This past week has been spent in Colorado with nearly two hundred homeschool graduates. It has been lots of fun and the conversations covered almost every topic you can think of. The longest on-going discussion was over the Seventh Day Adventist’s view of how hell operates (they believe that it is temporary and then that the fire burns itself out and the souls disappear into oblivion; I disagreed). After that there were strategies for Ultimate Frisbee or talk about the quality of the food. The speakers addressed where our society is at and what our roles really need to be in that. There was a girl there who had eaten dog meat on a missions trip to India. Yet another conversation hinged on whether lipstick was called that because it appears in the form of a stick or because it sticks to things. The weekend was not just about talking though, there were lots of things to do. Those activities only afforded me time to talk to three quarters of the people who were there (which is still a lot). Let’s step back a moment to give a little background for a story. Last month I helped to clean up after a church yard sale that was a fund raiser for a youth “camp.” Since all of the items that remained were being donated to Goodwill, they insisted that I take a wig for myself. Yes, there is more to the story that is being condensed out. This past weekend was the only use that I could think of for it, so I wore the wig for the Friday evening dance. Don’t worry, it was English Country Dancing (ECD) and not anything close to what you would find in a club. Think about the style used in Jane Austen’s stories such as Pride and Prejudice. Here is the only picture from the dance that I have seen so far:

The wig did get me turned down for one dance. Ah, well. It was still worth it. The look on the faces of some of the girls when they walked past said it all – “You are the guy my mom warned me about.” About half-way through the dance I did return to normal but donned the wig again for some pictures on Sunday. One girl stopped me and asked to have her picture taken with me “for her mom.” Oh, boy. On Saturday we had Eric Ludy speak and in the first few minutes his wife (she was speaking with him) mentioned their study of Leonard Ravenhill, who some of you have heard me mention before. I talked to them for a little bit afterward and they had read through his recommended reading list as well. It is great to see how some of the study plays out in people’s lives. After the get-together broke up on Sunday afternoon, a couple friends and I went camping higher in the mountains. The hiking and conversations were fantastic there as well, though it got cold at night. The first morning I failed to get a fire started because the matches refused to stay lit, so I took a hike to warm up. It was before the sun had risen and I ended up picking a slope that was covered in loose rocks. More than once my legs were buried up to the knees in the sliding hillside. Near the top I did find some Yarrow (not sure I completely agree with the article) that had not blossomed yet and brought it back to make a tea. It helps to boost the immune system, which was probably good with how little sleep I was running on. The second night two of us skipped the tents entirely and slept next to the fire. We had a couple embers fall on our stuff but we were unburned. It was definitely warmer. And so we are back. It has been a great week, and I needed the break. The conversations, hiking, games, and everything else was great.