5:45am Wakeup calls and 10:30am Morning Tea

This picture is take from inside our auditorium on base. Every Wednesday morning we have staff and student worship. This week the theme was to run the God with childlike faith as pointed out in Matthew 18:3-6. In these verses, Jesus says that "whoever humbles himself like a child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven." So we grabbed balloons and bubbles and worshiped as a team! At one point, I was kneeling on the ground when a little child from a family on staff ran up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder and said, "bubb-o?" Then he handed me some bubbles and I happily joined him in blowing bubbles! Cool experience. Try it sometime. Oh, and that's Justin Claypool leading worship in the background. He's a good man. It's great seeing him everyday around base!

Here is something that our team is working on adjusting to... 5:45am wake up calls! Yep, that's right. Everyday our team meets on the porch of the base at 6am for exercise. We can run, walk, play at the playground, do push ups, sit ups, or whatever we like, just as long as we're exercising for 30 minutes to start the day. Our team leader, Buddy, is a big believer in getting up early and creating a discipline of working out so that we can also make alone time with God in the morning. I'm proud to say that today (the first day of workouts) was quite easy considering Jason and I are coming from 7,000 ft elevation. In the mid-morning of each day, we do something much more enjoyable though. We have "tea-time" and drink tea/coffee, and eat biscuits/oranges every single morning for 15 minutes. It's a nice break each day.

So today I found myself missing my days (and friends) at Camp Timberline a lot. That happens occasionally! I volunteered for the maintenance team here on base since we are all required to do "work duties". Today, our maintenance team of four guys worked on detailing one of the camp vans. We scrubbed down the outside, cleaned the windows, mopped the floor, and armor-all'd the seats. It was hot, tiring, and very humbling. Sometime in the middle of mopping the floor inside the roasting van I thought about our maintenance team at camp this summer and remembered how much hard work they put into each day. People like Mike Lamb come to mind. He worked his butt off, served faithfully, and did it with the best attitude in the world. Note to self: Be like Mike! Anyways, everyday from 3-5pm our team will work around the base and put in some good hard work hours. We will be working on remodeling a room on base, cleaning and detailing our six camp vehicles, and all sorts of other daily tasks. Should be fun, eh? And humbling...