Camping & Worship

This past weekend was the fifth year that our family has gone camping with two other families from Bellingham.  We’ve been in a small group with them during that time; eating, laughing, crying and praying together.  Our annual camping trip has become one of the highlights of the year for our family, and while we missed seeing the sun this year, we still had a great time together.  

The first time that we had one of our church services together was on Ash Wednesday, when we met in one of our homes and marked each other’s foreheads with ashes (as a side note, I also learned that I don’t have figured out how to get the viscosity of the ashes just right, and so it was, well *messy*).  

Since we were together over the weekend, we had our second church service together:

It was an interesting service.  I’m grateful to have such good friends who are excited to be a part of this church journey with us, even when it involves celebrating church on a camping trip.  The teenagers among us had more of a “we’ve gone camping together before and never had church, why are we doing this now?” sort of vibe, which is fair.  Well, except for when Emma wanted to pass the offering plate around.  I loved having my friends bring their wisdom, gifts and talents to our worship service.