Family Devotions - Backyard Camping

Have you ever done backyard camping with your kids?  We never had until this last weekend and had a blast.  Rich wanted to get Mary and our little dog used to camping out in a tent and he figured it would be easiest and most reasonable to do it in our back yard.  We are having glorious weather here.  We always have Indian summers here with cool nights and warm days.  This weekend weather was true to form!  After we had made the plans, I noticed it would be one week before the Feast of Tabernacles would be celebrated and we decided that we would do a family devotion teaching Mary about the Feast and what it symbolizes.  No, we do not keep the Feasts of Israel or any Jewish Holidays.  We just love the symbolism and wanted to share it with Mary and bring out some wonderful scriptures in the Old and New Testament.  I have included some still shots and a slide show that gives more explanation of the Feast.  It is a fun holiday where people live outside in booths or tents and remember the wandering of the Israelites in the wilderness before coming into the Promise Land.  The Feast is very Messianic and it was when the Jews of Christ day had the highest hopes of the Messiah coming to physically rule and reign on the Earth from Jerusalem.  One of the practices of the Feast is to wave palm branches and say, Hosana!  Also you decorated your tent with the fruit harvested from your land and light your area with beautiful lights.  Also on the last day of the Feast water was fetched from the Pool of Siloam and brought to the temple and poured out.  This was a symbol of the rain to come but more importantly the out pouring of the Holy Spirit.  So we had all of these elements in our camp out and had a time in the evening where had Mary poured water out into a bowl, wave branches and sing, light candles and talk about how living in a tent is like our earthly bodies that will fail and one day we will have a new body and be with the Lord.  Also sleeping in a tent makes you more appreciative of your house and all the luxuries we have become so used to.

Flowers and herbs from our yard.

Jesus said, I am the Light of the World

Here is the slideshow

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Here are some scripture references we read during the different activities:

The Feast of Tabernacles established: Lev. 23:39-44

The Water being poured out: John 7: 37-38, John 4:13-14 and Isaiah 55

God is our Shelter: Luke 12:22-34 and Isaiah 25:4

Jesus is the Light: John 8:12 and John 1:1-9

Waving the Palm branches: Lev.23:40 and Psalm 27

We hope to some day be with other believers on a simple camp out this time of year, remembering what God has done for us and sharing in the produce of our gardens and hands and looking forward to our Messiah coming again and being with Him forever!  God bless you all and if you have any questions about our celebration please leave us a comment or e-mail us.  We would love to hear from you!