(written on Sunday)
On Saturday we got to do what we sang about on Friday night at the Edwards' cookout. We took the roads to West Virginia. Some were country, most were four-lane interstate. All were beautiful. And we know that this is where we belong for this week. Beyond the beautiful scenery between Abingdon and Fairmont, we enjoyed a visit to the New River Gorge National Park. We drove over its famous arch span bridge. It is a steel-arch bridge, in Fayetteville, West Virginia. With a length of 3030 feet (924 m), it was for many years the longest in the world of that type. Its arch extends 1700 feet. The New River Gorge Bridge carries U.S. Highway 19 over the New River and the CSX railroad at a height of 876 feet, making it the highest vehicular bridge in the Americas, and the second-highest in the world.
A good part of the drive was done in rain. There was lots of deep rumbling thunder, but the sky cleared for us to enjoy the bridge and park. Some of us even ventured on a hike down into the gorge--go Megginsons, Jake Edwards, and Raglands!
Afterwards, it was on to Camp Dayspring, still enjoying our road game along the way! Everyone arrived, found a bunk to call home for the week, and set up "house." Since the kitchen at Dayspring isn't yet completed, MTW has rented the use of a community center a couple of miles down the road. We enjoyed dinner and a beginning orientation to our ministry projects there with a team from Briarwood in Birmingham and Aimwell Pres. from South Carolina. It didn't take long for the kids in our three teams to become one large bunch!
We had our first team meeting on the porch of Cabin 1. We've designated it as the Covenant "porch of meeting," with a nod to what they call here at Dayspring the "Tent of Meeting" (a large white tent where all large meetings and church occur since the dining hall isn't constructed yet, either). We read from Job 37 verses describing the thunder of God's voice and the rumbling from his mouth and references to spreading the sky as hard as a "cast-metal mirror." We couldn't help but think of our day--the weather and the massive bridge which was an unbelievable engineering feat. And how gracious God had been to allow us to see it all--even the golden closure of the day.
This may be a good time to tell you about Daysprings' motto: Semper Gumby. They've reminded us many times that mission projects are all about being flexible. We're trying!
Bedtime finally came at 10:30. With military precision each night, the bathhouse is closed for thirty minutes for cleaning (which our team gets to do on Tuesday and Friday nights!). Lights out last night was not a minute too early at 11.
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