Thursday 16th, Friday 17th May

Thursday 16th May
It was so nice to have a good sleep-in this morning.  We all slept really well in fact and didn’t wake up until 8.30.  We had morning worship with Rick & Marilyn, Leona & Ian.  I’ve brought the book ‘Steps to Christ’  by E.G. White with us and we read the first chapter, reading a paragraph at a time going around the circle.  Then we read Joshua 6, which is about Joshua and Jericho.  We chose that because it’s the chapter that our family is up to in reading the Bible.  While we were doing this we had an audience: a kookaburra sitting in a nearby gum tree.  Peter and I took some photos, then he flew off to catch something to eat. 

 After a while another kookaburra called and this one swooped low over our heads in the direction of the other bird.   But later on this afternoon he was back again and I got some more photos, including the one above.

We also saw three pelicans just circling on the air thermals.  It didn’t seem to be for any particular reason, they were just going round and round, up and down with the air currents.  We thought it looked as though they were simply doing it for the sheer enjoyment of it.

The campground is steadily filling up with more and more caravans and campers.  People are greeting friends, reunions are taking place and the atmosphere is wonderful. All you hear is the laughter of people and the singing of birds.

  And the birds just keep on calling – so many birds!  They are so high in the trees that most of the time it is hard to see them but we are all trying to identify the calls.  There are lots of rainbow lorikeets, and a whole flock of them flew overhead this morning.  But we’ve also seen some pink and grey galahs, magpies, noisy miners.  There is a bird nesting in a huge gum tree quite near us, but we can’t quite see what it is yet – Peter just caught a glimpse of it today.

Peter spent quite a bit of the day washing the caravan thoroughly, and I did the church bulletin then helped him put the annexe up.  My cough is improving by the day and I even went for a bit of a walk this morning over to the amenities near the ABC (Adventist Book Centre) to see whether some other friends, Laraine and Bob had arrived yet.  They hadn’t at that time but did so around 3pm and Laraine came over a bit later to say hello.

The only minis I have brought with me is some stitching. I managed about ½ hr stitching before I helped Peter with the annexe, and have done some more tonight.  We are enjoying watching and listening to Nathan’s DVDs of Steps to Christ in Song, and other DVDs that we have brought with us.  We really don’t miss tv at all.  Nathan is reading one of the books we gave him at Christmas and it is lovely to see him so engrossed in Christian reading.

The first of the Camp meetings takes place tomorrow evening at 7pm so we still have another day to prepare.  I want to do some washing and finish cleaning the van.  I’ve dusted and done some cleaning but want to wash the floor yet, and to get a bit more organised.  I can’t do too much at one time, I get really exhausted. 

It is just so lovely here!  We are already starting to feel relaxed, and once we’re a bit more organised we’ll be even more so.  The programme is quite full, with meetings at 7.30am, 10am, an afternoon workshop at 2pm and another meeting at 7pm.   Of course you don’t have to go to all of them but they are so good that you don’t want to miss any of them!

Friday 17^th   May 

We settled down about 9pm last night and still slept until 8am this morning.  We will have to set the alarm for 6am from now on.  It was a colder night but we still found our doona too warm, and had to change over to our minki blanket, adding the patchwork quilt when the temperature dropped in the early hours of the morning.

We went over and ‘claimed’ our seats in the big tent this morning.  Because the numbers grow each year and last year there really weren’t enough seats in the tent they were using, this year they have put up the ‘big tent’ that they use for ‘Big Camp’ meetings.  It’s a 7-pole tent, which seats around 1,000 people.  There are 700 campers here this year and of course more will come just for Sabbath.

Here are a couple of views of the meeting tent.    This is from a distance, which doesn’t give a real idea of the overall size but shows the lovely setting.

And here is a closer view.  

Here’s one view of the seating, which they have now set up.  All of the middle section has been ‘claimed’, and we are in the front row of the side section so that Nathan can see the big screen where the words of the songs will be displayed.  Usually for 'Big Camp', the seating is turned at 90 deg to this arrangement, with everyone facing the fixed stage at the far end of this photo, because they have to fit a lot more people in.

They are doing sound testing at the moment and they have a caravan up the back with a lot of the sound gear in it.  Neat arrangement I think.

The theme this year is ‘NearingHome’

And the backdrop is really lovely but I couldn’t get a good photo of the right side because of the spotlights. It has John 14:2 where Jesus says “In My Father’s house are many mansion.  If it were not so I would have told you.  I go to prepare a place for you.”

The day is cooler than yesterday because there’s a wind with a bit of a bite to it, but it’s still a lovely day.

Peter found the most beautifully-coloured yellow feather today. We would love to know what kind of bird it came from –  or even whether it is a natural bird feather at all.  That's been a big discussion among our group this afternoon.   It’s about 5 inches long and is a lovely vibrant yellow.  The photo doesn’t do it justice at all.

This evening's meeting was the true start to camp.  On the stage is a group of musicians forming a volunteer band with a piano, keyboard, violins, 3 trumpets, a tuba, clarinets, another kind of brass instrument that I couldn't really see properly, a guitar - and probably some more that I couldn't make out too.  There was some joking about what they should call themselves, with one suggestion being the 'Old Puffers' which of course brought a big laugh.  The meeting starting with them playing a selection of the good old favourite hymns, while a power point of highlights from previous Grey Nomads Camps was shown on the screen.  Then there was singing of some old favourites as well, followed by a few surprise 'giveaways'.  Three seats had 'tickets' attached to them, then the oldest person was found: that turned out to be a 94 year old man.  There are also several 93 year olds here (Adventists tend to be long-lived).  Next was to find out the youngest person here: two 40 year olds stood up, but of course Nathan won that one being only 24.  Well, he does qualify as a Grey Nomad, he had two grey hairs after all!

They asked for a show of hands to see where people came from: one of the 40 year olds is a lady from the Caribbean.  Then there was even a group from New Zealand and people from every state and territory in Australia - not a bad effort, considering Western Australia is 4,000 kilometres away and to get from Tasmania involves loading your caravan onto the ship and travelling over Bass Strait - a not inexpensive thing to do as we found out when investigating a holiday in Tassie.  So there are people who have travelled from Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory to be here.  That just shows how popular this camp is becoming.

And our Guest Speaker, Pastor Melvyn Hayden, and his wife Denise, came over from Washington DC to be with us.  He is a really dynamic speaker and delivered a wonderful message that was a true inspiration.  I really look forward to hearing more from him each day.