Today we continued working on our sites. Justin’s crew continued staining a pre-existing deck but is not sure they will finish by the end of the week. I’m sure Group Workcamps will assign another crew to help them out if need be. Dan’s crew finished their porch and wheelchair ramp today and will be reassigned to a brand new site tomorrow. Jim’s crew continued their painting and things seem to be moving along smoothly.

There are quite a few people at this year’s camp that we have seen at camps before. One of these people is Chuck from New Jersey. We think he was on Eric’s crew at the Rumford, ME workcamp in 2000. We certainly wish Eric would have been here to fill in the gaps in Chuck’s stories… A crew member of Dan’s from last year is here and her husband is working with Lynn, and her daughter is working with Larry. It’s great to see so many familiar faces and so many new ones as well.

Today were the try-outs for the variety show. Faith had 9 different people try out in a variety of forms: Justin played a composition of his own on the piano, Will, Christy, Leigh, Jayme, Mark, and Kelly performed a secret Harry Potter skit, Emily sang a song, and Andrew played the trumpet. Tomorrow we will find out who is playing in the talent show. Whether they are chosen to perform is not important, their willingness to be involved was certainly motivational. We saw a lot of Faith involvement at tonight’s evening program as well. Kelly read the opening scripture while Mark and Will performed in a skit. All 3 of them seemed very comfortable on stage and made us all proud!

Team “If you ain’t Dutch, you ain’t much” hit a road block today in the form of 3 younger, and more talented, basketball players. However, they did not go down with out a fight. Trailing 7-1, the Dutch came screaming back to make it an 8-6 game before finally losing 11-7. A fine effort by all involved and they certainly had a great time on the hardwood. We’ll break out the ice bags and hopefully all 5 will still be walking tomorrow…

Tyler certainly looks different tonight than he did this morning. He had a hard days worth of work that included a lot of painting. When he arrived back at the school, he was covered from head to tow in antique white latex paint. After a long shower and a few minutes in the bathroom, he looked like a new man… literally. He is having a great time and has really bonded with the youth in our group. He has even started to open up in our nightly devotions and we’re so glad he came into camp with an open mind and a willingness to serve.

Tomorrow is only a half day of work. Faith Workcamps will spend the afternoon at the Air Force Museum in Dayton. Andy flew to Oshkosh today to check out an experimental air show and we hope he will be back tomorrow morning to help out at some sites and to visit the museum. We’ll be enjoying our afternoon off and hope you will take a few minutes to be jealous… Until tomorrow, keep the Faith!