THE SEA CREST

“And the apostles, when they were returned, told him all that they had done. And he took them, and went aside privately into a desert place belonging to the city called Bethsaida.” (Luke 9:10)

I’ll be attending the Ministers’ Retreat of our Southern New England District of the Assemblies of God from Monday through Wednesday of this week. The Ministers’ Retreat was called “Ministers’ Institute” until a few years ago, and it always takes place in the Fall. I haven’t been to an Assemblies of God Ministers’ Retreat (or “Institute”) for at least seven years. For a number of years, I’ve attended Vision New England’s “New England Pastors’ Prayer Summit” every November in the Keene, New Hampshire area. I’ve thought that two ministers’ retreats in “back to back” months was a bit much, so I’ve opted to attend the Prayer Summit only. This year, I’ve decided to go to both. Originally, the church was paying for the Prayer Summit, and I was paying for the AG Ministers’ Retreat. I’ve already paid for it, in fact, but several people were nice enough to offer me money to offset my expenses and I’ve been very grateful for that!

The AG Ministers’ Retreat is taking place in Falmouth on Cape Cod at a “resort” called The Sea Crest. I THINK we may have had another retreat at The Sea Crest, but if we did it was sometime in the 1990s and I don’t remember it too well. I DO have memories of The Sea Crest, however! In 1971, my father was an “Assistant Supervisor” at the Registry of Motor Vehicles which was the highest rank of a “uniform man” and he was assigned to the Public Relations branch of the Registry’s Boston headquarters. (You may know, he started out giving driving tests at the Registry in 1956 and he retired as the Supervisor of the Medical Affairs branch in Boston in 1982.) Each year, there is a big national convention of “motor vehicle administrators” held somewhere in North America. The organization is known as the “A.A.M.V.A.”, that is the “Association of American Motor Vehicle Administrators”. In 1971, Massachusetts was hosting the A.A.M.V.A. convention and all the “setup and breakdown” was essentially “my father’s baby”.

At the time, I was a Junior in high school and my brother Eddie was a Freshman. I remember my Dad let us skip school, and we went with him in a rented U-Haul truck to bring some desks and tables to The Sea Crest to set up. At the time, this U-Haul truck was the first decent sized truck I’d ever equipped with automatic transmission. I think that even surprised my father. Eddie and I worked hard, but we got to be included among the guests at the banquet that night, eating all kinds of fancy foods and feeling like a couple of big shots. My father was always talking about a woman named “Gert” that he worked with. He was constantly putting her down and talking about how much he didn’t like her. Eddie and I expected Gert to be a 1971 version of the wicked witch of the west, but to our surprise we found out she was O.K. and we really wondered why my father couldn’t say a good word about her. One thing I remember is that my father got loads and loads of “A.A.M.V.A.” pads of paper. At my parents’ home, they were using those pads of paper for phone messages seemingly FOREVER!

That was thirty-seven years ago. At the time, my father was forty-eight-years old. To me, it seems like it was MAYBE ten years ago. Now, I’m fifty-four, six years older than Gene Baril was in 1971. And, I’m a minister on retreat. Maybe this time I really AM a big shot...or not! Actually, it’s a “not” but sometimes we like to pretend!

Yes, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I’ll be making some new memories at The Sea Crest!