Every summer since 2005, I have been the director of a summer camp in Mapleton, ME. The camp, Baptist Park, is located in Maine's northernmost county, only a few miles from the Canadian border.  Our first contact with the camp was in 1995, when we came up as the chapel speakers for the high school week, and our Gospel-through-juggling program continues to be a big part of what we do up here each summer.  Besides juggling often at camp during the six weeks we are here, we also have shows in area churches each Sunday throughout our stay.

Camp started Sunday afternoon, June 21, and even before we opened camp we had our first Sunday gig up here in 'the county'.  A friend of ours, and the former head of maintenance at Baptist Park, has just become ordained, and has started pastoring his first church, a little Baptist Church in New Limerick, Maine.  He took the Sunday off to spend Father's Day in Bangor with his son and his family.  He told us to expect about 20 people in the congregation.

After setting up our set, the congregation (mostly 60 something adults) began to arrive.  The only kids who came were three brothers who were there with their dad.  And Pastor Ray was exactly right: there were a total of 20 people in church that morning.  I actually love the fact that it was mostly adults.  In spite of the common assumption, much of what we do in our ministry is for adults.  It didn't take long for the congregation to realize this, and we had a lot of fun while I challenged them to follow Christ more closely every day.

One of the 20 people in the congregation asked about our children, and we told them we have three daughters.  When he heard that two of our girls went to a Christian college, he asked which school.  When I told him Nyack College, he replied, "No kidding.  Six of my kids have graduated from there."  His daughter, he said, still works at the college.  It turns out his daughter is Wanda Wahlburn, the Spiritual Development Director of the school.  We have heard a lot about her from both of our girls.  In fact, just before Jona-Lynn graduated in 2014, Wanda took her out shopping for a graduation dress! 

Then another gentleman picked up on the fact that I mentioned we were from Bridgton, a town 300 miles away in south western Maine.  He asked if we knew Ed Boon.  "yeah," I said, "He was our pastor for 13 years and the single biggest influence on my spiritual life."  (Although Pastor Boon retired and moved to Georgia two years ago, my family and I still quite the fans.)  It turns out that this gentleman had worked with Pastor Boon when they both served in the Christian Missionary Alliance in France over 20 years ago.  They've seen each other once since.  And here he was at this tiny church in the tiny farming town of New Limerick.

As they say up here in 'the county', "Small world, but I'd hate to have to paint it."  Ayuh.