A Little Family R&R

It was Spring Break week and Jeff Whitehead had called and said he and the family wanted to get in a little R&R before Easter weekend. If you have ever been in the ministry--especially as church ministerial staff--you know you work on this weekend; Sunday is not a day off.  Unfortunately Spring didn't cooperate, as the weather switched to rainy and cold for the first part of the week, so Jeff called and said they would wait until the end of the week. 

I have gotten to know Jeff a bit over the last few years and he is one busy man. He is the children's minister at Hillwood Baptist Church and wears many other hats as well including a stint there of preaching every week when the pastor was having medical problem. Well around noon on Thursday, Jeff and the family came rolling in. They unloaded everything at the pavilion and started a fire, mostly for recreational purposes as the day was quite nice. There is just something about a fire going . I went over and spoke with him, met his wife and answered a few questions he had. He has three boys and wanted to know the location of the trees that were down across the trails. I told him not to worry about those things and just to relax but he said they liked doing that kind of work. I told him he could just pick a trail as we have trees blocking all three of them. The boys were on the playground while Jeff and his wife were sitting around the campfire as we left them.

A couple of hours later I saw his truck pull out of the pavilion and the next thing I know the sound of a chain saw was echoing through the woods. Denise and I headed out later that evening to Rosie's to celebrate my retirement but stopped to say a word on our way out. He said they were only staying until about 7:00 p.m. and then going home. He said one of the boys had an appointment in the morning and that it would mean leaving the camp at 5:00 a.m. if they stayed overnight. I said it was such a shame that they couldn't stay longer and he agreed.

The next day as I was walking the trails I saw where they had done such a fine job clearing two of the three trails. A big thank you goes out to Jeff Whitehead and crew!