The Rev. Justin Hare, David Gilbert, and Chris Walchesky hear no evil, see no evil, and speak no evil. 

Thanks to the generosity of two St. Philippian families who lent out their homes, the ministry team was able to gather together for two days on Edisto Island to debrief 2022-2023, brainstorm about dreams, and figure out how to spread those dreams across the 2023-2024 calendar.

Even in the midst of planning, there was time for fun and fellowship. During a five-minute break late morning on day one, Justin Hare donned a pair of swim trunks and ran triathlon-style to the end of the dock, managing to squeeze in several jumps into Bailey Creek before it was time to towel off and rejoin the group. (He did not have time to style his hair, which you can tell from the picture above.)

Dinner was pushed to about 9:00 p.m. as we didn’t finish “calendaring” until after 8:00. We had plenty of energy thanks to mid-afternoon cheeseburgers and an early evening charcuterie board, though, so before dinner (casseroles from King’s Market––yum!), several people boarded Chris Walchesky’s boat with the intention of water-skiing or watching water-skiing amid some beautiful dusk views of the creek and the Edisto River.

Mims Weldon was the water ski guinea pig, and she gamely hopped into the not-yet-summery water to give it a go. Alas, one of the water skis turned out to be broken, so we will have to save that adventure for next year.

Back at the house, we took our seats once again for a giant round of Telestrations. Those who had never played quickly learned that the worse one is at drawing, the better the game is––and boy, did we have some pretty poor drawings! The gentlemen stuck around for a pulse-pounding round of Catchphrase before heading to their quarters in a house on the beach side of the island, and thanks to our doggedness on day one, the biggest job we had on day two was making breakfast. But we’ve got a lot on the horizon––stay tuned!