Family Retreat, Ministering on the Hill

Rick Underhill introduced the idea of having a family retreat on the hill in a share time on Saturday evening.

His vision was to have twelve to fourteen families at various stages of life staying together on the hill. I think it is a great idea. Our own family experienced a great week with strangers of varying world views when we stayed at a guest ranch in Bandera, TX for our 2003 summer vacation. Jackie and I have never been on a family cruise, but I am sure that they offer the same variety of culture and people.

This weekend that Rick proposed would help reinforce God's way of rearing children with discipline, hard work, creativity, time and absolutes in scripture. Rick's main goal was to prove to his kids that he wasn't the only person in the world to think the way he does. Rick suggested several topics for study and we also agreed that there needed to be projects. Bob stated that driving nails is the best family activity on the hill in keeping the children busy and safe. I'm all for it.

On Sunday morning, Tony shared about the joy that he experienced watching his son play with three other boys all weekend. There were probably 50 men that hadn't a clue that this was really the first time that Matt had interacted socially with other boys. As Tony described the experiences of being away from home prior to this weekend, we all realized what a mighty work that Lord had done through a few Godly families and their young boys this weekend. There were very few fathers with a dry eye there this morning.

James Davis would be proud of the activity that was provide for those four young boys while the men were meeting. A family from Texas brought four marshmellow guns made of small diameter PVC that propelled what must have been several bags of colored marshmellows over the course of the weekend.