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Going to Glorieta
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___With the mobility of our society and the rapid pace of change everywhere, it seems there aren't many family traditions parents can pass down to their children apart from Christmas and E
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MARK WINGFIELD
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aster celebrations.
___ We found an exception last week,however, when our family journeyed to Glorieta, N.M., for the Texas Baptist Family Reunion sponsored by the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___ Though Alison and I both claim Albuquerque as home and our 8-year-old twin boys have traveled to New Mexico at least once every year to see family, this was the first time they had been to Glorieta--which, for the uninitiated, is a Baptist conference center situated in the Sangre de Cristo mountains just east of Santa Fe.
___ While so many things about Baptist life and life in general have changed since we were children, the Texas Baptist Family Reunion allowed us to introduce our boys to an experience we thought might be relegated only to our fading memories. Even the name of the property has changed to the newfangled "Glorieta: A LifeWay Conference Center," but the enthusiasm and spiritual blessings found there remain the same.
___ I was just one year older than our boys when I first went to Glorieta as the guest of our church's minister of music and his family. His son, Alan McCoy, and I were best friends, and the family invited me to tag along on their trip to music week.
___ Having lived most of my life up to that point in the small town of Cushing, Okla., the trip to New Mexico was eye-opening. Surely there were more kids in the Glorieta day camp than our church ever had in Vacation Bible School. And I was so impressed with the New Mexican sopapilla that I used my allowance money to buy a bucket of sopapilla mix to take home and make for my parents (another story in itself, as you can imagine).
___ The lessons no doubt have been updated somewhat, but our boys spent the week attending that same day camp. And they had the time of their lives. Even though they come from the big city, this was their first time to go away to a weeklong camp where they met new friends from other places. It was heaven on earth for them.
___ It was a pretty heavenly experience for me, too, as I recalled the joy of my own first trip to Glorieta and the many other trips that followed and prayed that God would speak to my boys here as clearly as he has spoken to me through the years.
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___The boys were resistant to this week from the start. "We won't know anybody," they groaned. "Why do we have to go to day camp?" And, the biggie: "No TV?"
___ You would
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ALISON WINGFIED
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think we were preparing to torture them in the worst ways imaginable.
That attitude lasted all of five minutes into their first session of day camp. The boys had a blast. And they didn't miss the TV one bit.
___ My proof? I've never seen them get dirtier (even after baseball). Garrett even noticed another boy with a GameBoy, and made the comment, "They don't need a GameBoy here; there's too much to do."
___ As for not knowing anybody, I think they made at least five or six new friends. They announced at lunch one day that they needed to meet one of their buddies at a specific spot next to the lake after lunch. After accomplishing the rendezvous, the three boys proceeded to dig up rocks in the sand and toss them into the lake. They spent nearly an hour on one rock, which they never were able to dig out.
___ Growing up in Albuquerque, Glorieta was not quite the big deal for me as it was for Mark. I don't remember the first time I came.
___ One of my aunts was the state WMU director in Arkansas for a number of years and used to bring groups to Glorieta every summer. We usually journeyed up to visit with her, so that was probably when I first became acquainted with the spot.
___ Perhaps my fondest memories of Glorieta are from student week. Great music, heart-to-hearts with fellow Christians, communing with nature all flowed from these experiences. Glorieta also is the place where I learned to listen to God instead of just talking to him. There's something about the sound of the wind stirring the trees in a rain-scented mountain setting that quiets my soul.
___ While reminiscing about past Glorieta experiences, we introduced our children to a wonderful retreat and a place where we began making new memories for our family.
Mark Wingfield is managing editor of the Standard. Alison Wingfield is a freelance writer. The Wingfields moved to Texas from Louisville, Ky., where Mark had been editor of the Western Recorder, in which this column appeared weekly. |
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