Later ‘Gator!

OK – enough rambling for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be getting settled by the bay , but even tonight, here in the Walmart parking lot, we were blessed with a beautiful reminder of our creative God.

Sweet Dreams!

Early this morning I received the following text -

If you’re reading this text, do not reply. You see, I am now home with my Lord and Savior. I’m healed, happy, and hoping to see you here too.
love,
Dolly

The Lord is her shepherd, she was never in need.
He made her lie down in safe places.
He led her beside the waters of peace.
He restored her soul.
He led her in paths of righteousness and graciousness for His Name sake.
Even though she walked through the valley of the shadow of death,
She was never afraid of the evil one.

For she knew the LORD was with her, his strength and his grace, they comforted her.
The LORD prepared a table before her, even in the presence of the evil one and
He comforted her until her cup overflowed with blessing.
Surely goodness and mercy followed her all the days of her life,
and she will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

Heaven’s gain.
Our loss.
We will miss you, dear friend.

I think this is enough chatter for tonight! I’ll get to the Places and Things in my next post!

Phew.

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!

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!

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