Thankful Thursday, June 11

This week I'm SOOO thankful for two very key places in providing me with the knowledge of God. The first is a summer camp I attended as a child/youth. It was a very rustic camp in the mountains of the Appalachians. A generation before me, they traveled by train to the camp, and then from the train tracks they traveled by barge to get to the camp on the other side of the river with all their luggage. When I was growing up we traveled a treacherous mountain road to the isolated camp. Once we got there, it was well worth the trip. We had no electricity for the week. The camp rented an army generator to power the mess hall and the cabins, and the bathhouses for part of the day. The refrigerators and stove were gas. There were no outside influences allowed. We swam in the river and the creek. We hiked to a waterfalls. We had fun but most importantly it was a place to concentrate on your relationship with the Lord. As I look back, it was the highlight of my summer for many years. It was the place that I really learned, away from all the family troubles, and other influences to really know the Lord.

The second key place in providing for my faith was the little country church that I attended as a child. There were a few very key people there who modeled the Christian faith and taught Sunday school year-round and Vacation Bible School. The roots of that church go back to pre-American Revolutionary times. The Word of God continues to be preached there. I especially am thankful for my fifth grade VBS teacher who made sure where we stood with the Lord, before the VBS week was over. I never forget her private, intentional conversations with each of us that summer. It meant a lot to me.

Today, I pause and give thanks to the many camp counselors, pastors, and other staff persons of that camp, as well as members of the little country church. Without those folks in those two places, many many lives would not have been touched by the Lord.

Thank you Lord for these wonderful people, some of whom are now in heaven, and for the summer camp and for the little country church.

Since then, in recent years things have entered my life that threw me off balance, but as you may have been reading recently on this blog, I have returned to my childhood faith. I'm so glad that the Lord has not forgotten me and still loves me.