Western PA Family Camp Meeting

We are enjoying a great week at our beautiful Western PA campground! This week is called Whitehall Family Camp Meeting. We are so fortunately as a church that our state ministries office has a beautiful facility like this. We are surrounded by rolling hills and lush forests.

As a mom, my experiences are very much influenced by the experiences of my children! Will is old enough this year to go to the youth activities. That is exciting for him! Ben was old enough when we moved to PA to jump right into youth activities. He's having a great time, too.

The youth have two services per day, one in the morning and one at night, in the barn. The adults (and kids) have a service each night in the tabernacle plus conferences throughout the day. Kids have activities planned for them each day as well. Friday night there will be an intergenerational service where all the youth will join the adults and kids in the tabernacle to enjoy a worship service together.

Ben and Will have both enjoyed the youth services. Will gave me permission to share a conversation we had tonight about this week. After church, Will told us that he feels he has become a better Christian this week. He also shared that tonight in youth church, he raised his hands in worship for the first time in his life! That gave us a great opportunity to discuss ways to be expressive and to connect with God through worship. Wow! That was really exciting for Tim and me.

State and national Church of God events are wonderful to be part of. They are planned by people who have a heart for God. They carefully (and prayerfully!) plan every event to be very much worth the time you invest by attending. I wanted to share what Will experienced as an example of the way this week impacts people's lives. I love the way the organizers plan things for everyone in the family.

Worship has been great this week! The worship leader is Dr. Steven Darr. We have known Steve for a number of years. Tim's mom attends the church in Lake Wales, FL, where Steve is the worship leader in addition to his duties as head of the music department at Warner Southern College. Everything Dr. Steve Darr does, he does with excellence! That is a great example to remind us all to give God our very best efforts.

There is something extra special about celebrating, praising and worshiping God with the large number of people in the tabernacle.

The speaker this week, Rev. Jeanette Flynn, has been awesome. We are always inspired, challenged, encouraged and blessed any time we hear her share. The services are a great time to seek God, learn and grow.

I was invited early this year to be on the campmeeting music committee. We have met about once a month to make plans for special music, worship teams, orchestra, choir, arrange for sound equipment rental, etc. I have thoroughly enjoyed being part of this team. I have a heart for the importance of state ministries so this has been a great experience for me. I've enjoyed watching all of our plans come to fruition. I was hoping everyone would be here when and where they were supposed to be, and so far it has worked out well!

Another extra special thing for me was singing Tuesday night with my quartet that recently formed through my involvement with the Sounds of Pittsburgh chorus. This was our first time to sing in public together! We have been practicing for several weeks. We appreciated the warm reception we received from all the folks here.

In addition to the scheduled activities and events, there are plenty of great experiences with friends. We especially enjoy times around the campfire at night, sharing stories, laughs and mountain pies. We've had a lot of rain this week, so that has interferred with campfires a bit.

We love running into old and new friends around the grounds, stopping to catch up, encourage, share, etc. Those encounters are priceless!

Another very special part of this week has been spending some time with Ben's girlfriend, Stacy. She lives about 45 minutes from Whitehall so we have gotten to see her a couple of times this week, which is great. Stacy has a wonderful family; we've enjoying getting to know her parents Steve and Marcy plus her lively, fun sister Courtney over the past few months.

I would encourage folks to take the time to make Whitehall Family Camp Meeting part of you plans for next summer. You'll be glad you did! This is one trip that can be life changing for your whole family! Wow.

The dates will be August 2 through 10, 2008. Even if you can't come for the whole time, you'll enjoy whatever time you can invest.