Today was a very productive day for almost every work crew. This morning I was concerned that the day was not going to be very productive but as the day unfolded that certainly was not the case. In fact, we finished at our site today and will hopefully be reassigned tomorrow. Eric’s crew finally came together as a cohesive unit and they accomplished more that they had expected to. Big Jim is making great progress on his house and they have thoroughly impressed their resident with the quality of the work. Justin’s crew has a rather large construction project in building a large wheelchair ramp but he is optimistic that they will complete the work tomorrow. Ali’s crew is nearing completion and had some time today to hit up the beach for a few minutes. Bret had a run in with the local gardening club as they thought he was washing off the paint brushes too close to their prized flowers.

Esther is having a great time and keeps thanking us for taking her on this trip. She has a wonderful personality and is able to convey her sense of humor to us quite easily as she speaks english incredibly well. During tonight’s evening devotion, Esther closed in prayer in her native language of Italian as we all held hands. This was an absolutely magical moment as our ears had no idea what Esther was saying but in our hearts we knew what was being said.

A new rule this year is that you must be 18 to use a power saw. This rule is ridiculous because under the proper supervision these youth can learn a skill that will be useful and it is something that they all want to do. Well, one of our adults (we’ll call him William) also thinks the youth should be able to work with power tools. So all week and under proper guidance they have been working with power tools. Unfortunately, the paper showed up at William’s site today and took pictures of the kids cutting boards. The caption to the photo in the paper read, “Mark Harstad, 17, of Rochester, NY…” Busted!!! If only they had not mentioned Marks age… So far nobody seems to have noticed but this was quite an amusing for all of us! While the picture is different that it was in the paper, the article can be found here.

Hopefully tomorrow will bring weather as nice as today. A Marshfield resident told me today that the saying in New England is, “if you don’t like the weather, wait a day.” Today we realized what she meant because yesterday was in the upper 90’s and today was in the lower 70’s.

The second round of the dodgeball tournament took place today. On Tuesday, the two Faith Pres. teams we unfortunately paired up against eachother. The team of Larry, Stephanie H., Jayme, Eric, and Dan moved on and played their second round game today. With 30 seconds to go we were down 5 people to 1 when Eric made a fantastic catch to get a player back in the game. The comeback was completed and after an overtime session the Alaskan Assassins were victorious and will be moving on to the final day of competition. Following the game a few of us ventured a few miles down the road to Daniel Webster’s house and grave. Our time was limited but it was great to catch a glimpse of the incredible amount of American history that exist here in the Boston area.

Tonight’s evening program was a powerful one. It was similar to last years program and to last years workcamp Sunday in the fact that they had stations to go to set up around the room. This year’s evening programs are held in a auditorium which is not conducive to the moving around of 400 people. However, the content was good and I think we could all feel the presence of Christ.

An important part of the workcamp experience is writing care cards. Throughout the week campers write encouraging messages to eachother and place these notes into an envelope that corresponds to each campers name. On Saturday as we leave, those envelopes are given to each camper to read on the way home. It is always a great recap of the week and a very positive finish to camp. I better wrap up this post so I can get to writing some of those care cards!

Another fantastic day and with only Friday ahead we can all feel the end of camp approaching. Many of our residents will be at the evening service tomorrow and apparently the First Congregational Church of Marshfield (the oldest church in America) has a special surprise for tomorrow’s program. We’ll be sure to fill you in on all the details! Keep the Faith…