Breakfast was at The Dobbin House, a house built in 1776 and used as a school of the classics for many years. At one point, it was a stop on the Underground Railroad. It's been restored and works as a museum as well as restaurant.
We went back to the Battlefield Museum and picked up a tour guide to take us around the battlefield. His name was Paul, and he did a great job of bringing it all to life. We saw some of the cannons placed about where they were in 1863 on the last day of the battle.
The observation tower, in sight of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farm, gives a great view of most of the area. Paul pointed out most of the monuments sponsored by the various states whose soldiers fought in the battle, as well as some of the statues of the various officers who were there. We stopped on Little Round Top for that view, where the 12th New York Regiment is memorialized in a small, castle-like tower. It's interesting how much
effort is going into preserving the battlefield area, including removing some trees that have grown up, and homes that have been built in the past 146 years.
Our time in Gettysburg was done, and we dropped off our tour guide and drove to Intercourse, PA (yes, the 8th graders got a lot of mileage out of that one!), in Lancaster County, known as Amish Country. Our lunch was at a great smorgasbord, and then we picked up our tour guide for the afternoon, an Amish Mennonite lady named Rachel Smucker. She was shunned from the Amish community when she and her husband were newly married, and now tells the story of the Amish people and their love for God and the land they're in.
As we drove to her family's farm, she pointed out various sights and points of interest, such as laundry hanging up high, to give milk trucks better access to the milking barns; the bicycle-like scooters used by young people; and a fantastic view from one hillside, where her grandfather would tell her, "As long as we keep our love for Jesus in our hearts, this land will always be ours."At her family's farm, where her sister now lives, we saw the meeting room that would be used for church services, weddings, funerals, etc.
Then we walked over to the barn, and got to watch eighth grade city kids react to how smelly cows can be. I don't think very many of them ever thought about where milk comes from before, much less hamburgers.
And that was our last stop on the trip. From there, we dropped off Rachel, and headed for Baltimore International Airport for our flight to Denver, then San Francisco. Despite a nearly hour-long wait on the tarmac in Baltimore, and a tight connection in Denver, the flights were smooth and easy. We picked up our bags, said good-bye to the teachers and other parents, the kids said a lot of "see-you-on-Monday," and we headed home. It was after midnight when we got home, which was after 3:00 Eastern time. We had been up for about 21 hours.
The trip was really great. We saw a lot of interesting things related to our country's history, and were challenged to think about how we, as Christians, can continue to hold up God's truth in a country that values Christian beliefs less and less every year. I, for one, don't think the U.S. is greater in God's eyes than any other country, or that we will lose our prominence in the world solely as a result of taking God off of our monuments. I do, however believe strongly that the founding fathers knew that faith, morality, reason, and intellectual honesty were (and still are) key elements of a working democracy. While they insisted on religious freedom for all, I don't think they could have conceived of any faith that did not embrace such things in ways similar to Christianity. They were not perfect people, nor are we, nor is our country perfect. I hope that the students on this trip at least got an idea that our country is worth fighting for, and our faith is one of the best ways we can fight for its continued strength.
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