Our family has been bustling around, preparing for our church's annual Family Camp happening next week. We're in charge of Registration, so some of us spend an inordinate amount of time filling out spreadsheets and marking people's names on our little map of all the cabins and re-figuring the total amount of adults and children coming.
Family Camp is a great time to re-connect with friends who we only get to see once a year and to hear great sermons/messages every morning and night that are encouraging, inspiring, and quite frequently, uncomfortable and convicting. It's a reminder to "break up the fallow ground" in our lives... Its also a time to remember that we are as surrendered and holy as we want to be. Keith Daniel, our guest speaker from South Africa always reminds us of that. Our problem isn't usually that we don't know what God wants of us and our lives - our problem is that so often we aren't willing and broken and yielded to live every day the way He has called us to!
If you family happens to be interested in coming to Family Camp this year (Oct. 2-5), you can contact us at: mbcfamcamp {at} gmail.com. There are people coming from Texas, Arkansas, Nebraska, Montana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Wisconsin, but there's still room for more!
Things are coming together really well for the most part. (Maybe Jennifer, who's planning all of the meals and organizing the kitchen work doesn't think so! She has a lot to do!)
As we prepare for Family Camp, our house has been filled with the smell of baking cookies for several days! With 150 or more people to feed snacks to each day, and homemade cookies as the mainstay of snack time, that's a lot of cookies to bake!
Speaking of cookies, I need to go make a few more batches right now. Here's one of my favorite cookie recipes when baking for a crowd:
Dishpan Cookies2 c. butter, softened
2 c. brown or raw sugar
2 c. granulated or raw sugar
Cream the butter and sugar till smooth. Add:
4 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Mix well, and then stir in:
4 1/2 c. flour (I've been using a combination of oat, wheat, and white flour)
2 t. baking soda
1 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
Add:
5 c. rice crispy cereal or crushed cornflakes
2 c. flaked coconut
1 - 12 oz. pkg. chocolate chips
3 c. quick oats
Stir, till well combined. (Add more quick oats and/or rice crispies if the dough is too soft or the cookies spread all over the pan when cooked)
Preheat oven to 325. Drop rounded teaspoons onto greased cookie sheets. Bake 9-12 minutes till lightly browned on the bottom, still soft on top. Take out a bit early for chewy cookies. Makes 8-10 dozen. These freeze really well!
We were so happy that the Baldwin family
Abe and Emily.
Me enjoying Jessa's antics.
This quartet (Jeff, Marcia, Curtis, and Jon) sang "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" on Sunday morning. We heard a lot of special music all week, but I thought their special was tops!
At the end of the service, Keith Daniel had a time of prayer
There were 6 young people who asked to be baptized
A crowd of onlookers at the baptismal service.
The serving line. Somehow, not too many people beg for the job of mopping the floors or cooking the food or setting the tables, but everybody loves serving!
The salad bar - there was something for everyone!
'Zaiah spent a lot of time wearing an apron and wiping tables
Ruth and Emily
Mom (Dorcas) and Jenny Daniels enjoying some time together
Joy's photos from her and Jon's recent trip to Israel were a fascinating feast for the eyes!
The nearly two dozen people from Pennsylvania who played brass instruments
"C' mon, Chloe and Christian, it's breakfast time!"
Jon decided that people who were still cleaning the kitchen at 11 pm
The late night volunteers, enjoying ice cream...
Mr. Hanson catches up with Ryan, Joni, and Miles after the evening service.
Mr. Daniel takes time to greet Julianna and her baby, Maddox, who was born blind, but has miraculously recovered his eyesight! (How quickly we forget how good God is!)
Ruth and Jerusala met this spring, but really became friends after that, via Google Talk!
Holly's such a fun mama!
Three Samuels - all almost the same age, too!
There are always soooo many little children at family camp. My mother really wanted to see them have some scheduled, profitable activities this year, so she planned a lot of fun stuff, including this "children's parade", led by a couple of the young men - one with a trumpet!
It was hard to line up nearly 100 children and get them all to march together and sing the same songs, but they had a lot of fun, and I believe the by-standers (adults) had the most fun watching!
Volleyball in the afternoons was a favorite for many!
The prelude to the service. So many of the young people play musical instruments and we had a mini-orchestra going!
Our church hosts an annual Family Camp with Keith Daniel, a preacher from South Africa as the featured speaker every year. (I already posted about family camp last fall, so this will be short on details, long on pictures...) It's always a challenge to coordinate meals, lodging, meetings, activities, etc for several hundred people, but it's a lot of fun to meet them all. This year we had families from Tennessee, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas come to camp, as well as local people. 
What would we have done without Mrs. Greer coordinating meals, and these faithful chefs helping her??
Jon serves up a plate for someone. Meal time in the cafeteria is crazy, noisy, and a lot of fun! The little ones always beg to help serving food, too. Sometimes it's a challenge to find something that they can do without slowing down the line, but they feel so important when they are allowed to put a piece of garlic bread on each plate, or serve brownies. : )
Family Camp is a great time to catch up with old friends and meet new ones!
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