home again, home again, jiggetty jig

It never ceases to amaze me how long it takes me to catch up on things at home after being gone for a few days. Today I have finally caught up on laundry, cleaning, and with this, blogging.

We had a great week at Sivell's Baptist Camp. It was very relaxing. The video series was amazing (RC Sproul's The Holiness of God)... I was inspired to a deeper understanding of the separateness of God. I want to watch it again soon because I missed bits and pieces when I had to run off to break up a fight or apply a bandaid or some such thing. We also learned exactly how much weight a person can gain in 5 days! Breakfast of biscuits, waffles or cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, sausages (I never could say no to a breakfast sausage) and a fruit bar. Dessert at dinner and supper. Actually, I could have gained more since I went out for a jog every morning. The miles sure go by faster when you're running outdoors, watching ducks and red-wing blackbirds fly out of the wet ditch and being watched by cows, than when you're on a treadmill watching only the time tick by. The kids had lots of free time and freedom to walk around, play and feed the fish. Here's a picture of my family playing in the Ruidoso river. Click the my photo albums link at the left to see more pictures from our staff retreat.

So we got home on Saturday and found we weren't the only ones who had gained a few pounds. The lady we left Duke with fed him all sorts of table scraps because she felt so sorry for him. He's on a strict diet like the rest of us! Sunday we went to church and were so blessed by the baptismal service. 7 youth were baptised, 2 of the guys are so changed and so eager to grow in the Lord. All of the testimonies were sincere and touching, and even more special was that some of their family members who don't set foot in a church for anything came to see them bapstized. Halfway through the service Scott leaned over to ask me if we could pull off a BBQ for the youth after the service. After asking him if he was out of his mind, I agreed to it. So an hour later and for the rest of the afternoon we had a house packed full of youth. It definitely delayed my post-trip organization but it was fun!