First Blairsville volunteers were key to bringing guest house to reality

Clayton - "You never saw so many cracks in walls and ceilings in your life," Leatrice Lee states as she reminisces over the first time she set foot in the aging structure that would become the guest house for hurting ministers at Camp Pinnacle.

"But, it's amazing what you can cover up with five dozen tubes of caulking," she says with a laugh, now that the work is over.

Lee was one of 28 volunteers from First Baptist Church of Blairsville who provided about 950 hours of labor from February through May to resurrect the camp dwelling.

David Haynes, who served as project coordinator, was equally blunt.

"At first look I was a bit overwhelmed at what we had agreed to do. There was a tremendous amount of work that needed to be completed from top to bottom, and I just didn't know where to start," he says.

But after the volunteers committed themselves to the project - and armed themselves with 35 gallons of paint and untold numbers of hammers, nails, sheetrock and tape, the house emerged in tip-top condition and ready for a new day of ministry. New furnishings throughout complete the renovation.

Haynes and his volunteers replaced virtually the entire interior of the aging building, beginning with new ceilings and ending with bathroom fixtures that were either fixed or updated.

"This building has been here for all of Camp Pinnacle's 53 years, and at the first of this year it looked like it," Camp Administrator Joe Moss said during the dedication. But he was only half joking.

"I want to tell you today how God worked in this. The day we committed to the renovation, with no money or financial resources of any kind, the phone rang and (former WMU President) Janet Hill asked if we had a mission project that some volunteers from her church could help with. It was the very first project the group had ever embraced, and God sent them to Camp Pinnacle. Isn't that just like Him to send the solution to a problem?"

The three months of work may have tried their spirits at times, but the labor of love is evident throughout the building. New paint shines from the walls, ceilings are white, and sunshine streams in through windows that are air-tight - just in time for the chilly winter nights.

Lee's first experience at the summer camp, in 1948, was as an 18-year-old YWA (whose members are now called Acteens) who was engaged to a young man named Charlie. Now 55 years later this Spring, Lee found herself making two bookshelves in her woodworking shop to place in the guesthouse. And, with Charlie by her side, the couple drove to the camp to deliver the bookcases to the house.

"Camp Pinnacle is a very sacred place to me. I was married six months after my first summer here and what I learned helped start my marriage off on the right foot. It gave my life a solid foundation that's lasted more than half of a century."

Mary Sue Moon agrees. She arrived at the fledgling camp in the early 1950s as a young GA. She says her ongoing exposure to missions at Camp Pinnacle was the catalyst for a lifetime of missions involvement and eventual service as a GA leader in her church.

She said she was grateful to be able to give back to the camp a little of what the camp had invested in her life as a teenager.