Day 5

I expected to have to get up early, but I soon found out that we could sleep in until almost noon! Of course, we got out of bed and did a few things. Mom took Emily, Josh and I to get some breakfast. We brought it back to the hotel and watched TV for a while.


We left a little after noon for the Bethel church, which I found was a lot bigger than I had first thought. We walked in and put stickers with our names on. After that we got lunch. There was no shortage of food, even with all the people that had come. We ate in a gym and to my surprise the whole room was full!

The celebration was being held for the Rowes, who had just finished with thirty years of ministry in the Teen Challenge program. The Teen Challenge Choir came up and sang many songs. Several people came and spoke of how the Rowes had helped them with their lives. Dad, too, got a three minute window. He talked about his experience with Teen Challenge and how he was grateful for the program.

The Rowes got a cruise near the end, and we all prayed for them. When it was all over, Dad took us to look at some old pictures of him when he was in the program. We had a great time and went back to the hotel. The whole thing had lasted for five hours, so it was getting late already. As always, Josh took Emily and I swimming before we went in for the night. Being that it was Independence Day we stayed up late to see if any fireworks went off. We did not see any, but the next morning Dad said he had seen fireworks later into the night.