Overwhelmed with birdsong

Thursday 12^th May

We were awake bright and early – surprisingly since we were so very tired, I woke early and didn’t sleep well after around 3.30.  That’s been happening a lot lately and doesn’t make for a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed start to the day.  We breakfasted, packed up and were back on the road by about 7.45.  It was another gorgeous day and just so good to be travelling.  Traffic was light and we had plenty of time to get to our destination so we looked for the turnoff to where our friends stayed overnight but couldn’t find it so kept going.   They stayed by the river and didn’t leave until 11. 

We left the highway and stopped at Taree so we could do some shopping and were still early (registration didn’t begin at the camp until 12) so we stopped further on and had some  morning tea in a nice little rest area.  Lots of birds were singing their hearts out in the bush around us and the sun was shining, it was just lovely to stop and enjoy it all. 

Looking further down to the end of the rest area

After that there were lots of road works and the trip slowed down somewhat but we still arrived in good time at the Adventist Convention Centre at Stuarts Point and registered.   To our disappointment we hadn’t been allocated a site with our friends (again!) but were several sites up the road.  One advantage is that we are opposite the amenities so Nathan finds it easy to get back to the caravan without getting lost, which he tends to do if we are down the road a bit.  Another advantage is that we have to walk a little bit further to get to the big tent where the meetings are held and that’s good because it’s just that few more steps each time we go to meetings, and every bit helps in getting the number of steps up each day.  Also visiting Rick and Marilyn, and also our friend Ian who is beside them, means walking a bit so that’s more steps too J.  The disadvantage of course is that we’re not all together so it’s not as easy to socialize.

We set up and greeted familiar faces from previous years, had a look around and felt right at home.  Another early night was in order.  There are no meetings until tomorrow night at 7.30, the official start of camp.

Friday 13^th

Peter bought himself a new phone on the morning of the day we left.  That’s good, right?  It is surprising how inconvenient it has been since his other one broke.  Somehow it didn’t appreciate being thumped on rocks when he fell while we were away in January.  Funny that.  But now of course instruction manuals aren’t provided with phones.  So while we were driving on Wednesday the phone kept ringing and we couldn’t work out how to answer it.  Finally I got that worked out, and told the person who kept ringing every hour and a half that Peter was driving.  He said he’d ring back – and hasn’t rung since.  Then last night the phone started beeping at 3.30am.  Just one, very loud, beeeeep.  Every quarter of an hour.  Peter couldn’t work out how to turn the phone off.  So the phone kept beeping away, every quarter of an hour until 5am then it went to every hour until 7am.  Finally at 7 Peter worked out how to turn the darn thing off and we went into a deep sleep and didn’t wake up until 8.55. 

The day has been perfect weather-wise.  It was still 24 degrees at mid-afternoon.  We always choose to be in the very last row of sites, so that we just have the bush to look out on behind us.  The sound of birds is constant, so many different species, and we can hear the sea in the distance.  It is a gorgeous place to be. 

I took a wander to have a look around this morning.  The ‘big tent’ where all the meetings are held is set up ready to go.  The sound technicians were just doing last minute things when I was there.

"Big Tent' where all the meetings are held

Inside the 'Big Tent', from the doorway

This year there is a smaller tent beside it, called the Family War Room. 

Family War Room

This is a place where people can  go and pray for their family or friends  One side is set up with a mock up of an old-fashioned kitchen, and has tables and chairs where you can  spend time reading material on the importance of family worship, protecting our families in this digital age and other helpful things.

On the other side there’s a banner at the front with a play on the signs we see everywhere on the roads in NSW ‘Stop. Revive. Survive’.  Instead of being applied to stopping and reviving to survive on the road, it applies to stopping and reviving through prayer and surviving the trials and problems that we can encounter here with our families, I guess.  What a neat idea. This side is set up with large tables and chairs, as though for discussion groups.  I’ll find out more during camp I’m sure.  

I had a quick look at the book and food shop and there are lots of great things on offer there, must go back and have a better look around in there.

Also caught up with some other friends who had arrived.  And some other familiar faces that we see each year.  One of the lovely things about church camp is that everyone is so friendly and you see the same people each year.  You catch up with old friends and make new ones.  And you feel very safe.  I also really appreciate the large number of people who remember Nathan from year to year and bring him ‘home’ if he wanders off and gets lost – which has happened before on a couple of occasions.  It’s difficult to balance his need for independence with keeping him from getting lost but at least we know he’s safe.  He is by far the youngest person here and everyone knows him.  And people tend to know us as ‘that young man’s parents’.  Oh well!