Editors note: What follows are Barbara Curnutt's remarks delivered at the 75th anniversary celebration of Camp Pinnacle on Saturday.
There’s just something about this place called Pinnacle.
From the moment I first stepped foot on these grounds, I recognized that Pinnacle is a hallowed place – a place we regard as holy because of our personal encounters with the Living God on this hallowed ground, a place that belongs to God, and not to us. We simply steward His gift.
It is a place where God consistently meets our needs abundantly beyond all we ask or imagine.
Pinnacle is a place of sanctuary, refuge, retreat.
The word "retreat" comes from the Latin root meaning to "draw back."
Pinnacle is a place where we come to withdraw from the noise and chaos of our world, and enter into the quiet, uninterrupted peace and presence of God.
It is a place that provides shelter for our children to meet with God and hear from Him, whether it’s inside the Chapel, beside the lake or around a campfire.
God’s sanctuary is wherever we experience Him. It’s the place where our heart is, and where our memories linger.
Pinnacle is a place of community, of family.
This is a place where lifelong friendships have been forged and renewed year after year.
A community of place is a community of people who are bound together by a common purpose. Our shared purpose is clear: God’s missions mandate.
His purpose unites us as family. And family members take care of the family homestead and the children.
I am grateful for the women within our Pinnacle family who have prayed and sacrificed time, tireless energy and extravagant resources to keep our summer missions camp alive and thriving.
When I see the beautifully renovated Chapel, the six new cabin lodges, the Wellness Center and the new administrator’s house and consider all that God has done, I am so thankful for visionary women willing to look beyond “band-aid fixes” and believe by faith what is possible with God’s limitless resources.
Being a part of Pinnacle’s family reminds us that we are a part of something far greater than ourselves.
Finally, Pinnacle is a place of commissioning, where so many have experienced the call of God on their lives.
We have been extraordinarily blessed to share life together in this remarkable place called Pinnacle – finding our story in His story individually and collectively and witnessing God’s glory in unimaginable ways.
It’s quite a place. Praise God for this place.
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Barbara Curnutt is former executive director of the Baptist Woman’s Missionary Union of Georgia.