Tractors and Teapots: Camp Barakel

Several weeks ago Jonathan and I got to talking about wanting to have a little get-away as a family. Wanting to have a profitable time as well as a fun time, we decided to check a couple Bible Camps for their family camp weeks. We decided on Camp Barakel. I called the camp registrar. There was only one opening left. So we wrote a deposit check, filled out the registration, and sent it off with a prayer, knowing if God wanted us there, our registration would beat out everyone else's last minute decision.

One day about a week later, Jonathan brought the mail in and opened a letter from Camp Barakel. We were registered for their Labor Day family camp!

It was the best money we've spent all year. There was plenty of time for just the 5 of us, the chapel messages were wonderful and convicting, the boys had fun in their very own chapel class, and Heidi learned to be ok without Mommy in their nursery. We hiked, took naps, sipped hot cocoa, talked, went for a hayride in Huron National Forest, got to visit with new people (Christians from Korea over here studying for a year, a couple with grown children who encouraged us to be faithful in training our children, a young mom and her son on the hayride), and Jonathan and I got to go on their 950ft. zipline. THAT was fun!

And now it's back to late summer in Ohio - freezing produce, mowing the grass, getting ready for fall harvest. But we are all refreshed, and the boys have had their scope of imagination greatly increased! Their tube slide on their playplace is now the "thunder express" slide from camp, the guy wires coming off the electric poles in the yard are the ziplines, and they "hike" everywhere they go. So funny to watch!