Here’s a bit of an update about some of the things we have been up to over the past couple of months relating to our coming move to Barakel! Over Memorial Day weekend we went up during Family Camp, stayed at our empty camp house, and started on some work in the house. Some painting, some electrical, some general planning for when we live there. Here are some photos from that weekend….
As the main painter in the family, I’ve tried to gradually train some helpers. But everyone knows Mom’s painting standards are very high! 
The girls decided that the arrangement was like the trade workers from long ago. I am the master craftman, Grace is the journeyman (becasue she was actually allowed to help paint some), and Lydia was the apprentice (who was relegated to the extra jobs like getting damp rags or other lesser tasks) ; 
Glad to have a little help! Slowly growing helpers over the years! 
Mary Emma was the electircal journeyman, helping to install a light fixture 
Since our house is empty, a blanket spread on the floor was the gathering place for breakfast and downtime 
Picnic on the ballfield 
Lydia enjoying time with her friend Maggie 
We enjoyed going in to camp for Sunday morning chapel where we gave a testimony about the Lord’s working in our lives 
Lydia spontaneoulsy decied to participate in the Barakel 5K! 
At the end of the weekend we had to say goodbye to Grace as she was staying on for summer staff workshop
The first Sunday in June, we went for a second visit to one of our supporting churches, New Hope Church of Oxford. We have been so blessed to visit this church and meet some of the people there. They are a small but mighty church with a large vision for impacting the world for Christ. We are so blessed to have this group of believers on our support team!
This particular Sunday we shared our testimony of how the Lord led us to serve full time at Camp Barakel. We were so encouraged by how those in attendance seemed to connect with our story and relate to the concepts we were sharing. Much of our story revolved around our calling to ministry and the balance between working toward that calling and waiting on the Lord. Here is a link to the message we shared from the live facebook stream that morning! (I personally was glad that I didn’t know for sure we were streaming live until we were all done!)
We made another weekend trip to camp during the first week of summer camp. Mostly we did more painting (I’m sure we’ll be mentioning painting multiple times in the future…), Jim did some work in the office, we got to say hi to Grace as she was counseling her first week, we went to Sunday morning chapel which is always a blessing, Mary Emma and Lydia got to try out being staff kids for a couple of ambushes, and I spontaneously filled in playing piano for West Side Chapel one evening. That was great fun! It was my first opportunity ever to play piano for chapel and it was such a blessing to help lead those young voices in praising God! A little last minute since I’d never played the songs before, but helped along by our future neighbor with her copy of the music and her piano that I could practice on. 😉
We continue to enjoy these adventures as we wait on the Lord to provide the rest of our support. We currently have 65% of our needed support and we eagerly await the remaining amount so that we can make the move north. In the meantime, we wait some and we work some, making the most of our time the best we can. Thank you for your prayers during this process! Please contact us at bennetts@barakel.camp if you are interested in joining our support team!
Rachel, for the Bennetts