Family Retreat

This past weekend 22 of us went to Manatee Springs for the first ever Mt. Dora Family Retreat. What a great weekend we had! Pat and I got packed and showed up at the building at 1:05 PM. We were supposed to meet at 1:00 PM. When we arrived no one was there. We thought, "Wow, when they say 1:00 PM at Mt. Dora they mean 1:00 PM!" Within a minute or two another family showed up. I called Eddie (our youth minister) and found out that he was hung up picking up our shirts. So apparently we were the early birds. We took off in three vehicles arrived around four o'clock Friday afternoon. One of our senior couples went along as well but they had arrived a little earlier. We got the tents pitched and things set up for dinner. A couple of folks arrived a little later and Loni arrived the next morning. Loni had parent conferences and couldn't get away with us on Friday.

We had a great devotional on Friday night and then of course the obligatory smores. Night time was interesting because it got below 50 both nights. I was glad that warm showers were only a short walk away. We also had great camp fires. We had plenty of wood that lasted until Sunday morning. We also got lots of visitors. We saw deer, armadilloes, and racoons. It was amazing how unafraid of us they were. They were hoping for a meal but didn't find anything.

Our theme for the weekend was "Got Lost" which is a play on "got milk?" and the TV show "Lost." The purpose was to focus on getting lost in Jesus and the word of God. On Saturday after a morning devotional we went back to our tents as families and continued the devotional by focusing on Php.2:5-11 and answering some questions about attitudes that we all have and then had some prayer time. Part of the purpose of the Saturday morning devotional was to encourage family devotional time. Our family never did much in the way of family devotionals. Scheduling seemed difficult. However, we made sure that we taught our kids wherever we were if it was needed.

The park had a covered wagon tour that we all took at 1:00 PM on Saturday. The covered wagon was supposed to imitate the actual wagon many took to way back when to travel to Florida. We got to see the plant life of Florida along the way. We had a good tour guide, John. We ate Sparkle berries (cousin to blueberries, but tasting nothing like them), actually visited a cheeki hut (made by the local indigenous people - not sure I've spelled it correctly), and learned a little of the history of Florida. Florida crackers are native Floridians that have three or four generations of native Floridians behind them. They are called crackers because most of them owned cattle and cracked the whip to guide the cattle.

We also walked a board walk that went from the springs out to the river. It was fascinating to see the springs and to read about it's history and details. It puts out 50 to 150 million gallons a day. Imagine! We tried fishing a little but didn't even get a bite. It was quite pleasant temperature wise on Saturday.

We had Sunday morning worship after breakfast. We sang a few songs, took communion, listened to another lesson by me, and prayed together. Then we packed and cleaned the camp. Lastly we ate lunch and then headed out. We all agreed to wear our shirts for evening services back at the church building. I don't think I've every preached a sermon without a tie on but tonight was a first.

Well that was a weekend. We had people from first grade to 75. I really enjoyed getting to know the folks there on a different level than just at the church building. We told some jokes (I've got some new ones for my family that wasn't present). I'm looking forward to next year.