West Cocoa Chat

With the threat of rain (70%) in the forecast, Workcrew #21 had to get “giggy with it” to get our home done. I told our guys if we could done by lunch (rain was approaching in the distance) I would take them to a place in Parkersburg called “Tim’s Root beer” and spring for root beer floats.

So we had our devo on the backporch as the rain started coming down. I gave an admonition to my workcrew to stay close to Jesus and to not allow fear to dominate their lives or their walks with the Lord.

The floats were good and I made it back to the campus of OVU by 3pm, a full one hour early. We appreciate your prayers and now on to final round of pics:
A closer shot of my Workcrew, #21. I was so proud of these kids and the way they worked. Now its time for this old boy to head home and become a "slug" again. May God bless all of these kids and thanks again for your prayers.

Almost finished the house today. I figure I'll be done by lunch tomorrow unless the 70% chance of rain catches us tomorrow. This area needs rain I just hope it holds off until 5pm. I appreciate all of your comments and I'll start commenting on your blogs starting next week. My day usually starts off around 6am with trying to get a shower before the rest of the 250 boys attempt to use up all of the hot water. We get out to the worksite around 9:30, lunch at noon, back to OVU by 4, dinner, worship, devos, and I'm in bed by midnight. Anybody else tired?
Evening worship in the OVU Gym.
Steven at the evening worship.

My son Steven and his friend Mark waiting for our morning devo to start. Steven is wearing a jacket to convince everyone that a high of 98 isn't hot.

Jacob and Phil on the second story of our home. Phil took leave from the Army to come to Work Camp, hence the water "camel" he wears around his chest courtesy of the war in Iraq.

This is Craig from our church. I told him he looks like "Inspector Callahan" from "Dirty Harry." Can you tell that he wants to tell me, "Cecil, put that camera down. Put it down punk, do you feel lucky punk? Go ahead, make my day."

EJ and "Cat" taking a much needed water break.

Ryan, Josh, Jonathan, and Cody working on our home.

Josh, Mike, and Katie on another part of the house.

Praise and worship time after dinner in the Gym. Pat Pugh spoke tonight and over 50 teens responded for prayer and 3 were baptized into Christ. Fits in well with the theme of Workcamp, "Ready, Set, Change."

More pictures from today:


This is Kevin Lombard who is the Director of Workcamp. He is addressing all the adult crew leaders after breakfast.

Here he is, Bill Williams of Spiritual Oasis. Instead of dueling banjos we have dueling cameras.

Here they are, my workcrew, Workcrew #21. Usually on the first day you're happy if you can get all of the scraping done. #21 kicked some major "house painting boo-tra" by not only getting most of the scraping done but as you can see, we were able to prime most of the house.

Thanks for the prayers. We're feeling them. God bless.

We made it to Parkerburg, WV. today. We left Statesville around 9am and arrived up here at 5pm. We took our time coming up here since we couldn't get our rooms until 5. I have met with my workcrew (#21 if you're interested) and told them the once again proverbial "good news / bad news" about our home.

Saturday night at the Roadhouse Restaurant with from left to right: Josh, one of our AIM guys, Lee, Chuck, yours truly, Anthony, Phil, and Dusty - all AIM folks.

Taken for the inside of our church bus. The girl standing on her seat in the black is Kir.

On our church bus, Anthony and Dusty, both AIM (Adventures in Missions) students assigned to our (yes, West Cocoa is a mission field) church.

Anybody want to fire up the old C.W. McCall 70's song, "We got us a convoy." Picture of our church bus at a rest area in Virginia.

A picture of your truly at the same rest area in Virginia.

Chuck and I in front of a tugboat on the Ohio River in West Virgina.

How about a rare Saturday post from wonderful Statesville, North Carolina. We left Cocoa around 7:30am and arrived here at 6:15pm. Trip went well and I drove the whole way. Chad is going to drive the final 5 hours into West Virginia tomorrow.

As to our titles, remember the movie that TBS airs for 24 hours on Christmas Eve, “Christmas Story.” There is a scene where “Flick” after being “tripled dog dared” decides to stick his tongue on a frozen pole in the school playground. When he discovers his tongue is now frozen to the pole, he yells, “Stuck, stuck, stuck!” I wanted to yell that tonight.

As we were coming back from dinner to our hotel, I got off on the wrong (I know Greg will love this) exit. Realizing my mistake I sought and found a parking lot to do a U-turn in or so I thought. As I came off the road and started up the hill into the parking lot, anybody want to guess what happened? Yes “CDL breath,” I impaled the trailer hitch into the pavement and thus I wanted to yell, “Stuck, stuck, stuck.”

It took us about 5 minutes to off load all 30 folks and unload our trailer to lighten our load and I was able to free the bus. Hence my lesson for today, “What goes uphill many not make it downhill.” BTW, the Chuckster came up with our second title.

We plan to leave for West Virginia around 10am tomorrow. Hope you’re having a good weekend.

By this time tomorrow yours truly along with about 25 other teens and about 12 chaperones will be headed up to Ohio Valley University to attend the Mid-Ohio Valley Work Camp. I told our youth guy (Chad) that he has been “born again” because usually are schedule consists of leaving around midnight and driving straight through to Parkerburg, WV which ends up (depending on fuel, potty, flat tires, and food stops) being anything from 15 to 17 hours worth of driving. This year we are leaving on Saturday at 7:30am and, and, and, (drum roll please / Christmas Vacation Movie style) dare I say it, STOPPING on the way up! This will hopefully prevent the phenomenon of starting the week out exhausted and going downhill from there.

The Work Camp starts on Sunday evening. All of the 500 teens are broken up into “Workcrews.” You then meet with your “WC” to introduce yourselves, talk about your home, delegate the (who will be doing the devos, getting the water, ladders, primer, paint, and O2 for the old geezer guy running this WC) duties, and to start to bond with them. Last year when I had my first “Area” (consists of about 15 homes being painted in the general vicinity of each other) Meeting, my “Area Guy” asked, “Which one of you is Cecil?” When I answered “Me” he said, “You’re in luck. You have the worse house in the Area so it will really look good when you get it done.”

Oyvey! Getting it (as in the Southern phrase, “Git r done”) done means you have 4 days to scrape, prime, and paint the outside of your home. In all of the homes I’ve painted we’ve usually done some landscaping and general cleaning of the grounds.

The blessing of this experience is getting to know your home owner of whom most are retired, disabled, or unable to have their home painted. For them its paramount to hitting (not that I play that sort of thing) the Lottery. It is also a great way for teens to get outside themselves and actually serve someone less fortunate.

The evenings are held back at OVU. After dinner there’s time for Chapel and devos. Our brother Pat Pugh will be speaking the last 2 days of the Work Camp! Now that is serendipity. In fact, that serendipity is still paying dividends. My son informed me that he and another one of the teens are leading the first devotional on Saturday night at the hotel. He informed me that his would be a teen only devo, no chaperones.

I am so proud of how some of our young guys are stepping up and trying to grow closer to God and being spiritual leaders of our youth group.

My blogging may be non-existent next week. I’m not sure I’ll have internet access at OVU. God bless all of you and keep us in your prayers.

This post was prompted by something my son said a few days ago and a conversation. At Steven’s game last week he didn’t have one of his better performances. After working his way to the lead-off position on his Stan Musial / Wood-bat League team, of whom most of the players are Junior College / College / out of College players, he went 0 for 2 with a pair of strikeouts last week.

Sidebar- In tonight’s game he went 1 for 3 with a lead-off single, a shot that went to the warning track that was flagged down by the center-fielder, and some nice plays at second. He also got invited to play in a tournament when we come back from the Work Camp.

Any way, on the way home from last week’s game, the first that we had been able to attend, Steven made the following statement about his performance. He said, “Mom, Dad, I’m sorry I let you guys down tonight. I wanted to do better.” Fortunately I had the whereto all to not critique the fact that he watched some good pitches go by but rather I said, “Steven, whether you go 0 for 2 or 4 for 4 doesn’t make a difference when it comes to your mother and me. Our love for you and pride in you is not based on your performance on the field. Rather, it is based on who you are (our son) and how you carry yourself in success and failure.

Nevertheless, he is a product of our society. Ours is a society and even an educational system that asks the question, “What have you done for me today?” Now the question I’m posing here is this, does this “performance based” mentality also permeate those of us who are Christians and does it also influence churches as well?

Recently I had a conversation in which this person told me that our church had become “marked” because of some decisions our leadership had made. Some (but not all) of these churches I’m sure respected and relished help and support from our congregation in the past. It seems however that our performance / agreement with these churches has changed or at least it has in their eyes so now we’re “marked.” Do we in our fellowship really believe in the doctrine of “church autonomy?” It seems at least in my experience even church to church we have this “what have you done for me lately” mentality or moreover, we seem to have a “do you still totally agree with us on every point of doctrine” mentality.

Now, let me state for the record that I am not “blog whining.” In fact, our Brother Pat Pugh pointed out to our teens these verses in Luke 6:

6:22 "Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and cast insults at you, and spurn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.6:23 "Be glad in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for in the same way their fathers used to treat the prophets.

When I think about the source of the persecution Jesus and his followers suffered, his fellow Jews, it seems apparent that it works the same even today and that’s alright. I think I’m starting to understand that if I’m not suffering persecution on a personal level as well as our church from fellow churches, we’re in trouble! Look at what Jesus says causes you to be blessed in verse 22. It isn’t one’s performance but rather if “men” hate you, ostracize you, cast insults (I’ve heard plenty of those through grapevine) at you, and spurn your very name as being evil.

No my blog family, this isn’t a blog of whining but rather a blog of praise as in praise be to God! Our right-standing before God isn’t based on mine or our churches perfect understanding of doctrine. Isn’t that good news!

I’m reminded of the words of Paul in Ephesians 2:

4But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. 6And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 7in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast.

Don’t you just hate it when a blog or one’s comment to a blog forces you to act in the way you posted or commented? This happened to me on Saturday. My good blog (hopefully to meet at the Mid-Ohio Valley Workcamp) friend Bill Williams posted a (http://spiritualoasis.wordpress.com/) blog concerning “Fatherly Aspirations” in which he asked for us, the home viewer, to add some qualities fathers should aspire to so as to be a more effective father. I made a comment about fathers should be “involved” with their children.

I did not know that God would be listening or reading in because a few minutes later I was put through one of those “put your money where your mouth is” tests. My son Steven who is a confirmed “un-recovering” patient of the “sickness” (an abnormal love for guitars that Greg, Randy, and Patrick have as well.) called a few moments after I had commented on Bill’s blog. He had spent the night with 5 of his buddies all of whom have the “sickness.”

Sidebar – The “sickness” will cause one to have an abnormal desire to visit the nearest “Guitar Center Store.” These individuals if unable to visit GC can be observed facing towards the nearest (for us that would be due west towards Orlando) GC Store when doing everyday tasks such as eating, brushing one’s teeth, or praying. Back to my phone call from number one son.

Steven’s phone call was to ask me if he could drive (45 miles) my Expedition (fondly referred to in our family as the “Expo” / Gas Hog) with his 5 buddies to GC in Orlando. Me being the “involved” father, the same guy who commented on Bill’s blog answered as you would guess, “No!” My reasons were I thought logical:

1. Price of Gasoline
2. Wear and tear on the Expo
3. Wear and tear on my nerves knowing you with 5 other teens were driving to the metropolis we call “Orlando.”
4. I need you to some chores around the house.

You get the idea. Although Steven was disappointed he was polite and said, “O.K. Dad, I’ll be home in a few minutes.” When I hung up the phone I was immediately beset with blog guilt and then I thought, what would my Dad have done? It was a no-brainer. I called Steven back and said, “O.K., I have a counter proposal. How about I drive you and your buddies to GC if you come home and get a couple of things done for me? Shouldn’t take more than one hour.” When Steven said out loud, “You want to drive us to GC Dad” I could hear his buddies saying, “We love you Mr. Cecil.”

Steven came home and gave me a couple of hugs and told me that I had made all of their days. He finished his chores; we picked up the gang, and headed over to “O-town” for a tour of the GC Store. I think I heard Dr. Dobson one time coin the phrase, “Make a memory.” We made one Saturday. Anyone want to send me donations for my gas money?

Chad, our Youth Guy guarding the desserts.

This is what "Ker-bot" (see previous Camp Post)really looks like as Kerston / Dessert Auction Vanna Night.

Here is a shot of our Fellowship Hall and the teens sitting up front. Many of them brought money to bid on the items.

Steven in the middle with sunglasses and white shirt.

This is what happens if you don't bid on any of the items to help our youth - attack of the Jedi! This is Chuck engaged in battle by Tyler who is the cute Grandson of Brett (Our Deacon of Youth and Mohawks) and Sharon.

Isn't age interesting? When we first start out we strive and strive to be older. I can remember thinking I can't wait to be 16,18, and then 21. Then all of sudden at some point, we want to the age train to slow down or go in reverse. This past week there have been a couple of folks close to us who have celebrated birthdays and have missed their correct age. A close friend told us on the morning of his birthday, he walked around for most of the day thinking he was 57. This was disconcerting to his wife for she knew her age by subtracting a certain number of years off his correct age. She suddenly found herself older than she once thought until our friend’s sister corrected our friend on the phone by promptly telling her brother that he was now 56, not 57. This made his wife happier.

I hesitate to share this next story with you but its Friday and we all could use a laugh. When I was 16 (and knew it) a number of my friends and I decided to visit a “Cheers –like” establishment to get at their cool pool tables. At the time the legal age was 18 of which none of us were so we devised an ingenious (remember, we were all teens so that should tell you something about our mental capacity) plan, one that included stealth, cunning, and sheer creativity. We would use the old, “I forgot my wallet with my I.D.” trick! Brilliant, yes?

Our plan had one serious flaw, this scheme would require all of us be able to apply mathematics (or as Jethro would say, “ciphering”) to be 18! So, we walked up to said establishment and were promptly met by the Bouncer. He asked for I.D. from these baby-faced (can you imagine me, baby face?) intruders and out came the plan. If I remember right, the dialog went something like this:

Bouncer – “Where do you think you “boys” are going?”
Boys – “Boys?” I’m sorry Sir, you must be mistaken. We just got off work and all shaved so we could look good for the ladies.”
Bouncer – “Oh really. O.K., I need you “men” to show me some I.D.”
Boys – (thinking, “we got him!”) Oh, we left our wallets at home. You know, the stress of work these days.”
Bouncer – (quickly pointing at one of my friends) “O.K. Buckwheat, what year were you born?”
Friend – “19-blank-blank.”
Us – (thinking “Brilliant, he didn’t hesitate. Let the games of 8-Ball begin.”)
Bouncer – “Great job Buckwheat, that would make you 17! Now take your boys and get out of here!”

You might say God was looking out for us that day. Age, it’s a maddening thing. Now for the question, do you know or want to know how old you are? Do you have a time when you missed how old you were? Your story like mine I’m sure will be one for the “ages.”

Have a good weekend.

I'm going to leave this post up one more day so if anyone else wants to share you can.

This past quarter, one of our members, Mike, taught a series on "Finding God and His Glory Through a Study of Angels." We sometime refer to Mike as our "Angel Guy" (the east coast version Steve) since he has done years and years of research on the Biblical aspect of “Angels.” Mike has presented his material at the Spiritual Growth Workshop in Orlando, the Pepperdine Bible Lectures, and in his studies at Harding Grad.

A little sidebar – The first time we had Pat Pugh (a graduate of Harding Grad) speak for us I told him about Mike and how he was going to Harding Grad while working for NASA out at the Kennedy Space Center. Pat’s response was something like, “This guy is working full time and attending Harding Grad; I’d like to meet this “freak of nature.”” Mike is one sharp guy with a shepherd’s (we’ve asked him a couple of times to become an elder but his studies at Harding Grad make it difficult) heart.

In one of Mike’s classes he mentioned that he knew people that had strange encounters they couldn’t explain and that perhaps they had an encounter with an Angel. I was thinking about that the other day so I decided to list a couple of my “strange encounters” and to invite you to do the same. Now, I’m not trying to get us started on a “ghost story” marathon (and with only a few comments in the last few posts it might only become a 50yd dash – is this whining blog style?) but rather to get us to think about the supernatural in Biblical terms.

As most of you guys know we sometimes throw around the terms “conservative” and “liberal” when trying to label folks in our movement. As I understand it in reality we probably have no “liberals” in our movement because in the truest since of that label being used to identify a Christian means that “liberal” denies for the most part the “supernatural” (virgin birth, divinity of Christ, miracles, ect.) aspect of Scripture. However, there are some things such as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and Angels that fall into that realm that we in our movement sometimes have a hard time talking about, so, lets talk!

Encounter #1:
It was 1979 and I and 2 friends were hiking on the Westside of Rocky Mountain National Park. We had veered off a trail called “Cascade Falls” to actually find a “shortcut” (which when hiking always seems to lead to a “long cut” instead) to the noise of the Falls that we could hear below us. The good news (I promise, no “underwear” jokes here) was we found the Falls. The bad news was after a couple of hours of exploring we couldn’t find the trail that would lead us in one direction to our backcountry campsite or at the very least, in the other direction back to our car.

Now, we weren’t endanger of dying or doing anything like the “Survivor Guy” does on the Discovery Channel but nevertheless we were somewhat disconcerted having difficulty finding the trail. At some point in our “lostness” we came across a kid who appeared to be between 10 to 12 years old. He was unaccompanied by any adults and he seemed quite at ease with himself. In fact, he asked us (all 3 college boys) if we needed help. We sheepishly told him of our struggle. He politely pointed in one direction and told us we were just a few yards from the trail.

After cutting through the tree a few yards he was right, we re-discovered our trail. We turned around to thank him for his assistance and he was gone. There was no trace of him or anyone else. At the time I did not chalk it up to an “Angel encounter” but looking back at it in retrospect I wonder.

Encounter #2:
It was 1983 and Barb and I had been married a couple of years. She had to have some surgery and when she got out of the hospital we decided to stayed with my in-laws for a week since our 12 X 50 trailer didn’t have a walk-in shower. The first night at my in-laws was a long night. Barb was having trouble sleeping due to her incision staples and all. I had to help her out of the bed to get to the bathroom. She finally fell asleep around 3am and we were both exhausted.

We were sleeping in the master bedroom and had the door closed. Sometime during the night I became aware of the door opening and the air pressure changing due to someone entering the room. I assumed it was one of my in-laws but I couldn’t imagine why they would be in our (their) room this early in the morning. I could feel their footsteps as “they” came beside our bed, stopped, and then exited the room with what I thought was the door closing.

A few minutes later Barb needed my help again to get out of bed in order to get to the restroom. As I was helping her up she asked me who had come into our room. Until she has asked that question I had almost believed I was having some kind of weird dream. Now I was puzzled and alarmed. I went to the room where my in-laws were sleeping and asked them if they had been our room? When they replied “no” my radar was really peaked. My father-in-law and I searched the house for any sign of forced entry or burglary. Everything was locked and secured.

When Barb and I began to de-brief about the incident my father-in-law simply said, “Maybe it was the Lord?” I don’t know about the Lord but perhaps we had been visited by an angel? For the rest of that night and the week Barb was able to rest through the night.

O.K., if you've hung in there long enough I’ve opened the door. Feel free to share to laugh at me.

The Book of Ephesians is one of my favorite books/letters in the Bible. The problems Paul inveighs against are so contemporary. I remember Dr. Carroll Osborn commenting on Ephesians 1:22 – 23 (22And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.) saying that this was Paul’s way of saying to the Ephesians, stop living your life according to some pagan norms and some Christian norms. Get into Christ with both feet!

In our last devotional at Camp, I encouraged our campers to not allow the lessons they had learned at camp to stay at Camp. I told them our and their time was wasted if they didn’t make some changes at home that would bring them closer to Jesus. I’m sure you preachers out there can identify with this admonition. I’d like to share with you some of the changes that I’m aware of since we’ve returned home with respect to our kids.

First, many of our teens have placed a statement on their “My Spaces” that reads this site is “His Space” as in God’s Space. This is a cyber space version of Pat’s admonition to our campers to simply answer and say “Jesus” when someone asks them to do something they know goes against the will of God.

The second change involves my son and 2 of his friends in our youth group. I’ll illustrate with a couple of incidents. As I said in my last post, Steven is playing in a “Wood Bat League” and he had a doubleheader this past Sunday. We were unable to attend due to a fellowship meal after church so I called him in the late afternoon to see how he had done. He told me he had arrived home and that he and Zack were reading the Bible. Wow, at home and reading the Bible. Those are 2 phrases that for many of us including yours truly, rarely go together.

Later that night he and Zack went to their other friend’s home. When he arrived back home that night he came in carrying his Bible and a notepad. When we inquired as to what they had been doing he responded by saying they had read some of the Psalms, prayed, and started a prayer journal. My first thought was we need a Bible Camp for us (pronounced in the South by some as “add-dults”) adults.

I know the world will pull on them once again and their various (Steven – lifting, summer baseball, Zack – lifting, summer football, John – working) activities will be a challenge. However, these 3 teens have attempted to carry the lessons of our Bible Camp, living in His Space, beyond the confines of Camp. Wouldn’t it be interesting to see the changes in ourselves and our churches if we “add-dults” tried focusing in on Bible Study, prayer, and reaching out to others in the name of the Lord.

Hi guys. My last post was entitled "Camp 180" and this post is number 280! Are you guys proud of me? I shutter to think if I had ran 280 days or worked out 280 days out of the past year what I would look like. Well, lets not go there. I was the main character in a video commercial we showed our church yesterday to kick off our Summer Wednesday Nights Bible Olympics. In the commercial I wore workout clothes and a headband. Someone came up to me afterwards and said, “I thought I was watching Rocky.” My response was, “If that was Rocky then Rocky needs to lose weight!” Makes me want to say, “Yo Adrian.”

Switching to baseball, I haven’t said much about Steven lately. I wanted to give you an update. He is playing in a “Stan Musial Baseball.” When I told someone at church that they responded by saying, “I didn’t know Steven was in to acting in musicals?” That’s “Musial,” not “musical.”

Any way, this league is a wood bat league for you baseball purists out there. He is probably the youngest player in the league since most of the players are Junior College, College, and “older players.” Steven pitched against our next door neighbor’s team last weekend which includes our next door neighbor’s son who played for Seminole Community College this past season. Steven came out in the 5th inning with a 4 to 3 (2 unearned runs) lead and 6 strikeouts. He also collected several hits and he closed out a game yesterday throwing the last 3 innings. This has been a big boost to his confidence which was somewhat shaken by our last coach who is no longer with us.

Enough about Steven – I’m going to end with some week end pics and a last set of camp pics. The 3 Amigos of our Camp: from left to right me, Pat, and Steve aka “The Puckster.”

We’re home. We left Camp Ithiel yesterday at 6:30pm. In reference to a Greg’s question yesterday, we left on Thursday for 2 reasons. One, a wedding was coming in today and they had the Mess Hall and Chapel booked for the entire day. This would have limited us greatly. The second reason we didn’t know how Camp Ithiel was going to turn out so we decided to go with a Thursday evening departure and I must say I liked it.

Don’t get me wrong – our Camp Ithiel experience was nothing short of spectacular and we do plan to return their next year. It was nice cleaning up in the afternoon vs. cleaning up on Saturday morning following a Friday evening of being up through Saturday morning. We might go for a Friday evening departure next year.

I cannot say enough about the Camp’s Director (Mike) and his staff. They went out of their way, above and beyond the call of duty to make us feel welcome and to meet our needs. The meals they served us were outstanding and filling which is important to teens, especially teen boys. Mike’s demeanor all week was one of smiles and kind words. Yesterday as we left he told me that he was going to miss us. I tell you family, having someone tell you they’re going to miss you is a “180” from having someone tell you “you’re un-invited.” I thank God those days are over and we are excited and pumped up about next year’s camp.

The two camper comments I’ll share with you come from my son and his good friend Zack. I asked Zack yesterday about his “camp experience.” He told me, “Mr. Cecil, this was the most spiritual camp we’ve had in my opinion. It has motivated me to be more spiritual.”

The second comment came from my son Steven, as we enjoyed a kayak ride together. I asked Steven the same question and he told me, “Dad, this Camp has motivated me to walk closer to Jesus. Zack and I have been staying up till 2:30, 3am talking about our walks and staying close to God.” I can tell you that this Dad/Camp Coordinator/rear paddler was glad Steven was up front because my eyes welled up with tears when he made his statement.

You never know how a camp is going to turn out but you pray and plan that it will draw your campers closer to God. In spite of ourselves I believe God used us to make that happen this week and I can’t say enough Pat Pugh.
As I said in an earlier post, I believed a year ago that God will use Pat in a powerful way to help our teens deal with the world's pull on them. Pat encouraged and challenged them to stay close to God. His simple but powerful admonition to them was to answer “Jesus” when someone asked them to smoke pot, drink alcohol, have sex, or anything that was against God’s Word. It was interesting to hear campers say “Jesus” when someone was stepping out of line. For those of us in Christ the name of Jesus puts everything into perspective when we face situations that want to draw us away from God.

O.K., are you ready for the bottom-line? A number of us went to a neat restaurant last night in beautiful Gotha, (pronounced “go –tha”) Florida called “Yellow Dog Eats Here.” As we celebrated our week of Camp I recounted the events of being “un-invited” by our old camp and then finding Camp Ithiel. My lovely wife looked at me and said, “I’m glad we found this camp because you were “mope-ing” around until we did.”

Her comment got a laugh but it was true. When I was at the Pepperdine Lectures I was resigned that Bible Camp, something that was so much a part of me had been taken away by the legalistic terrorists that now dominate the old camp. Then God made all of what I just wrote about possible and I’m convinced it wasn’t for my benefit (or my wife’s because I was moody) but rather for the benefit of the 90 young souls that we were Jesus to this past week.

I want to give a final thanks to my good friend Steve Puckett. Steve is a rock of faith and a good friend. If it hadn’t been for Steve, his youth minister Joe, and the Melbourne Church of Christ Elders who were bound and determine to make Camp happen I might still be mope-ing right now.

I also want to thank my fellow elders who agreed and supported our vision of Camp this year. They have stuck beside me and their support has value that goes beyond any earthly worth.

Thanks be to God for He alone is worthy to be praised! Have a good weekend family.