Today was a great day. As the heat of the past weekend and first three days of VBS was pretty oppressive, God was gracious to give us all a much more moderate day on our day off, before doing VBS at night again. After breakfast we took the team on an 'adventure' that we did not tell the kids where we were going. We took them to Dave & Busters, which if you don't know, is sort of like a Chuck-E-Cheese for adults. We had a great mean and let the kids play a bunch of games. The looks on their faces was priceless as they just thoroughly enjoyed the activity, especially after a very draining first few days. Some of the images that will be permanently engrained on my mind would be Emily and Audra trying a dance type game. They both got "F's" as a grade. There is dancing and there is - not exactly! It was also quite interesting to see Kati J and Kaitlyn with large rifles shooting things in a "Terminator" game. They both looked quite amused while packing serious firepower. Oh and Erin destroyed me in a gave of basketball free throws. Seven of us also went up against one another in a driving race that Kaitlyn eventually beat me out right at the end. The day was beautiful and breezy with temperatures in the mid 80's.
Once at VBS - we had a record number of kids for the week - 20. They are getting more engaged as each day goes on. We have had a total of 27 different kids come at least one time this week. Chris taught the lesson tonight and after dinner, many of the adults who come are excited to get back upstairs themselves for the skits and lesson time. The kids have been great this week and hard working and have done anything the leaders have asked them to do. If the trip were to end today, it would have been a success.
We were able to also give some food and a small amount of cash to a couple who needed to get to a shelter in St. Paul. When we got back we celebrated as a team, Jack's birthday which is this weekend.
Please pray for Friday as that is our longest day - we have a morning rally followed by an outdoor service project of mulching some significant areas of the church property in the early afternoon, followed by our last day of VBS - then the final rally for all the sites at night when we all come together and report back on what God has done at the individual sites.
Since Friday is so full, I will not be giving an update on Friday. Saturday is our full fun day and we will be hitting Mall of America, a movie and dinner together. Sunday we lead worship again and I am preaching on Isaiah 55 which coincides with Hope Free Church's "All on the Same Page" reading plans from this past week. The sermon is called "The Great Invitation" and I will be giving an altar call at the end for people to come forward who need to come to faith or who need to get rid of the junk in their lives. Please pray that I would be Spirit filled and that God would do a great work. Please also pray for safe return as we will all be pretty tired when we hit the road.
Thank you for all of your support - we are in the homestretch but not done. Please keep the prayers coming.
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