Sunday, July 13, 2003

11:57 AM Just back from speaking twice to the summer staff. At the first meeting, I think everyone was pretty sleepy—long weekend for most of the students. The Antichrist is a tough topic when you are sleepy.

Much different on the Island. We rode over on a speedboat—I loved it and Marlene grinned and held on to me—which I didn’t mind at all. I don’t think she enjoys zipping along in little boats as much as I do. The second group was very lively by comparison and I had a fine time speaking to them. It helped that we did some up-tempo worship before I spoke. I would guess 125 college students crammed into the boathouse—which is where Word of Life had its first meetings on the Island back in 1946. Mike Calhoun was speaking to 500+ high school students in Pine Pavilion up the hill while I spoke to the counselors. Next up: Lunch with Joe and Melva Jordan.

7:38 AM Here’s the Legacy Campaign prayer request for today: “Pray for wisdom to deal with the unexpected problems that may come up.”

7:31 AM Got up early and took a walk through Schroon Lake, a mountain village of perhaps 4000 people. There is one road, one stop light, one gas station, a supermarket, and several blocks of stores. This area caters to tourists and this is the high season. Besides Word of Life, there are numerous resorts, other camps, and lots of lake homes to rent by the day or by the week. We saw a rustic arts mountain festival on our way in last night, and this morning I saw an advertisement for a music festival. A banner is already up in honor the Schroon Lake bicentennial in 2004. The one street was deserted except for a man who saw me looking in a shop window and came up to say hello. He said he was a bus driver for a group coming to Word of Life, had never been in Schroon Lake before, and thought he would enjoy himself here. Evidently he is dropping the kids off and staying in the area until they go home next Saturday.

I speak in two hours to the summer counselors—first at the Inn, then at the Island boathouse, then we have Sunday dinner with Joe and Melva Jordan and a few others in the Inn dining room. Each summer the visiting preachers speak on Sunday mornings to the summer staff because the workers don’t have another chance to hear us. Each year they take a theme and the speakers are assigned topics. Last year it was “The Attributes of God” and I was assigned “God is holy.” This year the theme is “Bible Prophecy” and my topic is “The Antichrist.” I preached on that topic when we went through Daniel in 2000. So I’ve got what I need for this morning.