American Adventure (4)- Charleston

Tomorrow morning, after church, I leave Charleston and South Carolina to travel into North Carolina, following two delightful days in Charleston. My hosts for this leg of the journey were Mount Pleasant Presbyterian Church, which has grown from a Sunday attendance of about 350 to its current congregation of 900 per Sunday, spread across 4 services. The church building, like the town, has a quaint, white clapperboard look, and was a Confederate hospital during the Civil War.

 

I was met by my contact in Charleston, Carmen Goetschius, who, along with her husband, Clarke  is a part of the clergy team at the church. Clarke is a keen outdoorsman and angler, and has succeeded in converting his wife into a fisherperson, and who took me on a tour of the town.The streets are idyllic, white houses with porches that look as if they've come straight from a movie set, and in a town very proud of its history, lots of explanatory signposts, including this one which I rather liked:

 

 

I was shown the spot where the first shot in the Civil War was fired, and ended the evening at the home of Shirley, a church member who was hosting me for my stay in Charleston. She had only days earlier returned from a trip to China with her 17 year old grandson, and she, Carmen and I enjoyed a lively discussion, mostly about theology, but with a bit of politics and social history thrown in for good measure. Both Carmen and Shirley were enthusiastic, informed and energetic conversationalists and, despite my "long journey fatigue" my brain was doing overtime as we discussed and debated.

 

 

This morning, before my fishing trip, I met with a number of people involved in the church's various outdoor ministries. These included outreach work with a school for children with behavioural problems and a men's Hiking Group that runs camp-out hiking trips for men from the congregation. The enthusiasm for the hiking/backpacking group was obvious as they spoke of its purpose and strategy and shared stories of how it had impacted them in their Christian lives. A recurring theme was the way that being together as a bunch of men, outside of normal church life and in a different setting encouraged an authenticity in their relationships and level of spiritual engagement, summed up by this quote from a paper I was given detailing the "what" and "why" of the group: "Since MPPC's first trail hike in May 2012 our participants have been blessed- their faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour has been strengthened and strong bonds have been built with their brothers in Christ", which is pretty much what Patrick from "Ironman Outdoors" had said to me in Columbia.

 

Charleston- a lovely town, and some great people, but now to pack for tomorrow's four hour journey to Asheville.