A group of daredevils, 44 adults and 12 children (excluding free campers under 6 years old), ventured to Kittatiny Campground this past weekend. Contrary to the real fear that the Hurricane Charley that would have ravaged the usually sunny country of Florida may bring more storms to our area, the weekend outing could not be more perfect, in part thanks to Rumin's very "selfish" prayer: O Lord, would you please see to it that our campground may not see any drop of rain this weekend. Not a single drop of rain indeed!

The river was raging with earlier days' storm waters that surpassed the safe level allowed for rafting when we arrived on Friday evening. We had to cancel the water drafting scheduled on Saturday morning. Many people walked around the campground and climbed the mountain by hiking trails in the morning. Some played card games. Several big kids skillfully helped set up tents for morning arrivals. A big BBQ party was held at noon. In the afternoon, some visited swimming pools. Many played volleyball and then highly competitive soccer. Packs of playful kids roamed around the sites. After BBQ dinner, we circled around the camp fire and played fun-poking games (story-telling, joke-cracking, song-singing) for more than an hour. Late-nighters played escalation card game. Saturday was capped with a much need sleep for campers in spite of the continuously monotonic sound of the water flow in the creek nearby. Contrary to Friday night, I only woke up once before 6 AM to feel on my right hand a friendly spider that somehow sneaked in to our well kept tent.

Sunday morning, a group of 11 people tried their luck with paintball shooting. After almost 6000 rounds of shooting in just under three hours, many came home with bruising marks of valor and "sacrifice", not to mention the soaking sweat in that stiffening graffito uni-????. My own right hand that pulled the trigger still bears two visible ball marks. Fortunately I was "dead" only three times in six games. My team won two guerrilla wars, failed to conquer a tightly defended foretress, reciprocally succeeded in defending it, lost a street battle, and finally tied for the street pursuit. I shot at least three people in one hail of bullets, including one good hit to Jeri's scalp, a rare feat, from quite a far distance after I advanced fearlessly to the left side of their stronghold to pursue relentlessly my well-trenched enemies.

After we were trucked down from the war zone, we were thrilled to join the majority of the campers, still close to 50, for water rafting, a late prize for persistent campers after the river receded to safety level over Saturday. Seven rafters carried 41 of us downstream. The quite rough and occasionally turbulent river sped our leisure rafting of seven miles, from a usually up to four hours ride, to under two hours. Needless to say, exhausted but happy campers went on the merry way home at ~4 PM Sunday.

Many pronounced that the most exciting part of the weekend belonged to the paintball shooting and water rafting. But for some, the gain of knowledge in God and Christian fun living is too valuable to compare. One little example is in order: during my in-????al and spontaneous chat on strategic budgeting, L's beloved wife suddenly came to realize why they had been sweating uncomfortably in the summer nights even with AC on, now that their expensive bed has two different sides, one wool-padded side for cold winter season, and the other leaner, silk side for hot summer nights. I can assure you that their wool-padded surface is flipped and flopped tonight.

OK, that is all I have to report.