re: rainy weather and the forest

Dear Julia Charlotte,
    Finally rain has come to end a long,long drought.
There's a bit of wind and it is gray, gray,gray. The leaves are falling and and there's a chill in the air.
Perfect, perfect!  Autumn is such a wonderful, "snuggleup" time of year and the richness of color never ceases to amaze and delight me!
We spent all weekend in the forest camping with lots of our brothers and sisters in Christ from our family in Christ (church).
It was an amazing,awesome time.
We lounged, sat in purposeful silence, cooked up feasts together, hauled gear up the long trail, read aloud to the children and read poetry.
We held plays(even though we had to read our parts since we had no time to really memorize them), took funny pictures, passed around babies and hauled water.
We taught each other new songs and handwashed stacks of dishes.
But maybe most memorable of all the many memories made was all the amazing musical talent that lead us in worship over and over.
There was an especially amazing evening when we were up late around the campfire reading and praying together, then late, late we were rather tiredly chanting what probably would have been one of the last songs of the night when a whole band of unexpected but very welcome guests arrived through the darkness- a whole group of young folks from church that we had not expected could make it etc. But there they were -having gotten on the wrong trail for a while and a really long hike to boot. And we were all just so glad to see each other there in the firelight around 11 at night.They, amazed that not only were we not sleeping, but that we were chanting and we, delighted to get their sweet company at that hour.
And somehow their coming revived us and the music got lively again and the prayers flowed out  and the conversation turned to our beliefs as Christians and finally in the wee hours of the morning we all finally bunked down.
It was a bonding weekend and really sweet to remember -may we have many more such times if our Lord wills.
                                                                                                                  ~In His Love,
                                                                                                                    Pilgrimama