Missions Trip Update

Just wanted to give you an update on how the trip is going....

Things are going very well--our cfa students are very happy to be here, and I've definitely noticed that they've all bonded as a group since we've been here. That makes me happy. :) They are also very appreciative of the other group that we're with, and have felt very welcome and part of the whole deal. For many of our students, it's their first missions trip, and it's been a great experience for them so far. It seems like they're already wanting to go on another one soon! Hopefully this will spur them on to be thinking about ways they can serve others in their lives... not just on special trips like this, but recognizing the needs of those around them in everyday life.

Just to give you an idea of our schedule, we leave the hotel at 7am every morning (?!!!), drive out to Norway, eat breakfast, have a little devotional time, and then head to the warehouse where VBS takes place. The kids normally start arriving around 9 and we get to play with them until we start around 9:30. VBS lasts until about 11:30, and then we break for lunch. The kids that we get to work with are so precious. They range from ages 4 through high school, and we've had around 50 or 60 kids the last 2 days. After lunch, we go to work on a lady's house who lives here in town. We are re-roofing her house, along with replacing a few pieces of rotted roof. We're also cleaning up the trash and brush in her backyard. Don't worry, we'll have plenty of video and pictures to show you. :) We'll even have some funny stories about snakes, septic tanks, and the like! In the evenings, we have a worship session back at the warehouse. Some of the teens from the community come and hang out with us.

After lunch today, before we started work on the house that we're re-roofing and cleaning up, I took our group and a few girls from the other group out to see where the kids are coming from that go to the VBS program. In Norway, it's about a 90% poverty rate (pretty hard to fathom, isn't it?), so it was pretty eye-opening for a lot of the kids to go out and see the condition that many of these little ones live in. Most of the families are fatherless here, and drugs, alcoholism, and teenage pregnancy are the biggest problems. But I'll tell you what--when you love on them, they just eat it up. They'll steal your heart very quickly.

VBS is going very well, and Daniel makes an excellent drill sergeant. The kids are hilarious when he walks in the room in costume... they straighten right up, and are always looking for him once the skit is over. :) I think those skits have been one of the biggest hits this week. Janelle is Private Annie Waire, and the kids think she is hilarious too (she's loud, obnoxious, and over-zealous). Private Hugh Meeh, played by Jeremy, is the "surfer-dude" kid, who always gets in trouble, and you should hear the kids anticipating the drill sergeant's wrath when Meeh says something stupid. ;-)

Anyway, just wanted to let you guys know how things were going! We're having a great time, and it's been really neat to see God slowly working in the hearts of our kids. It's funny how we always think that we go on missions trip to "minister" to other people.... but God always shows up in bigger ways than we ever imagine--and it always provokes change in our own hearts and lives.