This… is… Spartanburg!

After taking Madison to school this morning, Daddy went off to work… and then to Spartanburg.  They're having a Summer Xtreme this week, and Daddy was up there helping out.  It's a huge church.

This is a building that held such promise and hope.  There were so many that went here, and yet over time things changed for whatever reason.  Now it's just a shell of what it formerly was - and yet there is a new hope again.  This is the joy that we have as a church, taking a dream and bringing it to new life again.  This sanctuary above actually has more seating than our main campus does, and some day perhaps this sanctuary will be filled gain.  Right now, I think there's about 400 or so regular attenders.  But give that time, and energy, and it will grow again.  Daddy was up there to help with just that.

This is Summer Xtreme Spartanburg.  Alas, if it were only last week, that is during the summer break, Madison would have gone too.  But she started school this week and couldn't attend.  School in Spartanburg has yet to start, so all these kids are actually still in their summer.  

It turned out really well.  The campus is so nice, and the students that were there are so enthusiastic.  The messages - though we've done them already twice before - were very well-received, as were the skits and videos.

The crew did a great job.  Here's a funny picture of some of us during dismissal, which was so much quicker and shorter than the other Summer Xtreme events.  Afterwards, it was off to O'Charley's to eat, and the Hampton Inn, to crash into our beds, asleep in mere moments.  Everyone was tired.

But Daddy did sneak a few calls home to speak to Madison and Mommy.  It was Madison's second day at school, and she's getting to know her classmates again, and her teachers.  It turns out that her teacher, we discovered, is friends with the officer we know at KidPak.  Their children are on the same wrestling team together!  So it's a neat little connection there.  For homework, Madison has to do some reading every day, which is like saying Madison has to eat food every day.  She's already in a book all the time, usually as we drive from one place to the next.  Had she been in the car with Daddy today, she would have read quite a bit - it was a long trip up there to Spartanburg.