camping extravaganza!

Kicking the night off, we arrive at our campsite at Tyler State Park and began unloading bags, tents, and that sort of thing. With three tents, and a few volunteers, we proceeded to establish our first camping memories of the year. As we opened the tent bags and sorted out all the materials on the ground, we quickly realized this was going to be a long night. We were missing approixmately seven poles to build the tent with. Oh, but we were determined. So the rest of the guys and I quickly concluded that we were going to be sleeping under the beautiful night sky, covered by a canopy of trees.

So we began setting these tents up to the best of our ability with what we had. One tent had was missing end supports, so the sides just kind of collapsed into the tent while the center was standing tall (interesting sight indeed...). Another tent - the only one without poles missing - had a broken zipper, so we couldn't close it. The third tent, we just decided to sleep on top of it at our campsite, with our sleeping bags. Needless to say, sleeping arrangements were fairly entertaining to watch unfold.

Since we forgot the food, and other people were bring it out later, we figured we'd go swimming in the lake right down the hill from us. Mud and moss infested - this lake had a rope swing! We spent probably a couple of hours hanging out, swinging from the rope (almost some near fatal swings), swimming around throwing moss in each others face and stuff. It was quite enjoyable.

After the lake we ended up eating some hot dogs cooked over an open fire with sticks too big to properly support them. We about lost a few (we did have one casualty). Mike and I decided to rekindle our conversation from previously in the day about the Church and Politics. That lasted for a while and at the end we concluded that everyone was right and I wrong. I tried.

We had a nice time of worshiping our Heavenly Father thanks to Salem, Vanessa and Rebecca leading us in some acoustic songs. It was a good time of reflection and admiration. I can get lost in the beauty of God's creation and music for hours, it just doesn't get old. I was thinking about some of the things that have been going through my head about the church lately. Inspired by the book of Acts, I just with the body of Christ held the same closeness as it seemed in biblical times. Part of getting to know our Creator is through his creation, and fellowshiping with one another. Real, deep, intimate fellowship. When you ask someone a question and actually care about the answer they have to give. Conversation about the beauty, mysteries and splendor of the God we have all come to spend the rest of our lives serving.

We just spent the rest of the night until about 2am just hanging out - some went to bed, others played guitar, other continued conversation. When I finally decided to retire on top of our tent that was spread out on the ground, I realized how hard the ground actually was. It was actually kind of refreshing. Just being a little uncomfortable makes you appreciate what you really have.

When we awoke in the morning, we ate some muffins for breakfast, packed up the tents and our bags, and each car just kind of left at their own time. We ended up being the last group to go. I met these guys across the way from us and gave them our last muffin. I hung out with them for a few just talking about the college they all went to. It was five aeronautical science majors and one history major. They all wanted to be some sort of pilot, and the history major wasn't quite sure. I'm not sure why anyone would get a degree in history.

Eleven thirty am rolled around and time to head out. Good times.

G, C, E, D and other things that hurt your fingers

Learning to play the guitar can be a painful experience for the first month or so. I have been learning all these new chords to play, each increasingly painful on the fingers! It is so worth it though! Still, unable to play any one song well, I know four now. My roommates are probably getting tired of hearing the same songs over and over again as I ruthlessly strum away at odd hours of the day; though they are maintaining composure well.

We went to Van Lake last night as a family core (the guys in my core and the ladies from our sister cores) to have a bonfire, eat burnt marshmallows and have a time of worship under the stars. It was pretty amazing (it was the night I learned my fourth song). The fire was nice and hot, adding to the already intense heat of Texas in July. I was sweating profusely just gathering the wood before the fire was even started...it didn't make sense to me.

As the night went on and two thirds of the people left, there were six of us who wanted to extend the evening just hanging out and admiring the beautiful night sky. I fell asleep on a sleeping back for a few minutes when I woke up to my roommate David with a guitar in hand, beating away at the thing without mercy (he doesn't know how to play). So as we sat there he proceeded to write us songs and sing them too us as he wrote them. That was interesting.

It was 12am, and David was wrapping up his song writing, and we all decided that swimming in the lake sounded like a fun thing to do. So there you have it, we all just walked into the lake and spent the next half hour swimming in a muddy lake; talking and blinding each other with near fatal splashes.

It was a fun ride home, sitting on sleeping bags and six wet people in a small car. A memorable night indeed!