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St. Matthias youth group uncovers 20-year-old time capsule Date published: 8/1/2006
Sweat poured from Cameron Trant's face in the felt-like-100-degrees heat as he steadily dug into the earth 6 feet from the point of the St. Matthias United Methodist Church sanctuary in southern Stafford.
Trant, 28, was joined in his quest at various points by his dad, Mike Trant, Adam Bray, Spencer Courtney, David Payne and others. Somewhere underneath the hardened dirt was a time capsule the United Methodist Youth Fellowship had buried 20 years earlier. "That's mighty hard," Payne, 38, said as he first struck the ground. He was one of the youths who buried the capsule following a yearly retreat. "I don't remember the ground being that hard," he later reminisced. The event July 22 was billed as a homecoming of sorts. The two dozen or so people who participated in the 1986 retreat were invited back for the unveiling. Now, they were thirtysomethings. Back then, they ranged in age from 12 to 18. Except Cameron. His sister had just entered seventh grade, which allowed her to go on the retreat. His parents had just joined the group as junior leaders. So Cameron, age 8, was the group mascot. But he never felt that way. "I was just part of the group," he said. The Rev. George Pearson was pastor at St. Matthias in the '80s. The 1986 retreat focused on the way things were then and the way they would be in the future, he said. Part of the lesson was to create a time capsule. Instructions were precise, Pearson said. They included the types of things to place in the container--trendy items, magazines, letters to themselves--as well as how to build the container--galvanized steel and lots of plastic. The students were videotaped making predictions about the future. Once the capsule was sealed, it was buried just off the point of the sanctuary. Pearson drew a treasure map. That map, a copy of the videotape and a list of what was in the time capsule were placed in an envelope, sealed and stored in a safe deposit box to be opened this summer. Pearson, who recently retired from a church in Roanoke, returned to St. Matthias to make the first ceremonial dig into the ground during the unearthing of the time capsule.
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