God at the Beach

This past Saturday, CCM took its annual beach trip. Normally, we head down to Virginia Beach for a day of the sand and the sun and the OCEAN and the boardwalk. Instead, this year, for a variety of reasons, we stayed closer at Yorktown Beach. That mean brackish river water, instead of the glorious swell of the ocean, but other than that, the trip remained the same in essentials. Oh, and the bus ride was cut in half. Oh, and I didn't burn myself this year.

Highlights included making friends with a little boy collecting snails. As I watched him prowl the rocky shoreline and as he came up and began to talk to Marianne (the campus minister) and me, I began to keep a sharp eye out for Mom or Dad -- my teacher instincts coming through. Eventually, we met Dad and Grandma, as well as the little sister. We spent some time with them as the dad and Ariella (CCM president) chased sand crabs through the shallows.

Another highlight was the boat, Peacemaker, a beautiful old-fashioned ship with three masts and a hardwood interior, that was offering free tours. I followed Ariella onto it. I will post about it later, because it deserves more than a paragraph in the beach trip story.

And here is the God connection. When I was out Saturday night, I saw on the news that a dangerous rip tide had plagued Virginia Beach and that swimmers had been banned from the water. I think someone was watching out for us.