Monday, June 22nd—Day 3 Mission Trip

Monday, June 22nd—Day 3 Mission Trip
  This day started out exciting! It's kinda funny too. We were woken up around 5:15 a.m. when Mr. Gerald shouted, "Good Morning!" All of us were surprised to have been woken up, and some were disgusted. The girls in my room wanted to go back to sleep. We ate breakfast at 7 but were expected to be out in the cafeteria part of the school around 6:50. We ate our meals at the church though. The church had a better kitchen for our large group, so that's where we ate.

  I remember being confused. I had thought that Brother Ryan told us that we'd be eating about 7. Then, I also thought maybe that he wanted us up early for one reason or another. I lay back down just for a second, but soon rose up again. I found out that some people went to get their T-shirts. (We received a t-shirt for our mission trip team, and one for our summer theme, back in Alabama, as a youth group).

I got up anyway. I didn't want to be in trouble if we were already supposed to be up. I found out later that it was more of a false alarm than anything else.

  We said a prayer over our food and went to the church to eat it. Around 7:25 or 7:30, we divided ourselves up. We either read the devotions by ourselves or with our prayer partner. I read the devotion for the day with one of my friends, and then discussed the material and prayed with my prayer partner.

  Afterwards, we did some tidying up and relaxed a bit before 10. There were some who decided to help the food team and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with them. Around 10 or 10:30, several of us went outside to encourage folks to come to the VBS. We stood outside holding up signs that said, "VBS" and waved at bypassing cars. After a while, the VBS teachers were called in for a quick something that needed to be said. We were only arranging how we'd deal with lining up the kids for each age group.

  The kids started to arrive a little before 11. We sat down and talked but also ate with the students. This helped all of us get to know a few of the children better. We then went to do our opening Worship Rally.

  We started with the theme song and welcomed them to our VBS. We introduced our motto for the week. "THIS IS THE WAY, WALK IN IT." One side shouted "THIS IS THE WAY," and the other shouted, "WALK IN IT!" We were trying to see which side was louder. We then watched the selection for the day from the week long video. After that, we finished with a missions video about a couple of friends who live in California and prayed. All of us went our separate directions from there.

  I was with the 5th and 6th graders. We went to Abstinence class, rec, Bible study, and last but not least, arts and crafts.

  We talked about sex in the abstinence class. It was pretty much just an introduction to what it is and that it is a wedding present God created and was meant to share with only your spouse. Then, the rec class was mostly playing ball. In Bible study, I got to introduce myself and help Ms. Bridgett, the teacher for the day, with an activity. After introducing myself, I was given directions to go where Ms. Bridgett directed me in the way to go. She was behind me, so that I could hear it coming from my ears when I turned a certain direction. This was to demonstrate our memory verse for the entire week. It was Isaiah 30:21, "And whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you,  "This is the way, walk in it." Ms. Bridgett then told them about Jesus' birth and why he came to earth.

  After VBS, a few of our team went with the children to drop them off at their houses. We all went into the sanctuary. Cass, one of the three interns with us, spoke to us. Three people went to pass out flyers about our VBS at another area of town. The rest of us stayed. The VBS day had gone much better than most of us had anticipated. The students were interactive and were able to talk to us. I know that I, and probably other VBS teachers too, were so relieved to know these students would communicate with us.

We all went back to the school. We took showers and relaxed a bit before dinner. After we'd eaten our dinner, all of us came back to the school and had another team meeting. Each night, we talked about the day and how we could improve and change some certain areas. After all of this had been finished, we had time to play card games and just hang out. Lights out was at 11. 

I forgot to mention, we also had a lady come bring beaded jewelry for us to look at and possibly buy. The beaded jewelry pieces were crafted by men in prison. The adult leaders went on a tour with Pastor Ben. They went on about a two hour tour of the Lakota Indian history while the rest of us had the team meeting.

  The first day of VBS went well. I couldn't ask for a better start. We were told later that this had been the best turn out for a first day of VBS for the people living in Eagle Butte. (Eagle Butte was the name of the Indian Reservation we stayed and served at). We all hoped for a wonderful blossoming in the children. We wanted to be fruitful in our work for Jesus.