Anyone who has ever gone on a mission trip understands what it's like to serve no matter the circumstances. It's all for Him who died for us, so no matter how far it is, how much it costs or how many attacks satan tries to throw at us, it's all worth it! I am sure we have been called crazy many times for doing what we do, but that's ok. We enjoy doing whatever we can to help others.
Let's see if you think this is crazy... We spent two weeks raising money through speaking at churches and doing bake sales, then Andi spent several hours the night before packing up the minivan. We took off early Thursday morning headed to the Great White North and drove all day through Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota and into Canada. We arrived at Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan around 11:00 pm and bedded down on the hard basement floor at our partner church there before heading to our final destination about 4 more hours north the next morning. We were one of the first families to arrive at the Shekinah Retreat Centre (about 50 miles north of Saskatoon) at about 3:00 pm on Friday. Our primary purpose for going was to provide Vacation Bible School for the children, only to find out that they did not have any multimedia equipment that we were told they had. No internet, no computers, no projector, no screen and really no area big enough for our full production. We ended up using our laptop so we had the kids sit really close and be really quiet (haha) so that everyone could hear the tiny laptop speakers! For classroom space we used our own families sleeping quarters. This years theme was Outrigger Island with a Hawaiin setting so as recreation director Brian brought beach balls, frisbees and some other light games... which would have been great if the wind hadn't been gusting all weekend! God is SO awesome. He makes us WANT to work with missions by giving us these little challenges and ALWAYS provides a solution when we remain faithful to His purpose. Everything worked out exceptionally well and the kids and their parents had no idea what we faced to pull things off.
Since this was our second year serving with the same association we had more opportunities to really get to know everyone. We also noticed how much more the kids opened up to us this year! We believe that children need stability and for them to see some familiar faces leading them really made a big difference. Last year was kind of a blur for us all, but this year was all about building relationships. We received so much more personal joy knowing that those kids were looking for us and almost expect us to return every year!
The camp wrapped up Sunday afternoon by 2:00 pm and Brian had everything packed up in the van around 3:30 pm. That's when we got to thinking about travel plans... It dawned on us that we were carrying alot of Canadian money and it was a weekend... Labor Day Weekend. Canadian banks are closed on Labor Day as well. We wondered if American gas stations in North Dakota or Montana would take our currency. It was doubtful, which proved true. Therefore, we did some math and it appeared as though we would NOT have enough US dollars to get all the way home. One of the pastors there did have $33 USD that he let us exchange our Canadian dollars for and he graciously topped off our gas tank right outside of camp ($55 CAN). No one else had ANY USD, so we figured we would fill up right before the U.S. border and put our faith in God to get us home. We said a prayer and took off headed for the States. We were anxious to get home so we traded off and drove through the night and the next day. We made it home safely by noon on Labor Day Monday. Do you believe God provides? We certainly do! We got home and counted our remaining cash. We had $33 USD and $55 CAN. Whoa! Is God cool or what? Like our 3 year old son Brayden always says, "God is Real" and we believe it!
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