Sharp Top Cove

This past weekend Mark, me, Lindsay, Brad and our friends John and Lauren all went up to Sharp Top Cove, a Young Life camp in Jasper, GA. The camp is beautiful and holds a sweet spot in my heart. Although I no longer work for Young Life, I still love the ministry and am so grateful for the people who make Young Life happen. We attended a family camp weekend. While most of the people there had kids and we don't it was still a great weekend. I was so thankful that the thunderstorms held off so that we could play outside.

There were a couple of things that really stood out to me this weekend....

1) This weekend made me so excited to have little Caroline here. Sometimes it's hard for me to think about having a family because I realize that our life will be so different. Mark and I have created our own life together, our own routines and our own friends. We don't spend a ton of time with other families that have young children so it's hard to imagine what it will be like. Seeing all of the families interact this weekend and getting to hang out with the little kids was so much fun!! Mark and I both love children and it is really fun to get to play with them and care for them. I am especially excited when I get to see Mark hanging out with little kids. Friday night there were just a few of us standing outside the dining hall when a little boy that we had never met, went up to Mark and said, "Hi, Mark. Will you play tag with me?!?" It was the sweetest/funniest thing ever. As I said, we did not know this little boy but he wanted to play so he read Mark's name off of his name tag and asked him to play! Mark was quite the sport and chased him around for several minutes. I am really excited about Caroline being here and being able to love her, teach her and play with her together!

2) I also thought a lot about our priorities this weekend. Seeing all of the families interact, made me think about the things that are important in our life. I hope that our family will continue to seek after God, to pray, read Scripture, and go to church together. I hope that we will place a high value on laughter, serving others, and adventure (Mark did the Quantum Leap-he climbed a large telephone poll and then jumped off). We were able to witness and experience many of those things this weekend.

3) While those are some of the priorities in our life, I was also reminded how important it is to surround yourself with others who are like minded. If we are to continue on this path, we need others to support and encourage us and some wiser families to help us along in the rough patches.

Several times throughout the weekend we would see one parent ask another parent or a child, "Have you seen my son/daughter?" My initial reaction is always, "Oh no, your kid is missing." However, after spending a great deal of time at Young Life camps you realize a couple of things. First, camp is camp. Yes, it is in the moutains and there are lots of trees/forests around but in reality they are not going to get too far away. More importantly, there are so so many loving folks around. More than likely your child is being loved on and entertained by another adult or some new friends. In church when children are baptized we promise to support and encourage them as they grow up. I believe that this happens in the church but it is so clearly evident in little moments throughout a weekend at camp! It's neat to see children trusting other adults and the relationships that are built. Being a family is not a time to seclude yourself and be alone but a time to value the love and relationships all around.

I am really thankful for a sweet weekend and for time with good friends/family!