Fun at the Beach

After working 52 hours last week (I know, it's not a lot by many pastoral standards but I'm only supposed to be working 30 hours), Joyce and I decided to treat ourselves to a day at the beach. We splurged on a nice motel in Newport and simply enjoyed ourselves. The weather was not too bad by Oregon standards – overcast and a little foggy, but no rain and almost no wind. I walked on the beach with just a coat and it was great. These pictures are FROM our room and looking back up AT our room. We were one floor down from the top and little to the right of the walkway. You can tell from the pictures, there is a little bit of fog.

Okay, let me confess. All this is true, however our trip to Newport was actually motivated by a search for some ocean-oriented items to enhance our SCUBA theme for KidZone. Wow! That calls for a lot of explanation, doesn’t it? Ok, back to the beginning. On Wednesday, we started a new, more club-like program for the children (pre-k through grade 5). We are using some old, old material from Allen Creek called SCUBA (Super Cool Undersea Bible Adventure). We have a big poster and smaller pictures but the setup was lacking. So we conceived this bright idea to go to Newport, scrounge through old shops, and come home with lots of treasures.

Sunday evening we called Larry and Cheryl, friends from our Agate Beach Community Church days in Newport, to have dinner with us. In conversation with them, Larry said he knew someone who could help us. Monday we met a really delightful retired commercial fisherman who loaded our trunk with old nets (they call them webs) and floats. We have enough to use for next summer’s kids camp. It will have a “high seas adventure” theme. We still prowled some shops we knew about, had a relaxing day, and headed for home.

Another fun thing this week was our dreaming session Sunday after church. The down side was only 16 people attended (Apathy? Lack of vision? Poor promotion? I don’t know). But on the up side, it was a really good dreaming session. Lots of good ideas and plenty of enthusiasm. We will take these ideas to the Leadership Council meeting this coming Friday-Saturday and refine some of them to a working plan – or perhaps simply direction to a working plan.

This last photo was taken just a little way down the beach from our motel. The house is kind of like a sentinel looking out over the ocean. But it is really quite vulnerable to storms. I suspect it was build before laws were passed to prevent construction like this. All the other buildings are up ON the bluff. But since this one faces the setting sun, it can symbolize looking to the future.

We are. Does that work for you?