A very special (and deserved) day off…

What an amazingly beautiful glorious day! The sun shone brightly. The temperatures warmed. We ate well. And best of all, NO injuries were had! We were more than ready to enjoy our day off!
After breakfast today, we took our traditional group photo by our friend, Andrew. Of course, trying to wrangle all 22 of us was no easy task. I wish I could post all of the pictures that were taken because most were hilarious!
After the photo, it was time to head off to Lost River Gorge, minus Bob and Ada who were staying back to visit with friends. So, we loaded the two vans. Dave successfully started “Jonah”. Mike, however, when trying to start “The Ark”, wasn’t quite as successful. However, our very own mechanic, Dave, grabbed what we needed, got the Ark started and off we went. Of course we didn’t make it too far without having to stop at a Dunkin Donuts! While the kids knew the trip was at least an hour and half more, they all got drinks and we didn’t make it very much farther before bathroom stops started! After a couple of those and a stop to purchase lunch fixins, we finally made our final way to Lost River Gorge. A delicious lunch and then it was time to meet, Jack, our guide for the afternoon. A very knowledgeable young man who visited the gorge every year of his life, gave us a great tour!
The ¾ mile trail is all boardwalk, but consisted of over 1000 stair steps! To say this place is beautiful is an understatement. When downloading pictures tonight, we have well over 1000 pictures from several cameras. Difficult to pick which are the best. Along the trail, there are eleven natural caves that you can choose to go through. Of course, our kids did every single one of them. Most of the adults did too, but Linda and I felt a couple were a bit too narrow and scary for us! Many consisted of climbing and sometimes crawling on your hands and knees. One specific cave called the Lemon Squeezer (apparently fairly well known) has a “gauge” at the beginning to be sure you will actually fit! Billy and Josh referred to Dave as old at one point. The gauntlet tossed down, he had no choice but to pick it up and squeeze his way through. While it may have been a tight fit, he did it!!
Ten of the eleven caves you could still hear (and sometimes see) the Lost River, but there was one that was completely silent. You could hear nothing… unless of course you were the group from FUMC-PSJ and then you could hear lots of giggling and squealing! We all ended up dirty and a bit wet, but this was a fantastic day!
Today, there was such an overwhelming thought of how great our Lord is. The beauty of this gorge was do beautifully done by Him. While certainly our guide gave us all of the geological reasons that the gorge is the way the gorge is, we know without a doubt, that God orchestrated the whole thing. His handiwork is like no other. We were in awe of Him today!
Today was the day Mike and I celebrated 20 years of marriage and my normally non-romantic man did something that blew me away… and he had the entire group in on it. At the end of the trail today, Mike got down on one knee and proposed to me all over again… silly purple plastic ring and all! Then, he had Billy officiate in a special little ceremony. It was beautiful and so very special to have all of our youth group in on it. The only thing that could have made it better was to have Taylor with us, but she has talked to us several times and that made it wonderful.
Tonight, we ate again at High Tide restaurant. This time, joined by Bob, Ada, Bud and Marty for the ice cream portion of it. What fun! Bill Kurtenbach from the hill spent the entire day with us and we just consider him a member of our youth family. It has been a huge blessing to spend so much time with him. He’s the guy in the photos who you don’t recognize!
It’s been a great day. I know the kids will all sleep well, appreciate the showers, and be ready to go forth and enjoy our last full day of work here at His Mansion. This group is the most amazing group of young people who has risen to all that God called them to. He is certainly proud, as are all the members of the youth leadership team.
Thanks for your continued prayers.