Let the games begin!

I made a momentous decision. We’re going to do morning time blog posts from now on. Nights are a constant fight against time.

Yesterday was day one of VBS! We had a wonderful time. We had 44 kids register. And our team really stepped up to the plate.

If you don’t know, the theme of VBS is “Agency D3.” It’s a secret agency and we are command central, trying to find the evidence for Jesus! Director of the agency, Clint, made an announcement that a mole is in our midst! We’ve got someone hacking into the system and trying to steal all of the cookies for snack.

The bible story was Jesus’s baptism. Josh and Nathan did a good job of teaching the story.

If you could pray for the kids coming to VBS, that the gospel would penetrate their hearts. Also, pray for a little more focus on their part. The team was working pretty hard to keep them on point.

After VBS we went canvasing, walking around the town to meet people and invite them to the field night, and made a trip back out to shorts bar to see if there was anyone there to bring along.

I use the term “we” loosely, because I used the opportunity to sleep. From what I understand, it was very good.

Field night was awesome. “We” decided to change our usual format to have a little more of a discussion time than a preaching time. (this time “we” is in quotes because it was my decision on the spot and I sprung it on everyone at the last minute.) The students are still sharing their testimonies, but I realized that all of the Riggins people who came to the field night, about 9, were Christians! That allowed us to have a time of encouragement and discipleship instead of evangelism. This was an interesting twist, and a few of the students from Riggins are going to share THEIR testimonies! This kind of a twist is very awesome to see.

Today we’ll have a little interview with Caleb to see what he thinks of things…

Stephen: What do you think of the trip so far?

Caleb: So far, I think it’s been incredible, just because even though we started off not as prepared as we thought we were, God still came through. The studies have been very illuminating, helping me to see the church in a different way… not as an activity, but as an actual body, an actual physical presence.

Stephen: Do you have a favorite kid at VBS?

Caleb: Probably Mackenzie. She is the most…. She’s very intelligent for a little girl, and I respect that. She is hilarious and super cute. When you’re sitting on the ground playing legos with her, it’s fun to see what she comes up with. She made a dungeon and showed me where “all the bodies are, that couldn’t get out!” We thought, let’s not cross you.

Stephen: Rec night?

Caleb: So far we have some good responses to the change in direction at what Rec night is gonna be. Now that we’ve given them the reigns and said, “hey where do you wanna go with your learning?” Before they would just say like, “Oh yeah, that’s a good story, I can kind of sympathize,” and go on their merry way. But now that we’ve given them the reigns it gives them something to really think about because it’s something personal. It’s about their life as well.

Busy Days, Busy Nights

Howdy All!

I apologize for not getting the blog post up last night… we had a BUSY day! It was non-stop, and that’s not a figure of speech.

For starters, we ran the church service. I preached (Yes mother, we did record it like you asked), Josh, Jared, Caleb, and Erin led the praise music, and everyone did a fantastic job of pitching in to make the service as good as it could be. I believe it was.

After that we went straight to the church picnic, and it was HOT. Boise had a record high of 110 degrees yesterday, and it got up to 108 here in Riggins. The heat aside, the picnic was a success. We played Ultimate Frisbee and Volleyball, squirted each other with water guns, and ate some wonderful food. It was a good time of fellowship and community that can only be experienced in the church body.

We were at the picnic for about two hours, and then came back to the church to decorate for VBS. We hung up posters, and tarps, and edited videos, and music. We prepped crafts, and practiced dances, etc. etc. etc. There’s a picture of Caleb and Erin this morning before VBS started at the bottom of the post. The kids are very excited.

We continued working on VBS Decorations until an event for dinner. We went across the street to the Assemblies of God church and heard a missions presentation from a very nice young man named Dustin Rinker. He is about to start working as a Chi Alpha missionary in Helena Montana on a college campus. He was raising support and they church invited our team to the fund-raiser dinner. If you’d like to hear about what he does and possibly donate to his work, you can email him at rinkerxa@gmail.com . Tell him that Stephen Curto, the guy from the Texas VBS team in Riggins, gave you his info. Based on what I heard and saw of him, I trust it to be a worthy mission to donate to. Helping to give college kids the answers for their faith is of paramount importance.

Also, at Dustin’s event, we finally got to sample some Idaho Potatoes as a team. The dinner was a baked-potato bar. It’s odd, but I think this is the first time in 7 years of coming to Idaho that the team has had potatoes as the main course!

After the dinner, we came back to the church and headed off for showers. After showers we had our family time, where we sing praises together, and discuss a book that we are reading called “What is the Church?” by R.C. Sproul. Please pray for those discussions that they would be fruitful and engaging, and that the students would be honestly searching for the truth and not just saying what they want us to hear.

After family time some of us finally made it to bed, but some of us had finishing touches to put on VBS.

Needless to say, after a day like that we were all exhausted. Please pray for energy levels here and that we will find time and make time to rest. It’s not good that we are already as tired as we are.

Other than that, thank you for reading!

P.S. Photo credit of the service goes to Tamara Martin today!

Low-Key and We Like it That Way

We had a good time today keeping it low-key. We went to “shorts bar,” a beach on the Salmon River, and swam for about an hour this afternoon.

The morning was spent working on VBS and the church service. We made a lot of decorations and worked hard to get everything as squared away as possible. After that we had a wonderful meal together at Anita Williams’s house, and got to see her, Carl and Linda, and Doug in the process. These are all pillars of the community and the church that we love greatly. It’s always good to rekindle friendships with such remarkable people.

We also managed to assemble our group en-masse today! Michaela Arnold, our final member, flew in to Boise today and Denise and Jared graciously drove down together to pick her up! 6 extra hours in the car (round trip) deserves a round of applause. 

No real “stories” happened today. It was low-key and we liked it that way. I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to share with you all tomorrow after running the church service and trying to have a picnic in 100 degree weather! (Don’t worry, we’re staying cool and hydrating well.)

The picture today is a snap-shot of Clint and me working hard on our spy faces.

P.S. If you have requests on information you would like, pictures you want to see taken, people you want to hear from, leave those notes in the comments! We'll try and work them in on future posts. I'm planning on having guest commentary from the students as the week goes on, so look forward to that!

We Have Arrived!

Well, we were traveling or shopping for the whole day yesterday, but eventually we made it to Riggins… at 11:45pm! Yes, we had problems staying on schedule, but at least we got here. We made our traditional Carl’s Jr. stop in Boise and had our customary debate over the best sandwich they offer.

Some good stories...

From the Carl's Jr. stop there was a dare that I gave Nathan Rawlins. Before walking into the restraunt, I dared him to burst through the glass doors and yell “Fire up the grills!” He did it! There was an Oregon man there who thought it was quite hilarious. Nathan said he had the firmest handshake he’s ever experienced.

            
I had a good talk with a mormon and an atheist while traveling. Feel free to pray for Jamie (the atheist) a middle aged man who worked for an accounting firm, and Annette (the mormon) who has 10 children and 25 grand children! We talked a little about God, the church, and who Jesus really was, and also about sports, and writing. 

Zach had an encounter with a Walmart employee from Russia who had a lot of questions about the difference between Mormonism and what we believe. She was comically relieved to hear that our group wasn't Mormon. 

We also met a very nice lady at the Houston airport named Urma. She was a Christian and decided to look up Ephesians 2:10, since it was on the back of our shirts. She promised to pray for us as we continue our trip. 

Finally, a quirky thing that sort of tickled everyone, was the purchase of $1.50 USB fans. They are little 1-inch fans that can be plugged into a USB port on a computer or outlet converter. Jonathan Mitchell and Joshua Salmon thought that these fans were the coolest thing ever and each bought one. When they got to Riggins they immediately ran extension cords to their beds and hooked up their fans next to their heads. I don't know why, but everyone in the group (except for me) find these fans fascinating. We'll see what comes of it.

Today we plan to get ready for church and VBS and generally prepare. I'll see ya'll tonight with an update! Please pray for the church service (I'm preaching, our students are leading praise, and we are also handling the children's and teen's Sunday school) and for VBS!

P.S. Photo compliments of Nathan!