A weekend at Sugar Lake

A few hours ago I got back from a conference up in Grand Rapids. We had a great time, the weather was beautiful, Herschel Martindale, one of the founders of our church movement, came up for the weekend to speak with us, and the students and I found time to have a blast with each other.

Friday night, we played Phase 10 in our cabin, and decided (for whatever reason) to keep a tally of everytime one of us sinned. I was not very good at noticing, but luckily Joe and Anna Leisa are tattle-tales and they let me know whenever anyone else sinned.* Here is the chart:



The sin chart's grammar is inconsistent and terrible. Anna Leisa was guilty of "tattletailing**," flipping bird, burping, manipulation, joy over someone's jealousy of The Daily's circulation, and covetousness of Rachel and Emily's hair. Rachel's list was: lie, cheat, judge, anger, pride, "cuss," finger-pointing, "tattletailing**", bad-joker, cute, and not treating body like temple. Emily unfortunately (and not really) had this sin list: lust, "violent," disloyal, lied, judge, and gluttony. Joe was guilty of "treats gf unlike church," being a "tattletail**," vanity, judging, and for hating the sin chart. I committed these sins: judge, pride, rage, and the worst of them all - charting others' sins.

Kevin remained (as far as we could tell) completely sinless.


Later we reflected on our list of sins and remembered 2 Corinthians 5:19, that having put our faith in Christ, our sins are not counted against us. Phew!

We also reflected*** on this passage from Luke 7:

Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?"

Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt cancelled."
"You have judged correctly," Jesus said
- Luke 7:41-43

This explains the beautiful love for God that Rachel (who racked up more sins than anybody) has****

Despite the extreme wrongness of this little "game," we still managed to have a good rest of the weekend. On Saturday after listening to some really inspiring messages from Herschel we had about 6 hours of free time. I decided to spend the time by myself - I went on a long run, read a book and got an oil change in the city. Anna Leisa spent some time in the Q&A with Herschel (drinking from his wisdom), reading, and reluctantly running. Emily, Joe, Kevin, and Rachel went on a long bike ride and then as Emily went on a run, the boys and Rachel went kayaking/canoeing. They sank. Their boats went down in the middle of the lake and they had to swim to shore, carrying their boats along with them. This may sound like a good time, but it was pretty miserable for them.

They'll laugh about it in a few months.

We played more Phase 10 that night. Everyone sat on the floor but me. Joe took it upon himself to grab and discard cards for me as well as pull my chair closer whenever I rocked myself too far away. He also shuffled and dealt the cards for me. This was a little strange, but appreciated, especially when Joe began to attack Anna Leisa whenever it appeared to him I was in danger (i.e. when the cream cheese fell off my arm rest)



This is where Joe kept his army knife, reserved for any future attacks on Anna Leisa.



That was really weird.

Here's a picture of the cabin 402 girls:



Fashion faux pas alert, Joe and I wore the same shirt on Saturday:



Kevin feeling dejected after Joe accused him of looking like wrestler "The Rock:"



Rachel imitating the childlike curiosity of the young boy displayed on the Sugar Lake lobby wall:



The capsizeds:



Rachel's reaction to having been capsized several hours earlier:



And, of course, The Rock's newest happy couple:



*don't forget to remember that the sin chart is a joke
**pretty sure it is spelled tattle-tale
***it is possible that we never actually reflected on this out loud
****A winking smiley face would be appropriate here.