Saturday, September 26, 2009

High School Camp Out Around Fr. Michael's House

It’s Saturday morning, 8:00 am and the “campers” are just stirring. It probably helped to let the rooster out of the chicken house at about 7:30. Last night went well. The last group arrived at about 8:00 pm, so we had an extended dinner starting at 6:00 and finishing at 8:30. The kid jelled almost immediately, which was great because a few were “outsiders.” They stood around a fire and roasted marshmallows. We threw flour into the fire (it explodes—mildly). The survivalist in the group showed everyone tricks to keep the fire hot and burning and even made a fire using a bow and spinning a stick. Few were impressed, but everyone was appreciative. Having always been a woodsy guy myself, I was one of the impressed ones. Then the kids played capture the flag in the dark until all the boys had banged themselves up falling, tripping and running into things and each other—great fun for all. Tea and soda and cookies. Then we prayed Little Compline in Bonnie’s icon studio—very peaceful. The kids stayed up another couple of hours playing board games. Bonnie and I went to bed at 11:00. (Two responsible adults stayed up just to makes sure that nothing…well, just to make sure.) At 7:00 I started my chores. The survivalist who insisted that his two wool blankets would be enough was shivering on the ground in a tight ball under his two army blankets. I put another blanket on him and he stopped shivering.

Today we are doing a “dig in.” I printed out Romans 1:15-2:11 in a booklet with lots of white space. We are going to dig into it and see if we can’t figure out why the world is such a mess. Lord have mercy!

No comments: