the house (the retreat center we're staying in is a 150 year old farm house that has been lived in hard by numerous visiting groups of teenagers and their middle aged chaperones) and pack my bags, as we'll be leaving early tomorrow...

The food here was really—really!--good. The camp kitchen staff has Friday night through Sunday night off, so any cooking done for the staff on the weekend, they do for themselves. Tonight we grilled, with our counselor and new friend Rob baking four, count 'em 4!, homemade pies...raspberry/blackberry pie, strawberry rhubarb pie, strawberry merengue and chocolate pies...mmmmmm! Afterward we spent the evening playing camp games (Bong!=Ouch!), going to the camp store and packing the last remnants of our belongings for packing tomorrow morning. We'll pack at 7:30, and pull out by 8:00, heading for Winchester, Virginia.

We set up for the Sonrise Church tonight after visiting the store as our final act of service to this community of believers. It has been a wonderful week, guiding the young adults we brought along through the beginnings of what we hope will be a life of service both to their fellow people and, above all, to their God who loves them so much.

Off to play one more game, Telephone Pictionary, before bed...what a great way to start the summer!

June 19, 2008

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June 19, 2008: Schroon Lake Blog

It rained today, a good bit, and I thought of home. The lakes here are full, the forests are green and the rain falls just about every day for at least some time. Georgia, of course, is mid-drought, going on its third summer of much less rain than is needed to keep lawns green, let alone cars clean and lakes full. God's goodness takes all kinds of forms, and it is a delight to see the fullness of His grace.

We finished as much work as we could at the Pastor's house today, and finished the day with another canoing excursion. My children amaze me. Our family isn't known for its water affinity, yet both of my children love to canoe and kayak (Hannah got up EARLY to go kayaking on the lake...twice!) and jump in the lake to swim and even dabble in fishing. All of the kids have done amazingly well, and I attribute this to prayer and God's grace. No whining, no drama (no small trick with five teenage girls on the trip), no hang nails, no complaining about the work...I have been delighted and amazed each day.

And while I have supremely enjoyed meeting new friends here, worshiping and working on something other than the demands of running a school, I have found myself drawn to thinking about Hungary and our friends there who we will miss seeing for the first time in three years. There is something about the anticipation of traveling and seeing old friends and making new ones, and working for Jesus Christ all the while that fuels my existence during the year. That is certainly magnified when we go to a foreign place (some would say New York is foreign!) and have to navigate new cultures and languages and foods. I have very much enjoyed working at Sonrise this year, and am very much looking forward to a week of vacation, which I've not taken in four years, but I miss my Hungarian friends in Erd and Diosd.

Off to shut my eyes........

June 18, 2008

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June 18, 2008

June 17, 2008

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June 17, 2008

Carnival day. I typically don't like planning large, public activities...a perfect mindset for a public high school principal, right? So, here I am with a week away from school, and what do I end up doing? Planning a large...public...event...hmmm....

I've found that this week has served to stretch me a bit, doing tasks that I would normally avoid or that make me nervous or edgy or require me to be responsible...away from school. Today was the day for those kinds of activities to find me, as we had been asked-and agreed-to plan an afternoon carnival for a group of wonderful campers with special needs. Out came the water balloons, and the bowling pins, and the paper plates to make frisbees, and the chairs to play Simon Says and musical chairs. Oh, yes, and all of the coolest dollar store prizes we could get our hands on that will be summer treasures for our new friends. The time to plan for this great event? About an hour and a half. The impact the day will have on our friends? A lifetime, we hope...certainly that's how long the impact will last for us.

I've been thinking about how we'll present this week to our church. Typically we can talk pastor into giving us a Sunday to share these wonderful times, and I've been thinking about the sermon or the powerpoint we'll use. Let's see...first sermon note: What will it take for ALL of you to do one of these? Second sermon note: what the hell are you afraid of? Third sermon note: And don't give me that “I'm too busy” crap, or the “we're on a fixed income” excuse. We washed cars and did lawn work and sold candles and asked for love offerings for a month of Sundays. Our congregation is suffering from the doldrums, the “there's nothing here for our kids” syndrome (I just took six of them to New York, by the way), the “we need a new vision/mission/direction” bug (when all of this is GIVEN TO US in God's word...and we're living it by serving others). Just to see others involved, to watch them get infected with the worship and service and love flu...and to watch it spread, one to another, to watch kids pick one another up and pray for each other and meet new people and love them like they've known them all of their lives...this is what works, this is what God has given us to breath new life into our faith and worship and love. Maybe we'll figure that out, and the next trip will be twice the size...

June 16, 2008

2008-06-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

June 16, 2008: Schroon Lake Blog

We dug holes today. Really. And I went to a dance. It rained...but I started my day with prayers and hugs in front of a beautiful lake. Such is the beauty of a Christian service event.

One of the jobs given to us as workers here at Sonrise Camp is to help prepare tent platforms. This requires that we survey the land area we'll be using and making it as level as possible before we start building the platform. Little did we understand that these particular tent platforms were not only deep in the mosquito-infested woods, but were located on the side of a mountain...with lots of large rocks embedded in the soil. Three hours of digging and moving soil and we'd pretty well come to expect any number of large, presumably mineral rich (we tell ourselves that to make them seem more valuable...) rocks. More digging to follow later in the week...and then the building of the platform. Any of you who know me as a relatively inept carpenter and construction worker should certainly find enormous humor in this notion...

One of the wonderful treats we have here is the daily opportunities to worship our Savior. No matter how devout we claim to be, few of us can honestly say we worship with our faith family daily, let alone get into scripture both individually and as a group. Each morning we start our day with individual devotions, then prayer with our work group. After breakfast we have morning prayer and worship, and every night, around the campfire, we close with vespers or evening prayer. And in all of this we are reminded why we serve...we serve because we love. Because we love Jesus Christ, because we love one another...and all because God first loved us. Digging holes takes on a whole different dimension when you know the one who put the dirt there in the first place, and when you think of all of the people who will benefit from your seemingly small act of labor, a small evidence of love for them even though we'll never meet most of them.

June 15, 2008

2008-06-22T19:56:00.000-07:00

We arrived in good order after an 11 hour drive on Saturday (yesterday); I had anticipated that stopping in Christiansburg, VA would be about half way on our journey. As it turned out, I was an hour and a half off, which left us with a drive quite a bit longer than I had hoped on the second day of our journey...but, we made it.

Upon our arrival, we met the camp counselors that are going to be working all summer long. A camp rule is that they all go by a nickname; not sure if they believe anonymity will ultimately keep them safe (“Yeah, mom, that's the girl who made me take a swimming test!”), but it was a fun introduction: Stu, Mo, Flips, Tex, Miles and several others whose nicknames...and true names, honestly, escape me, except of course our group counselors, Rob and Michelle. What a sincere, hip, kind group of people. ( I want to say “kids,” which would probably be my privilege given the fact that I'm 20 or so years older than most of them, but the term provides a condescension that inappropriately devalues their very adult attitudes and work ethics...) Anne and I love to be involved on the various mission fields we go to, especially as we meet the groups and teams that we are privileged to minister to/with. A key benefit for us is that our kids, Hannah and Aaron, get to see extraordinary young people of faith who are making a difference in the world; I hope that as we provide models for them, Hannah and Aaron will blossom (I think they already are!) into a man and woman who will lead and minister and serve so that many people will know the love of Jesus Christ and will accept that love as a reason to transform their lives.

Today we took our swim tests. Hannah, Aaron and I are all “Penguins.” I could actually probably be a “Dolphin,” except I'm too out of shape to do four lengths of the swimming lane...ugh. Aaron overcame his concerns of the water...up to his bottom lip at the edge of the Penguin area!...to be brave and become a penguin as well. I've never been much of one for the water, but this is summer camp, after all, so what the heck.

This week's campers are adults with “special needs.” I've always been wary of kids and adults with “exceptionalities,” not because of any fear, but because being around them taps into perhaps the deepest pool of emotion that I have—and which I guard jealously and closely. I watch these people, these friends (they are friends because they have no conception of being an enemy to anyone) whose primary handicap is fearlessness. Or unabashed extrovertism. Or the ability to laugh at the things that those of us with more “developed” senses of humor find only marginally humorous. Or the ability to walk up to a complete stranger and with all sincerity call out—in a piercing, bold voice—“Do you know me?!” And then to introduce themselves and shake your hand...or better yet, offer you a hug. And I end up uncomfortably responding to them...not uncomfortable with them, but with myself. You know that deep pool of emotion I guard? You know what I see when I look into it? Shame. The shame that tells me that I ought to embrace them—and all people—with the simple and pure love I see in them. I ought to have the fearlessness that they have, except it's been beaten out of me by the demands of a more “sophisticated” culture. What a load of crap that is...

So, this week, while on my servant event, it turns out that I'll be learning to be less ashamed to love, to declare my foolish adherence to a God who sent His son to die for me and who I believe rose again, and to walk up to everyone I meet and ask them, “Do you know me? Would you like to?!”

June 13, 2008

2008-06-13T19:07:00.000-07:00

So, off we got this morning from the church. About eight hours of driving finds us in Christianburg, VA preparing for leg two tomorrow. We're heading up to the Sonrise Ministries camp in Pottersville, NY to help them get ready for a summer of campers and ministry and serving Christ. Pictures, service, ministry and fun for the week to follow!