Reaching the Oasis

Sorry I've been a bit remiss is my posting lately.
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This weekend, we held our annual winter youth retreat. I love time spent with our youth - they are, quite simply, awesome kids. It had been a busy week, but busy weeks are pretty common for us, so I was not sure I had the energy for late nights, hard beds and a packed schedule. Ready or not, I left work on Friday and joined the group bound for winter camp.

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Chapel was inspiring, worship was beautiful and game time was a hoot! There is so much more I could say about each one of these, and I'm not doing justice to those activities or to the work that went into them, but I so want to tell you about something else that happened this weekend.

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Something that made me want to build a monument by the Jordan River (see Joshua 4), so that I would never forget the precious time that God supplied me with this weekend.

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Saturday's activity was sledding. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), the deep freeze that has gripped Pennsylvania lifted this weekend and our snow has melted for the most part, and the plans had to be re-routed. The kids went tubing at a local ski resort instead. I like snow, but I hate being cold, so I, and another leader, stayed behind at the camp. Several folks from our church came to camp to cook for our crew, and I figured I could read a book and relax a little. Shortly after the kids set out on their adventure, the remaining adults gathered in the common room and began an impromptu Bible study which led to the best discussion I have had in years. YEARS! There I sat, in a room full of fellow Christians, all of them deep-rooted in their faith. The fellowship was so sweet, I didn't want it to end.

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It occurred to me that sometimes our Christian life feels a bit like a long journey through a desert. We live our lives in an environment that is hostile to our beliefs. We go to church, read our Bibles and pray, and that keeps enough water in our canteens to get us through. Yesterday was like reaching an oasis. I came away full and overflowing.

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He is so good!