A Real Vacation

Well, we are back at camp! We had a wonderful vacation after a good long summer season. We packed up and headed for southern PA for the first few days of September. I had some students that I wanted to connect with at Lancaster Bible College. Kelly, Natalie and I visited some staff alumni in the area. We were very eager to spend some time together with her family and some friends. I also had an evening prayer coffee that I wanted to attend at LBC.

From there just Kelly and I, flew from Baltimore, MD to Seattle, Washington. We zipped all the way out to the west coast to spent 10 days with our dear friends Dave and Michelle Parker. The Parker's had been full time at Rock Mountain Bible Camp up until last year when they moved to Seattle. Over the past five years the four of us have become very close. Our bound of friendship and ministry like-mindedness has been a great blessing from God. It was an exciting adventure to visit with them, to see what God was doing in and through them, and to see the west coast.

Our time in Seattle was long and short, relaxing and busy, quiet and noisy, difficult and easy. It was a blessing for me to disengage from camp...which I found to be surprisingly easy. It was difficult to be away from Natalie but at the same time it was fun to run around as a couple. The first few days made the whole trip seems as if we were not going to have enough time, but in the end it felt like just the right amount of days to be away. The three hour time change kind of threw us for a loop...but we handled it well by sleeping in a lot...a lot. We enjoyed tons of great food...tons. Kelly and I loved being in a port city. Kelly really loved it...I liked being there on vacation. It was fascinating to explore all the unique sections of town - upscale, downtown, the west side, the university district, and so on.

It was great being there with Dave and Michelle. It seemed like we were tourists with an inside edge. We saw a bunch of the foo-foo touristee things, but we also made it around to all the little known hidden places that made our trip special. We also had the exciting opportunity to attend Mars Hill Church (where Dave serves full time) each of the two Sundays we were out there. I am thankful to experience first hand, this church and ministry which has been a good source of spiritual fuel at camp over the past three or four years. In many ways Mars Hill is much like all other churches. It has some unique qualities, but those are a result of the culture and geographic location. The reason Mars Hill is moving forward - is that they are making disciples. They are creating (spiritually) healthy leaders, who create healthy people, who create a healthy church, whose (the church is the people) desire is to impact the city of seattle, making it healthy.

We had a great vacation! I am grateful for the time away to relax and prepare. I praise God that this vacation was not an escape to recover from summer ministry burnout. By God's grace we had a healthy summer of camp. Of course, we were tired and ready to stop, but we were not burned out and used up. Our vacation was a time of relaxation to prepare for the next season of ministry. As we settle back in to the "hustle and bustle" of Brackney, God continues to give us time of relaxation and renewal...preparing us for the fall and winter. We have retreats this month and next. After that is a short time of staff recruiting, turn around for winter temperatures, and preparation for a long season of winter retreats.

Thanks for keeping in touch, enjoy the vacation pictures...