Texas weather is….well, crazy! After a record hot summer (Waco, where daughter Lara lives, had 90 days over 100 – and that wasn’t even the record for the state!), you’d think maybe winter would calm down a bit. Well, this past month as we’ve been at Camp Tejas in Giddings, TX (about 60 miles east of Austin) we’ve had days in the 40′s, nights in the 20′s and then days in the 80′s. It’s been a total roller coaster of a month. Sunshine and Rain. Layers of coats and shorts. Heavy frost and balmy mornings. Crazy really.
But early this morning wins the award for the craziest (and maybe the scariest of them all). After a night of heavy rain, the howling wind woke us up around 5AM. And when you live in a tin can on wheels you REALLY REALLY REALLY feel the wind. And then there was the rain that felt like it was coming in diagonal sheets, battering against the sides of our tin can. We held on tight, and kept listening for the camp to sound any tornado warnings. We lost power around 6AM as the weather continued to rage around us. Finally, around 9 the rain stopped and folks began venturing out of their rigs to assess any damage. Fortunately, all the trees around us held their ground, and all their branches. And while the rest of the camp had many limbs and at least one big tree (falling on the wires – hence the no power)on the ground


I do not believe that any of the buildings were damaged or any of the folks at camp injured. After watching the news at noon (power was back on by 11AM), we learned that we had been the fortunate ones indeed. We got about 3 inches of rain overnight. Fifty miles to the SW – almost 9 inches! Tornadoes were reported thirty miles south of us. When we saw the flooding and damage that had happened so close, we knew that a little rockin’ and rollin in the house (ok, and some wet carpet by the slide) was NOTHING.  Thank-you, Lord, for sparing us (and our RV neighbors and camp hosts) any significant damage – and be with those families who’s homes and livelihoods have been dramatically altered due to last nights storms.

Phew.

During the week, things are pretty quiet around Camp Tejas.
The mornings are lovely

We go to work


and enjoy our breaks in a quiet dining hall.

The climbing wall and zip line are quiet

and the outdoor activity center lies still.

But on the weekend, this place really comes alive!
The zipline gets zipping

and that activity field?
Well, you might have thought that first picture was taken after a big rain, but that “activity” field is actually the play-in-the-mud field.




Yeah, that field is a happenin’ spot on the weekends – and while the girls weren’t quite as into it as the guys,

there were a couple of little kids there that were in mud heaven!


“Really, Mom, it’s OK for us to play in this?”
They even make cleaning up fun!

After everyone gets all the way cleaned up, then it’s off to the dining hall for another great meal, and when they leave the dining hall after dinner, they are met with the beautiful Lights of Tejas. They’ll be up until the end of February and they are lit on the weekends. I don’t know how the guests feel about them, but we think they are quite enchanting!



Oh yes, weekends here at Camp Tejas are quite a different story!
 

Well, we’ve just finished our first week at Camp Tejas in Giddings, TX, and it’s been a good one. Weather-wise it’s been everything from early summer (sunny and 75) to blustery spring (hard rain for a day or two) to definitely winter (highs in the low 40′s with wind gusts up to 30mph and skies that look like it could snow at any moment. Brrrrrrr). Work-wise it’s been a little of this and a little of that. There are three SOWER couples but there are also six couples that work with the MMAPS Ministry (Mobile Missionary Assistance Program).

So there have been lots of hands to keep busy! We ladies started doing “detail” cleaning in some of the guest rooms.
These rooms are beautiful and beautifully kept, so what we’ve done is some of the less-noticed areas – picture frames, baseboards, bric-a-brac, and the like.

Unbelievably, when summer comes these rooms are emptied out and are outfitted with addition bunk beds for summer campers. I’m still trying to picture that!
We also spent one day removing the lights and dismantling the 75 Christmas Trees that were in their main meeting hall.

Camp Tejas has a HUGE Christmas Light Festival during December, and it was time to start the de-Christmasing!
Here’s that room without any decoration -

But since yesterday was that Sunny and Seventy day, I took the camera out for a walk, and enjoyed some of the sights around camp. I haven’t explored all of the ins and outs of the camp, but I have discovered that it is quite a facility.

Some parts of it are rustic-

And some are just downright lovely -

There are Lakes


And swimming pools

and kayaking

(along with zip lines and other teen-friendly activities!).
Here are a couple of other shots from around the camp -


(This building was made with all re-purposed material! It’s amazing!)

And one of my favorites of the walk -

Sometimes when we work at such lovely camps I wonder if they really need SOWER help. But what I’ve learned over the last seven years that even facilities like this rely heavily on volunteers to fill in the gaps and take up the slack. We’re blessed to be able to see what God has been doing here at Camp Tejas! And we’re honored to be able to be a small part of reaching people with the Gospel here in great state of Texas!

Ah, the end of the holidays.  We’re still hanging out in Waco – parked at Midway Park on Lake Waco, but spending most of our time at DD Lara’s house.  Everyone’s back to work today, so the house seemed pretty empty – just us, the two dogs and three cats.    So I guess empty is a relative term.  How about the house is empty-ish?  We’ve really enjoyed our time here, though it’s been less than a traditional “holiday” season.  We’ve had some ups and downs, but I’m happy to report that the Ups out weighed the Downs.

Ups -

Christmas with Lara!  It was a quiet day, just the three of us.  And since we’re all “watchin’ what we eat”, we had to (sadly) forgo our traditional Conrad Sticky Buns.  But we did enjoy some yummy eggs Benedict Florentine that helped make our morning special.

We finished off the day with a lovely Christmas dinner at friends of Lara’s – and since we were there last Christmas too, it’s like we’re family. It was a good day – sometimes it’s hard not to be with the WHOLE family on Christmas, but we were with family, and in that regard we are blessed. Hope your day was filled with hugs and kisses and calories, and special reminders of the birth of our Lord.

But Christmas was only a small part of our time at Lara’s. Gary, of course, had a long list of chores he wanted to accomplish and Lara and I decided that we needed to have some project fun of our own. So we decided to tackle painting some furniture that she had collected over the years.
The first was a pink dresser that originally had magazine pages decoupaged on both sides and the top. Quite the design element. Once we got the paper scraped off, it was clear sailing to a pretty fine and functional dresser that now is the happy home to part of Lara’s yarn stash!

Then there was a plant stand that seemed to need a little refreshing -

But I think our favorite “re-do” was a little cabinet that had been in the family for probably 20 years and when we got it it needed to be refinished. By the time Lara got it, one cabinet door was broken and soon after the other door bit the dust and so it was definitely in need of some refurbishing. We not only refurbished it – we re-purposed it!

And in case you don’t instantly see the re-purposing, it’s now the cats’ private eating station. Safe from the prying eyes (and appetites) of the two dogs that share the house!


Pretty sweet, eh?
But of course, Gary never stopped moving. He had three big jobs he wanted to accomplish – build a better gate to the alley, re-screen the screened in porch, and spruce up the garden enclosure using the old wood from the deck.
The gate turned out great -

And well, the garden “upgrade” is quite impressive!
I don’t actually have an “official” before picture – but here’s a shot when he built the boxes and enclosure last fall.

And here’s a glimpse of it from October of this year when Gary was working on the fence -

And here it is now -

Now if those Brussels Sprouts would start producing……

We kept finding other little jobs for him to do, like lowering closet rods and adding shelving and building dog bowl decks,

so the screening is still a work in progress. But all in all – he’s been one busy dude!
And there has been one other major distraction –

And this definitely goes in the “Down” category!
What started out as a suspicious “sewer-y smell” turned into a cracked drain/sewer pipe under the house. Ugh. And Ugh again.
Lara’s house is “post and beam” construction – with about 8 inches between the dirt and the floor joists.

Gary did his best, but Lara had to call in a plumber.

The house was without plumbing for 48 hours – and folks were getting pretty creative in finding places to shower and (ahem) pee. We even had a little gathering here at the campground, cause hey, we can flush! And there’e a bathhouse for multiple showers! The plumber and helper (who also happened to be one of the housemate’s new fiance!) spent Friday in the dirt under the house (literally), and by the end of the day all drains were working. Phew. There was always the risk that the back bedroom floor would have to be removed to do the repair, so to get everything back on track without floor damage was a huge relief. Thank goodness for determined (and small) plumbers!

We’ll be in Waco until Friday morning when we head down to Giddings, TX and Camp Tejas – our January project. But we still have a bit of fun to look forward to before we leave. Like helping Lara celebrate her birthday tomorrow!
And then of course, there’s the porch screening to keep Gary happy for the next couple of days!

2012? Really? Have a Happy, Healthy, and Blessed New Year, everyone!

So much to say, and so little time. Instead of trying to do a recap of 2011 or even a recap of last week (though you might see them in the future!) I’d like to close out 2011 with this prayer for 2012 (thank-you, John Piper!).

Lord, grant that we will love Christ above all things. And may we spend our pilgrim life learning to love this world les and heaven more. Put us out of taste with the delicacies of the devil, and give us a liking for the solid joys of Christ. Guard us from the allurements of the lodging of this journey, and fix our eyes on the end. And so, Father, make us useful to this world, loving, helping, serving here, while leading people up to God.
In Jesus Name,
Amen