Easter's Blessings

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(Shepherd’s Hill Farm)

One thing I know for sure: Georgia’s weather isn’t as pleasant as Florida’s! This is more like spring, as we know spring, although it’s occurring in April rather than the beginning of June! But we get a couple days of sunshine, and then more days of rain. We spent two hours in a storm shelter (aka: the girls shower room) Friday night because of tornados in the area. At least one twister touched down three and a half miles from here, and lifted (according to the broken trees in its path) less than a mile from the camp. Many trees were down, and facing all different directions; one tree had the top half of it twisted off. We didn’t see a lot of structural damage, thankfully.

And now for our geography lesson! Georgia is the 24th largest state by land (MT= 4th, FL=22nd) Georgia is the 9th largest by population (Mt= 44th, FL=4th) GA has 141.1 people per sq mile (MT=6.5, FL=338.4) One more point~~GA was the fourth state to ratify the US constitution. Don’t worry, we’re having a test on this information! Shepherd’s Hill Farm’s address is Martin, but Martin is no longer a town, so we do our shopping either in Toccoa, or Lacovia, but we’re only 30 miles from S Carolina, so getting TV news here is kind of like being in Sidney and getting the N Dakota news.

We didn’t have a tour Friday because the RVICS team from Camp Hope, about 50 miles from here, came over to look at our camp; Fred and Rose decided as long as we’d have extra people here we’d have our commissioning ceremony (for being leaders), and headquarters approved the idea. We had a hotdog roast (it rained, so we were in the chapel, which turned out very nice) and all the add-ons. Some of the couples we knew and some we’d heard the names, but hadn’t met yet, so it was fun to get acquainted. Our first commissioning was done by the church at Sidney, and this ceremony was equally moving. It was a wonderful way to spend Good Friday.

Easter Sunday was started by watching the sunrise from the cross; Bob and I chose to do that rather than go to sunrise service at the church. We did go to the 11:00 service, and then we did a pitch-in dinner in the pavillion~~no wait, it’s too windy and chilly to eat outdoors. We had it in Fred & Rosi’s trailer. The girls from the surprised us with a huge thank you card and a plate of cookies! It was an awesome day.

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Photos

Easter Sunrise from the cross.
Did I tell you that this cross has three large nails in it? Painful to look at.

Cross in the field...
This is where Bob and I watched the sun rise on Easter morning. It's about 1/2 mile walk from our house. Beautiful, isn't it?

Martin is the yellow dot, by the arrow.
You can see that we're close to North & South Carolina, and not far from Tennessee. The states over here are pretty cozy with one another! Notice Atlanta~~about 90 miles southwest.

The prayer service at the commissioning.
I don't know what else to say...

But it wasn't all serious!
(I think I was explaining my side!)

Look who showed up at our commissioning!
(he's wearing the "leader's cap", but he isn't a leader) If you don't know who this is, check back to the entry from July, 2007.

Our monkey made a friend!
We donated the monkey to the girls in the Next Step house...let them decide what to do with it!

Toccoa Falls
This is located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College. It's a 186' drop, and is just spectacular. It's one of the highest free-falling waterfalls east of the Mississippi.

On the Taccoa Falls.
The path up to the falls is lined with azalea bushes, not yet in bloom. And you're walking along this creek.

Comments

[Bev]

Congratulations and Blessings
I am glad that you had a wonderful Easter. New leaders starts your new season. We experienced the joy of church worship and dinner at the Erfles; surrounded with renewal. Seen in the new baby lambs, calves and green grass.

[Danielson]

Hi, Bev!
There are new calves in the hills around here, and that's another reason that this seems more like Montana! With all the rain, the flowering trees are VERY active, as are my sinuses!!