And it's full on once again

Saturday14^th May

As always at Camp, Sabbath was a really busy day.  We woke bright and early and went down for the Morning Devotional meeting at 7.30am.  It was taken by the President of the North NSW Conference, Pastor Justin Lawman and he is always inspirational.  This time last year he had been taken in for emergency surgery – his appendix burst as they went to take it out and he was a very sick man. He had been ill for 10 days with what he though was the flu and in his words, with appendix you apparently aren’t supposed to wait for 10 days.  We had a video of him saying hello from his hospital bed last year and it was good to see him in person this year, right back of course after all this time to his usual energetic self. 

After the morning meeting we had breakfast and were relaxing enjoying our hot drinks on our chairs under the caravan awning, listening to the birds and trying to identify which ones we could hear, when Peter suddenly realized we had only 20 minutes to get back for the 9.30 Bible Study meeting so it was a rush for showers and dressing and when we got down to the tent again almost all the seats were taken.  We finally managed to find three right up the back.  It was worth the effort to get there though. 

A fifteen minute break after that gave me an opportunity to catch up briefly with a school friend (how can it be 51 years since we left school?!) and then the church service began, with a pastor we weren’t familiar with but he had a message that truly blessed us.  He is from South American and in spite of claiming that he speaks Spanglish his English is very good and he delivered it with humour and sincerity.

We had pre-bought our lunch tickets when we registered so went straight to the dining room, our friends kept a space for us in the line right at the front and we had a delicious lunch.  As usual on Sabbath the dining room was packed.  The afternoon meeting was all about mission opportunities, either volunteering in person or sponsoring projects, then at 5pm we had a closing Sabbath meeting and they showed the first part of a new movie that has been made telling the history of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.  It is called ‘Tell the World’ and will be released in a couple of months.  We are the first group in Australia to have seen it.  We saw the first hour at this meeting, then the rest from 7.30. 

On the way to the big tent we couldn’t help but notice a blow-up replica of the statue from King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in Daniel 2.  It was on the grass outside the tent and stood something like 5 metres tall if not taller so wasn’t exactly easy to miss.  I meant to take a photo of it but didn’t get the chance and they were taking it down by the time we went down for the 5 o’clock meeting.  It was there to let people know that it was available for when churches were putting on a prophecy seminar.  It would certainly grab attention from passing traffic, that’s for sure!

Sunday 15^th May

I love the theme of the camp this year, it is ‘Even at the Door’.  It is based on Revelation 3:20 where Jesus says “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and sup with him and he with Me.’  There’s a famous painting of Jesus standing at the door of our heart and knocking.  The door has no handle on the outside – it can only be opened from the inside.  An artist on the Central Coast is painting more modern versions  and he has done this one of the famous scene with Jesus knocking and he gave permission for it to be used as the backdrop for the stage at Grey Nomads this year.  It’s beautiful.

I was up twice to rub Emulgel into my hip last night, and we all ended up sleeping into 7.40 which meant we missed the first program unfortunately.  But we really enjoyed the 10.30 meeting.  The speaker is from Texas and has lots of stories to tell of church planting and his adventures overseas in different capacities.  His message today was that as retired people, we achieve more for God with our time in just a few years than we were able to in many years when we were tied down with full time work.  I can tell that he is going to challenge us as he speaks to us each morning this week.

Lunch was delicious again – rice balls with a cube of cheese in the centre which of course was melted with the cooking; the choice of vegetables from carrots, potatoes, corn, broccoli and cauliflower; a bean salad and a green salad that looked really scrumptious.  Desserts were vanilla cheesecake with two kinds of topping: either raspberry or  what looked like maple syrup; or another dessert that I can’t remember. 

After lunch we went for a bit of a walk down to the river behind the camp.  

There were a couple of pelicans down there but not many. Apparently if you go down there around 6am there are lots of them around the pontoon but they must be off attending to other business in the afternoon.

 . 

 There was an egret right over the other side of the river, it looked huge even from the distance so it must have been a Great Egret which can grow up to 1metre.   There was also a heron nearby

 and a sea eagle took off from a tree on our side of the river as we were walking along.  It was interesting that the birds we heard down near the river were quite different from the ones we hear at the campground even though it’s not far away. 

I was fighting the temptation to have a sleep all afternoon and even having the walk didn’t help.  I did some knitting but couldn’t concentrate, then Marilyn came by and we went for a walk around the campground.  She has had surgery on her knee and can't walk as far as she used to but we managed to do a circuit of the whole ground before her knee had had enough.

Later on we did another circuit with Laraine, a slightly longer one this time.  Laraine and Bob were members of our Ryde church back when we were all young parents together and then again later on when they returned from interstate so we've all been friends for over 40 years.  Rick and Marilyn see more of them now than we do, but they are dear friends.

Monday 16th May
Slept better last night, with less pain in the hip and didn't wake until Peter got up at 4am to go with Bob and Rick to take photos of the sunrise around at the beach at Grassy Point.  He left at 4.30 and I went back to sleep but the other two men didn't show so Peter walked around there himself and got some lovely photos of the sunrise.  It turns out that because Peter hasn't seemed that keen last night Rick and Bob took his response as a 'no' and went to take some photos of the stars last night instead :).  So they were really surprised that he had gone out today, and chagrined that he got some very nice photos - it was a glorious sunrise.  These are just 3 that I like from among them.

I woke up again at 7.05 and Nathan and I were getting ready for the 7.30 meeting when Peter came back,  Once again it was well worth the effort of making it down in time for the morning service.  A young Tongan pastor gave his testimony of how he came from a background of non-Christian upbringing, time in gangs and crime, to finding Jesus and now living for Him.  It was very moving.

Marilyn and I went for another walk around the campground then remembered that our friend Bob had asked some of us to meet at the Prayer Chapel at 9.30 for prayer for his sister who is having a very tricky surgery tomorrow over in the US.  So we went to join the group there.  I will take a photo of the chapel during camp, it is a lovely place to go for quiet prayer or to meditate.

The 10.30 meeting lived up to the promise of yesterday, with Pastor McDonald pointing out how we are no longer following the Biblical model of pastors planting new churches and teaching them to the stage where they can maintain themselves, freeing the pastor up to keep ministering to the unchurched, but have become an organisation where the pastor is expected to keep feeding spiritually those who already know Jesus and who should be maintaining themselves.  It is certainly a thought provoking concept and one that makes sense.

Lunch was (vegetarian) parmigiana with a choice of vegetables: sweet potato, plain potato, beans, carrots, pumpkin; green salad; bean salad.  Dessert you could have a custard tart that looked really delicious, not the bought kind but an oblong one.  I admired from afar since I managed to resist temptation.  So for tea we will once again just have something light.

I'm afraid that Peter and I did give in to the urge to sleep this afternoon.  He was very weary after his early start to the day and I think I am catching up after all the poor sleep I've been having, now that I've relaxed.  So now it is tea time and we're looking forward to hearing Dr Hammond this evening.
Blessings
Sandie