Over the weekend we teamed up with two other families in our small group and drove down to Arkansas to help out a church camp.
Woodland Acres Bible Camp is an absolutely beautiful camp located in Green Forrest, Arkansas, but is relatively close to Branson, MO.
After driving into the wee morning hours, we woke up on Saturday morning, and got straight to work. The woman who was directing us told us to start out by raking leaves.
When I asked her what we were going to do next she just sort of smiled and didn’t answer.
As it turns out, Woodland Acres Camp is true to its name and has A LOT wood, and therefore, a lot of leaves.
So many leaves in fact, that 6 of us raked straight for 1.5 days.
We found out later that we were the 4th group to come and rake, and there is one more coming after us.
I must admit that at first I was a little hesitant about doing this type of work. As I always tell Dan, I am not really built for manual labor. I could surely have done something that I might have been a little better at.
However, I quickly realized we weren’t just raking leaves.
We were listing to music together.
We were cooking together. We were eating (like kings) together. Seriously, the people in my small group can cook. They are also super sweet about making me a GF dish.
We were serving God, together. We were doing life together.
it was such a great weekend. I haven’t worked like that in years, and going to bed completely exhausted felt great in the best possible way.
Yesterday morning I transferred all of my “leaf pictures" from my SD card to my computer. Then, Ina woke up, I left my computer for a few minutes, and when I came back it was frozen, which has never happened before. I restarted it, only to find that the pictures I had just transferred weren’t on my hard drive OR my SD card. They were gone.
I went into full blown panic attack, and downloaded (and paid for) not one, but two applications to recover deleted pictures. After many calming breaths and a few screams, it worked! So, if you ever need help recovering deleted files, I’m your gal.
When I thought those pictures were gone I was truly devastated. Not getting them back was not an option to me. My reaction kind of surprised me, but made me realize how much this weekend and our little small group means to me. <3
I feel like I got bit by the service project bug, and I am now trying to think of other cool things our group can do. What ways do you serve?
My new church is doing great day of service in two weeks to help people in the community. As my pastor put it we are now working on the outward effect we have on people by working outside the church.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say I really enjoy reading your blog. I get to work every morning and jump on to see if you've posted it.
Donovan, Kyra, and I have been volunteering at a farm where they rescue horses then provide free horse therapy and riding experiences to youth. There is a lot of manual labor involved, the exercise and clean air are so refreshing.George and I used to do most of our service projects in the northeast downtown KC area, like at the old Harvesters warehouse and Della Lamb. It's amazing what kids get out of volunteering.
ReplyDelete