Thursday, October 11, 2012, was the first day of the 2012 Fall Young Adult Service Trip at River Valley Ranch in Manchester, MD. It was a nice afternoon to begin serving the camp and doing so in sort of secret. The group was given the job of taking care of some garden work around Frontier Town. This included weeding, clearing out dead brush, raking leaves, and trimming back plants for the winter.
After supper, a time was held for a spiritual challenge. The facilitator, Tim Hart, lead the group in a discussion about David’s life. Each session he lead, focused upon something that happened in David’s life that begins with an S. On this first evening, it was about David being selected. When the session was over, a few went out and took advantage of look up at the stars on a clear evening, and with little light pollution.
Friday morning, after breakfast, before the group was split into smaller groups to do work, the director of the camp stood in front of the group and gave a welcome, and a little bit of the details about the camp. He then went on to tell a story about the building of the Sistine Chapel. The point of the story is that people may do different things for the glory of God, it doesn’t matter if you are a mason, carpenter, or person sweeping the floor. Hence, the work that we were doing was for the glory of God, although it may not be greatly noticed.
The group tackled four different jobs through out the day. These jobs included: racking leaves and preparing Camp Roller for Maizefest the next day; doing some clean up around Arrowhead woods; taking apart a deck and building a temporary entrance to the X-barn; cleaning the snack shop, game room, and lobby; and taking down, cleaning and drying the screen panels for the dining tent.
Again, after supper, we got together for a spiritual challenge. This evening the focus was upon David being Strong.
The group was then able to experience the Corn Maze in the dark, and then enjoyed a camp fire and made s’mores.
Saturday we a much different day. The first half of the day half the group went and helped with Maizefest, and the rest doing gardening work around Frontier Town. The second half of the day, the two groups swapped jobs.
At that evenings spiritual time, Tim lead us in a discussion of David and his Sin, mainly the sin with Bathsheba.
The group was fairly tired this evening, and so there was not much done by the group.
Sunday morning, after breakfast, we ended with a time of singing songs of worship, and then again a discussion about David’s life. The S word for this time was Steadfast.
Overall, it was a great weekend. New friendships were made, ministry work at the camp was tackled, the camp’s staff are able to now focus on other tasks, and had a great opportunity to help the camp minister at their Maizefest.
Pictures and a video of the weekend have been posted on-line for you to view.
If you are between the age of graduated from High School and 29, please consider attending one of our Young Adult Service Trips (www.theworkcamppeople.org/servicetrip). The next one will be in the Spring of 2013, in Montgomery, WV, with a variety of weeks available to attend.
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