The Little Church in the Woods

Hebrews 10:25

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

25 not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.

We enjoy going to our little church.  We get to worship our LORD, pray, study His Word, encourage and love one another, get equipped to live out the Christian life and the Great Commission.  Sundays can be a real time of re-charging after the previous week has left your batteries weak or dead.

Back in August when we went camping in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park at the Smokemont Campsite, Tricia went to get some ice at the Camp office and met a procession of people walking through the woods.  They told her that they were on their way to a revival in a little church in the woods.  They invited us to attend.

We planned to make the hike to the little old church for the final night of the revival.  We didn't have access to a shower and we didn't bring "church clothes."  On our camping vacations, we generally have devotions each day and have our own church services.  This vacation we were going to attend a 'real church!'  On Saturday night we arrived at the trailhead to make the trek to the old church.  It was misting and overcast as we started on the hike.

We arrived at the church about 15 minutes before services were supposed to start and were the first people there.  We walked right on inside as there were no locks on the doors and we took a seat on the old wooden pews.  There were no cushions on the pews and there were no lights in the church.

Lufty Baptist Church or Smokemont Baptist Church 

The church was all wood construction and the interior was unfinished and had that nice, cozy smell of lumber.  As we talked our echoes filled the church with the absence of any fabric to absorb the sound. Twenty minutes passed and we realized that we had either gotten our wires crossed on the time of the services or church had been cancelled.

We figured that 'our' services weren't going to be cancelled.  We looked around for a hymnal, but couldn't find one.  It was so dark that we wouldn't have been able to read it anyway.  Now none of us (except maybe Laura Lee) are great singers, but we decided we'd make a joyful noise to the LORD and began to sing all the songs we could remember the words to like "Amazing Grace," "Holy, Holy, Holy," "In the Garden," "Just a Closer Walk With Thee," "I'll Fly Away," "When We All Get to Heaven," and "Because He Lives," to name a few.  We also sang some contemporary Christian choruses as well.  We may have been singing off key and there was no music to accompany us, but our praises filled the little church and I hope was pleasing in the ears of the Almighty.  We prayed and our services were dismissed.

The Family by the bell tower in the old church

The tall tower above the door that the family is coming out of in the photo above is a bell tower.  There is a long rope hanging down that you can pull and ring the bell to alert congregants that services are about to begin!  The sign below says that the Lufty Baptist Church was established in 1836 and reconstructed in 1912.  I figured there would be some history behind the old church and looked it up when I got home.

The Sonnier Family at the Lufty Baptist Church

On the following website National Register of Historic Places - Dept of the Interior I found the following interesting information:

Smokemont Baptist Church, historically known as Oconaluftee Baptist.
The present church building was erected in 1912. However, the church
was organized at a much earlier date. The church was constituted
June 6, 1836. The constituting presbytery was made up of Adam Corn
and David Elder. Robert Collins and Ephraim Minges were elected
deacons, and the charter membership totaled 21.
Rules of decorum were established, by-laws were, promulgated, and the
church as an organization was a reality.
Records of the church were kept until 1895.
In the isolated communities of the Great Smoky Mountains, the church
was a center of social, as well as spiritual life. The records of the
Oconaluftee Baptist contain records of deaths, marriages, baptisms,
and the joining and leaving of the fellowship by members. There are
also records of members being called before the church and being
charged with such offenses as swearing, lying, and slander. In many
cases the accused was found guilty and excluded from membership in
the church. In others, the charges were proven unfounded, and the
cases dropped.
The name of the community and church were changed in the early 1900's
from Oconaluftee to Smokemont. This came about when logging and
lumbering operations began in the mountains, and a lumber company
established its headquarters on the Oconaluftee River and called the
camp Smokemont.

The little church in the woods still stands as a testimony of the faith of brothers and sisters in Christ who, 177 years ago, committed to meeting together in obedience of Hebrews 10:25.  It was a special time for our family to sit on those wooden pews and sing some of the same songs of praise to our Creator, perhaps, that were sang many, many years ago by 21 fellow followers of Christ in the Lufty Baptist Church.

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.  Psalm 150:6

Does a Bear Poop in the Woods?

On our recent family vacation to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park in North Carolina/Tennessee, we explored many hiking trails.  We explored the possibility of being able to 'bear' the smell of each other after not showering for a week while camping.  We also explored the answers to some of life's great questions, like the one posed in the title of this post.

Benjamin participated in the Junior Ranger Program and to help us out with some of these questions, we traveled to the Sugarlands Visitor Center outside of Gatlinburg, TN so that Benjamin could sit it on a scholarly dissertation entitled, "Yucky Animal Stuff."  Ranger Lloyd was in charge of the class and had a firm handle on the subject matter.  He told the kids that he was going to be using the word 'Yucky' a lot and that every time he said, 'yucky,' the kids should respond by saying, "Ewwwwww!"  They gladly obliged.

Ranger Lloyd

He asked all of the kids if they collected anything.  Benjamin raised his hand and told Ranger Lloyd that he collected coins.  Others told him they collected rocks, and LEGO's, and other things.  Ranger Lloyd said that he is an avid collector himself.  He collects BEAR POOP!  Except he said to never call it poop.  He said that the scientific word for it is 'scat' and the he is a Scatologist.

Ranger Lloyd had a 'potty mouth."

Ranger Lloyd said that he'd like to show his collection and he passed around real bear scat where the bear had been eating raspberries (red), then real bear scat where the bear had been eating blackberries (black), and then he pulled out what he called his 'crown jewel,' a very, very large bear stool sample.  He handled it with reverence and kept it neatly wrapped to preserve the mint-condition of this specimen.

The crown jewel

There were other yucky (Ewwwww!) things we learned.  He explained that a skunk sprays his stench from glands in his anal cavity that project the sticky substance forcefully.  He told us that it takes a skunk 10 days to replenish his stink so he doesn't want to spray, so the skunk first will warn you by hissing, then he will begin tapping his feet on the ground, then he'll turn in circles, then he'll lift his tail, finally he'll stand on his front legs with his tail up.  That is the skunk equivalent of DEFCON 1.

He told us that opossums have the same type anal scent glands but they can't forcefully project the scent, so they hiss, play dead and then emit a scent that smells like rotting flesh.  Lovely!  He explained about how cows chew their grass and swallow it and then burp it up and chew it again (chewing their cud) and that the stomach acid helps to digest the grass.  He told us that rabbits do a somewhat similar thing, except they chew grass and poop out something called 'cecal pellets.'  Cecal pellets are sticky and black.  Rabbits will eat their cecal pellets and by going through their digestive tracts the second time, it enables them to digest it. Then they poop out fecal pellets, which are the 'Cocoa puff' looking things you see in the woods.  I never knew this.  I tell you, you learn something new every day!

Ranger Lloyd and his skunk pelt

I guess the thing that stuck with us the most was a song.  Ranger Lloyd told us that he liked Bear Poop so much that he made up a Rap Song about it and wanted to teach it to the kids.  He passed out the lyrics and asked everyone to sing along.  The lyrics go like this:

It starts with an "S" and it ends with a "T,"It comes outta you and it comes outta me, I know what you're thinking, but don't call it that,Be scientific and call it SCAT!

(Kids were then invited to punctuate the rap with that familiar sound when you cup your hand under your underarm and pump your elbow up and down.  You know that sound.)  That's a clever song.  We sang it many times driving around the mountains in our rented van until we all have it etched upon our brains.

Benjamin (and our entire family) learned a lot of things on our trip.  For attending 3 excellent Ranger Presentations, Benjamin earned a Junior Ranger Badge from the Great Smoky Mountain National Park to go along with the one he had earned in the Rocky Mountain National Park two summer's ago.

Badge of Honor

I almost forgot, Ranger Lloyd drove home the point that the answer to the question, Does a bear poop in the woods? is an unequivocal, "YES!"  They most certainly do and we've seen the evidence, up close and personal.  My hat is off to you, Ranger Lloyd for a job well done!

The Apprentice Blacksmith

I'm a homebody.  Granted, I like to travel and see new places, but my roots are at my home and on our little farm.  I love the land.  That being said, I think it is important to get away sometimes, to see new sights, and expose the kids to things outside of our normal realm.  Most importantly, it allows us to spend some valuable time together as a family.

I really admire the Amish and have read extensively about them (AmishAmerica.com).  One of the interesting things about them is that they use a horse and buggy for transportation instead of a car.  Their reason for this is that the horse and buggy gives them a traveling range of about 20 miles.  This limitation does several things: it slows down the pace and acts as a 'brake' to the daily hustle and bustle we experience.  It also helps to preserve family and community as mobility tends to fragment families. Finally, the horse and buggy is a deliberate means to resist the ways of the world in order to maintain a healthy distance from a worldly, corrupting culture.

Well, the Great Smoky Mountain National Park is a lot further than a 20 mile traveling range.  While my goal is to maintain distance from the world, we had to rent the "horse and buggy" below since our vehicles are too small to carry us and our camping gear to the mountains.  We drove 12 hours straight and arrived at our destination - Smokemont Campsite in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park right outside of Cherokee, North Carolina.

Arriving at Smokemont campsite and unloading after a 12 hour drive

We got our tent set up in what would serve as 'home' for the next week and unpacked.

Home Sweet Home (away from home)

We pulled out our Coleman stove that runs on unleaded gasoline.  We got this as a wedding shower gift back in 1990 and it is still going strong - just like our marriage and just like the Coffee & Chicory we made on it!  We laughed at the box that the stove is still stored in that touts its fuel economy using regular gasoline compared to Coleman Fuel because the price per gallon of gasoline in the comparison on the box was $1.50!  Why do meals cooked outdoors while camping always taste fantastic? 

Camp Coffee with cream from Daisy that we brought along for a taste of home!

Just a literal stone's throw away from our tent was the Bradley Fork that flows into the Oconaluftee River.  I cannot begin to explain the peacefulness that a babbling brook right outside your tent will do for you.

Standing on the Solid Rock

We headed over to the Oconaluftee Visitor Center where Benjamin started the Junior Ranger program. The Visitor Center had a Mountain Farm Museum which featured a rustic farm set-up with barns, a smokehouse, a springhouse, corn crib, garden, place where they made syrup from sorghum, pig sty, hen house, blacksmith shop, etc. Benjamin attended an exhibit where a Ranger intern discussed how kids amused themselves before iPads, the Internet, and smartphones and showed them how they played games and made toys that didn't have batteries.  Wow!

The next exhibit was put on by Ranger Sarah in the blacksmith shop.  Benjamin got to put on a leather apron and gloves and learn by hands-on experience about blacksmithing.  I wish you could have seen how excited he was!

Ranger Sarah in the Blacksmith Shop

On the left you can see the bellows which blows oxygen into the fire, enabling the fire to burn hot enough to make iron 'cherry red.'

Two way bellows 

Speaking of hands on experience, here is Benjamin operating the bellows.

Our Apprentice Blacksmith

As he pulls the lever up and down, oxygen is injected into the fire fueled by coal.  Iron is laid in the fire and you can see it begin to glow.  Ranger Sarah described that North Carolina is not a coal producing state. Settlers had to travel to West Virginia, Ohio, or other neighboring coal producing states and barter for coal. We had a family discussion about this later and posed the question to the kids, "If the economy crashed and money was worthless, what skill do we possess that we could produce goods to barter with?"  People working in coal mines don't have a lot of time to raise crops so one could trade corn or grain for coal.

Have you ever thought about what good or service you could trade for items that you need?  We trade some dairy products for honey from a local beekeeper friend.  We both benefit from the transaction.  Eggs were a typical commodity that could be traded in farming communities as well.  I'm sure you've seen Laura Ingalls bringing surplus eggs to the Oleson's Mercantile on Little House on the Prairie.  A family farming economy is a wholesome enterprise and one that teaches valuable life lessons.  I wouldn't trade growing up on a farm for anything.  It made me who I am today.

We joked that our President would not like this blacksmith shop since coal is not one of his favorite industries.

Benjamin had the opportunity to make a dinner bell for our family.  Here he is putting a piece of red-hot steel into an appendage of the anvil with his vise grips where he will make his first bend and then dunk the steel in a bucket of water to cool it before making his next bend.

Making the bend

Now Benjamin is using a hammer to shape the ringer.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Here is the finished product - a homemade dinner bell made by our resident blacksmith.

You can ring my bell...

Blacksmith Benjamin demonstrates how one might call the family for supper.  It is hard work being a blacksmith and makes you work up an appetite.

Supper Time!

I took a picture of part of the mountain farm exhibit below, showing a corn field in the foreground, with a corn crib, large barn and split rail fence in the background. This looks beautiful, but as I explained to the family, getting this farm to this point required clearing the land, removing rocks from the soil, and building the farm buildings all without modern tools and equipment.  The farm family worked together and worked hard. Their very survival depended upon it in a land that could be unforgiving and cruel at times.

Mountain Farm Museum at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center

Farm families worked long hours 6 days a week and then on the Sabbath, they rested. They gathered with other farm families and worshiped God and fellowshipped with their neighbors.  Faith, Family, and Friends were vital.  It was inspiring to see the work ethic displayed by our forebears and the determination to survive and thrive amidst numerous obstacles.

I'll bet they were glad when the dinner bell rang!