Vacation @ Summit Grove Family Camp has been a tradition for my wife for about 8 years, for me about 4. It is a week long Church camp located just outside New Freedom Pennsylvania. That is about a two and a half hour trip from our home.
We arrived on Saturday afternoon after a sometimes adventurous ride. We met at a friends house and stopped to pick up a golf cart on the way. Then around Camp Hill we make a traditional stop at Kristy’s. It’s an ice cream burger and fry place. While we were there, in fact, just before we got there it started to rain. That was something we were going to see a lot of in the coming week. I had a burger and fries, and some moose tracks ice cream.
We made the rest of the trip and got there early evening, late afternoon. Unpacked and then waited for a program, a history of Summit Grove.
Church service first thing in the morning and a chance to see our neighbors at the camp. Folks we only see one time a year.
After the morning service and a quick lunch I was off to a train ride with my youngest step son Matthew. He is 11 and has never been on a train. He was super excited as was I. Steam In To History is located in New Freedom and was the train we were going to rid on. It travels about an hour down a track in reverse then travels an hour back to New Freedom. We were in the rear car and at the back of that car so we saw everything as we backed up the track. Matthew sat with his arms resting on the window while we were backing up with a smile ear to ear.
Rain, but that was ok we had plans for the day. The Summit Grove camp where we were staying is a church camp. Each morning there was a Bible study and each evening a service. The Bible study was led by Pastor Jim Rudd. He is the Pastor of True Vine Church Community, located in Philadelphia PA. The study for the week would be on the book of Ephesians. After hearing Pastor Jim, I knew it was going to be a good week.
After each morning study we had different missionaries come and talk about where they are and how things are going. After all, we are the Christian MISSIONARY Alliance. Scott and Carrie Dressler where the speakers Monday.
Monday night we got to hear the Evening Speaker. Wow! What a great job he did. His name is Rock Dilliman and he is from the North Side of Pittsburgh. Having lived in the Pittsburgh area, I can say the North Side is not a place I ventured often. I believe Allegheny hospital is there, but other than that, I stayed clear.
Rock is the pastor of Allegheny Center Alliance Church. Wow what a church it seems to be. At least by visiting the web site. I would encourage you to do the same. Rock was ver inspirational. I enjoyed each message each evening. From the stories about his dad, to the growing of his church. As they say it was all good.
When my wife and I were talking about camp a few weeks before, I said, you know, this year I am going to be a picture taking crazy man. Previous years I had my camera, but didn’t take many photos. Well, that didn’t work out this year either. I was going to mention this earlier but didn’t. I had my ipad with me and my apple pencil. When Jim Rudd started hiss morning study, I started doing a little caricature of him. It may sound silly, but when I was drawing him, it seemed like I heard a lot more of what he was saying. because of that I took my time and kept drawing. I will post the caricature I did here along with several others I did while I was there. I wasn’t going to show them to anyone, but was encouraged to do so. I did and to my surprise he liked it. He actually ask if I could send it to him, so I did. Later that evening my wife told me he shared it on his facebook page. I checked, he did and this is what he said. “This week I’m serving as the morning Bible teacher at Summit Grove Camp. When I thought one of the people in the seats was feverishly taking notes, he was actually drawing this.” I thought that was pretty cool.” Well, I kind of forgot about my camera and kept drawing. I did a bunch of cartoons and a couple other sketches. I felt like that is what I should be doing while there. I mean it rained six out of 7 days!
All the speakers were great. All the people we share the weekend were great. As we got ready to leave on Saturday I could tell My wife would rather stay. I wish we could too. If it wasn’t for those darn bills we have to pay. We plan on attending “camp” next year and the year after that. I could write a lot more about this place and the people there, but I will stop for now.
