An Extraordinarily-Special Camp Meeting

This site has been very silent for a couple of weeks. We were in the Davis Mountains from Wednesday, July 30 thru Monday, August 11. Once home, Carl had to play catch-up with work and I had to play catch-up with laundry, unpacking, mail, bills and all the other things you have to catch up with when you've been out of town for almost two weeks. I'm back on track now and plan to stay more current with my updates. I'll start with our week at Camp Meeting.

We went out early in order to continue to make repairs to our camp caused by a 300-year-old oak tree falling on our cook shed and taking out our bunkhouse, our storage facility, some plumbing and some electrical work. And, of course, there are the perennial leaks, shortages, stoppages, and other plumbing, electrical, and sewage problems that occur when you use an facility only once a year.

Everything was in tip-top shape by the time the majority of our campers arrived and we had an extraordinarily wonderful camp meeting!

1. It was my 60th and Carl's 18th time to attend;
   
2. My cousin and his daughter from Alaska were there and it was the longest time I've ever spent with them.
3. My nephew and his wife were there for the entire week; they brought a friend of theirs with them that we thoroughly enjoyed being with;
4. The Methodist preacher on staff has been newly-appointed to New Braunfels and we really like him and his wife (she's been coming to Camp Meeting as long as I have and we decided we most certainly attended Sunday School together out there!) so we are eager to visit their church;
5. As always, we had a wonderful time re-connecting with old friends and meeting new friends.

However, the event that made the week extraordinarily special was when our cooks walked out on us in the middle of breakfast on Thursday. I know this sounds like a deal-breaking event but our campers pitched in such that we finished cooking breakfast for everyone, we put together an amazing lunch (90 lbs of meat loaf, just to illustrate the volume we serve), we had roasts in the oven for dinner that night, and briskets in the smoker for lunch the next day. We had folks falling out to wash dishes, clean off tables, and handle all the details for serving lunch. Then we learned that we were hosting the camp preachers, the camp music staff, and their families for lunch -- we were asked if we wanted to reschedule, but we said "no" and lunch was FABULOUS!

All of us agreed that we had fun pitching in to help and I truly believe our campers are more invested in the process. It was a very special time!

And, the good news is that we had a new crew on board by 4:00 that afternoon and they are SO much better than what we had! What a blessing in disguise. . .