Our December Sower’s Project
Only one more week for us here at The Youth Academy. (We leave on Friday to travel to Lancaster for Josiah’s graduation on the 11th!). All has been going well – Gary gets started on the A/C in the house project tomorrow, and I’ve been busy redesigning forms for the office. The folks here have such a vision for helping these kids – they’re friendly and enthusiastic and confident of God’s blessing in this ministry. Along with working with them, we’ve worshiped with them the last two Sundays – and it has truly been a blessing to us. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to take some pictures before we leave so you can see these new friends of ours!

Other South Carolina Delights –
We did check out the Congaree National Park – South Carolina’s only National Park.

That day was bright and sunny and we had a great day walking through “largest contiguous tract of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest remaining in the United States. Known for its giant hardwoods and towering pines, the park’s floodplain forest includes one of the highest canopies in the world and some of the tallest trees in the eastern United States.” There were some VERY TALL trees there. This is the most recent of the National Parks – it was dedicated in November, 2003. Very nice park.
Just yesterday(12/4), we took a drive to the beach! We checked out Myrtle Beach, but spent most of our ocean time on the beach at Surfside Beach, a town to the south of Myrtle Beach. Again, another beautiful day and it was really wonderful to be walking on the beach in December. It wasn’t warm enough to jump in or anything, but the day was in the 60’s and sky as blue as can be. And the crowds were nowhere to be found!

Ahhhhh……………………………..

We started our stay in South Carolina with a day trip to Charleston. We had wanted to see Fort Sumter, and many folks had commented what a great city Charleston was. I must confess we were disappointed. I must also confess that the biggest problem was that it started to rain shortly after we arrived and by the time we ended the day, it was a full blast pouring rain kind of day. We did get to Fort Sumter, where the first shot of the Civil War was shot. It was very interesting, but the weather did dampen our enthusiasm. We also had the impression that Charleston is an expensive city to be a tourist in. While the Fort was free, parking was $5.00 and then there was a $12.00/person boat ride to get there. Hmmmm. Free……
I did find an unexpected Quilt shop that Gary pulled right over for! He really is training nicely!
If we had more free days here I’d give Charleston another chance. Honest!

This has truly been a wonderful month! We’ve seen family and friends, descended into deep caves and hiked to the mountain tops. We’ve seen rushing waterfalls and walked in the ocean. We celebrated a birthday (mine) and a BIRTH day (Hayley Elizabeth). It’s been a month of new places and adventures and refreshment. Ahhhh. It was lovely!
We’ll be “staying still” here in Kingstree, SC for a couple of weeks. We’re on another Sower’s project – at the Youth Academy Group home. Looks like this time I’ll be working mostly in the office, while Gary will be working with a crew refurbishing a home for use as staff housing. Our co-workers are a lovely couple from Vancouver Island, Canada. The area is very rural – and Kingstree is pretty close to…….well, we haven’t actually found anything it’s close to, but we’re still looking!

On to December!!!

Born: 11/26/2004 12:01pm
Weight: 7lb 12oz
Heigth: 20 1/2 inches
The name has been finalized – and some pictures have arrived!

Geez, she’s so tiny!

Ah, we made it!

Wanna Play?

The Happy Family!