This past weekend I went to a mountain cabin in North Georgia to spend time getting to know my Journey Group outside of our normal meetings. When you get with a group of different people you never really know how it is going to turn out. 
As you can see it was beautiful up in the mountains, both during the day and in the early morning as well. No matter the time you could see God's handy work. If I were to put sound to the pictures you would be able to hear birds conversing back and forth as well as all the other wildlife talking in the manner that God gave them.
Insert into this the voices of people talking and sharing and you have put together the world as God had created it. All weekend long you would find a small group here, two people there. You could walk into one conversation or another would join yours.
The time of day never really mattered as we were able to talk, laugh, cry, share, or even find alone time. No subject was left uncovered and this made it possible to discover who and what we were all about. 
There was the alone time to look out and just enjoy the view. Or you could walk out in the early morning with that cup of coffee and stare into the fog. Waiting with anxiety to see the wonder of the trees and mountains as they slowly appear from the fog.
Time was spent sitting and sharing verses or passages of The Bible and telling the others what or why they meant so much to us. A time that I figured would last thirty to forty minutes ended up running almost an hour and a half. But you know what, it did not matter because time was standing still. Yes the minutes were passing us by but we were where we needed to be, learning about each other, getting to know each and every one in a way that you just can not do at any other time.
We went tubing down the Toccoa River, again laughing, playing and relaxing in ways you just can not do on a Sunday morning, Friday evening or what ever other day you may meet with your group.
Then to come back and feast on a meal fit for kings. Lets put it this way, we had more food than we could imagine with everyone doing their share of cooking and cleaning it was all so easy and fun.
Then afterwards building a fire, eating Smores and again, laughing and sharing all the time. Being able to share the time with a few of the children was very enjoyable as well. To allow your kids to see how adults interact is such an important part of their growing up and learning as well.
Later after we settled down, sitting out and staring up into the sky and seeing more stars than you have ever seen before. Watching and looking and seeing that meteors happen all the time as we witnessed many during the time on the deck.
As you can see we had a fantastic time bonding together. It was more than I could have hoped for as we did learn about each other in so many ways. I have had a few discussions on fellowship when it comes to the Church and I would say that this weekend was one of those true times of fellowship.
We came together as a group not really knowing a lot about each other but left as members of a community understanding some of the who, what and why that make us what we are. The sun set on our time in the North Georgia Mountains but it will rise again in the morning and we will have a new outlook on many things. Take each and every friendship you have and build it into something meaningful and productive. Learn how to share with others so that you can pray for them and lets see how God can make miracles happen.
