Staff Day August 2008

For those of you who don’t know, I’m on staff with a church that serves Virginia Tech students and the Blacksburg community. Each summer, some staff members scatter to various places with students for summer projects, while others (like David and I) stay in Blacksburg. We reunite each fall for an annual “staff day” to regroup and get on the same page for the upcoming school year. It’s basically like an all day long staff meeting, on steroids. This group of people is so fun to work with – we spend a lot of time laughing and joking around. We do, of course, get plenty of actual work in, but we definitely have fun in the process.

Below are a few highlights from staff day, August ’08.

This picture was the view on my walk to Pastor Pace’s house. It’s one of my favorite views in Blacksburg, looking over campus from a distance. We live about 3 miles from the Paces, so I had a nice leisurely walk, with plenty of time to pray and listen to music before staff day began.

Several folks had mentioned needing changes in scenery throughout the day, so in the early afternoon we moved over to the Swann’s place, where Amy & Kristal demonstrated leg wrestling.

After seeing how easy it looked, Jim took on Kristal, and won.



To close the day, the Pastors loaded up the team in Veronica, the big red church van. We then headed to a “secret” destination.

Here’s the view from the back of the bus…where Sarah, Terri and I were all getting quite carsick.


Here’s what it was like riding in the van.



We ended up at the Nature Conservatory out in Ellett Valley, where we ventured on a short hike.


After giving us 30 minutes to spend alone with God, we re-gathered as a team to share in a time of worship & communion.

Sarah was really excited about breaking bread together.



On the way back, Jim took the back and was begging Mike to drive faster. Kristal was not excited about that. I felt her pain from the ride there. :)


All in all, it was a great day, filled with meaningful and challenging conversation, as well as encouraging and inspirational activities to get us ready for fall kickoff, which starts in one week!