what I did on my Summer vacation
Penny and Jeff as they start the 100 Mile Wilderness
I hadn’t planned on writing an article for Advent Christian voices this month. Last month, I was preparing for my Summer vacation, so I posted a rerun of one of my articles on AFTERLIFE. This month, I planned on doing the same. After all, most of my AFTERLIFE articles are the result of my translation work, so they qualify for this blog as well.
But something happened on my Summer vacation that is also relevant, so I thought I would share it.
We had cookout party on July 4th at Piney Grove Advent Christian church, and Penny and I loaded the car and left after that. We got as far as Virginia, and stayed in the car at a campground that night. We had shopped for that particular car with one major question in mind: “Can we sleep in the back?” You can sleep in the back of a 2005 Subaru Outback wagon, and we did.
The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast at a nearby diner, we set off once again for Massachusetts. We didn’t make it. We got as far as New Jersey, and set up a tent in another campground. We hiked that night up some rock scrambles. The next morning we took off for Massachusetts, and spent a few days with our daughter Connie, her husband Stephen and our five Shaw grandkids: Simon, Quinton, Lydia, Sabrina and Hazel.
From there, we set off for Maine, and spent nine glorious days hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail known as The Hundred Mile Wilderness. We started at Mt. Katahdin, and hiked south to Monson. For the hundred miles, there are no places to get off the trail and shop for food, so we hired someone to place a six-day supply of food for us at the 40 mile mark.
Fresh from that hike, Penny and I drove to Belgrade, Maine, where we were scheduled as chaplain and Bible teacher at Lakeside Advent Christian Campground. It was there that we had the experience I thought was relevant enough to describe on my Bible Translation blog. Dr. John Roller, pastor of First Advent Christian Church of Hickory North Carolina, was the camp evangelist. We often sat with John at mealtime at the camp, and he had lots of questions about my choices to translate certain words in my translation of the Bible. It was refreshing and encouraging to have those discussions.
John taught from the New Testament epistles “1 and 2 John” during the evening worship at the camp, and concluded with a review of John 13-17 relating to some of the ideas he had highlighted from 1 and 2 John. The theme of the camp had been “real love“ based on 1 John 4:10.
“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (NIV).
Penny’s Bible teaching had been on the heart of God for the nations, where she covered the theme of missions from all 66 books of the Bible.
My chapel sessions were on the subject “God loves us” based on Nehemiah 9:15-23.
I have posted those lessons on my personal blog:
I am currently posting my translation of Joshua at my Devotions blog, and that will continue until November 4th. I am currently scheduling my devotions from 1 Timothy, which will be posted from April 30th to May 23rd 2022. I am currently translating the book of Daniel, which is set to be posted June 1st to August 6th, 2023.
See you in September!