Well, I finally have a chance to write to you about the mission trip. The adventure of the mission trip began in the preparation. I found out five weeks before the trip that I along with another person was going to be in charge of the planning and prep for the women's events. That other person was going to be gone for two of those weeks, and had a daughter graduating during that time. Which meant the bulk of the prep work would be mine. During those 5 weeks, I had two weddings, a graduation party, 2 B-day parties, 2 Dr. appointments, a 2 day convention and took my MIL to the Dr. 5x's, four of those times in the two weeks prior to the trip. All this was in addition to managing the apartments and preparing and gathering things for the event and writing a devotional/presentation for the event. Whew, I can't believe I got it done, this must be why the first thing the Lord impressed me to do was to seek prayer.
During this time a few things happened that appeared to me to be the hand of God working. One of the first ones was a miss understanding on my part as to a deadline. Thinking I had to have information submitted for 2 booklets we were putting together I was up until the wee hours of the morning, putting it together. (That I could stay up so late and put things together was amazing in and of itself.) The next day after one of my Dr. appointments I called the church staff person who was helping with the project, to see if she had any questions only to find out that the deadline wasn't that day, but she was glad to have it. That information ended up being an outline for the talk I would give. Another thing that happened during the prep was in getting seeds we would be giving to the women. On one of the trips w/my MIL, we went to Walgreens and they had both flower and vegetable seeds on clearance for 16 cents a pack. My MIL paid for them so it didn't come out of the ministry budget, an added bonus. The week before the trip my MIL gave me an envelope with money, which covered the rest of Lisa's and my expenses for the trip.
The theme of our women's events was Tending the Garden of your Heart. We made booklets w/verses from the study and basic gardening information. We also gave each attendee two seed packets and a painted, china cross. In Mc Nary, AZ, we were on White Mountain Apache Reservation. There we had a dessert night on Tue. night, with 15 local women in attendance. We received a warm reception from them. An interesting thing happened there around 6:00, an hour before the event. While franticly getting ready a women came to us and said the pastors wife told her she could do a 5-10 min presentation on diabetes.
Trying to figure out where this would fit into the event we offered to let her go first. She didn't want to do that. I pondered for a moment, and remembered that in my talk I mentioned diabetes, so we let her go after I talked and the Lord gave me a perfect segway. As part of her presentation she gave canvas bags, earlier in the day Joanna, my partner, and I were discussing bags for them to carry all the stuff we had for them, (gifts that had been donated.) The Lord provided. The next day when talking to Randy, our liaison to the pastor, he shared with me that diabetes was one of their biggest problems next to alcoholism. It's neat to see how the Lord works all these things out and we just get to watch.
While in Mc Nary we also had a team putting two roofs on in 2 1/2 days. Prior to arriving the forecast was for rain the whole time we were to be there. It rained Sun. night so the ground was wet when we arrived. We were thankful to find out that we could sleep in some buildings instead of camping. Additionally the Lord held back the rain so that it didn't hinder the roofing. The youth put on a sports camp for younger children and saw their numbers double to over 30 participants on the second day. We left Mc Nary Wednesday evening and drove to Sun Valley Christian School to spend the night and take showers. Thursday morning we left for Gallup, New Mexico and stayed and at Wildcat Christian Academy. There our Youth did activities with their youth. Our construction team painted an apartment, put in playground equipment and various other odd jobs. We also set up a sound and projection system in the Sanctuary.
On Friday night I led a crochet class and it looked like I was going to have just two, and ended up with a total of eight, ladies, teens and girls. Lisa came to my rescue and was very helpful. On Saturday we put on a luncheon for the ladies, with the same materials we used at Mc Nary. We didn't have as many in attendance here, but we were able to minister to the families that run the school and church and a few of their members. Some of our youth and our cooks joined in for a pleasant event. Some from our group also did the Sunday morning service and we stayed for their Sunday evening service w/plans to leave for Sun Valley. However those plans were changed as one of our team members got sick so we stayed in NM our last night and left early Mon. morning for our trip home. We arrived back at the church at 7:00 p.m.
Upon arriving home David and I decided to do some grocery shopping so I wouldn't have to go the next day as I knew I would have apartment business to deal with. While bringing the groceries in around 8:30, my mom called me to tell me my step-dad, George, was in the hospital. He was taken to the ER on Fri for agitation, and given a drug that was on his allergic list while being admitted. By the time I got to the hospital on Tue. afternoon his kidneys were failing. Due to prior agreements between my mom and George dialysis was not an option. He had dementia with Lewy bodies and had been in a board and care home for a little over a year. On Wed Aug. 5th he passed away at 4:30 p.m. This was the same day our 17 yr. old house quest from Colorado arrived. She will be returning home on Aug. 15th. To my prayer partners, thank you for your faithfulness in prayer. Your prayers are what strengthened me on the mission trip and has enabled me to get through the current events.
As this will also end up being a blog post, if you feel led to pray for us, and my mom Cindy, as we deal with this loss it will be greatly appreciated. Besides the memorial, tentatively scheduled for the end of September, Christmas will be especially difficult. Our tradition has been his daughter and her family coming, from out of state, for Christmas and George's son and his family joining in the afternoon for a Christmas dinner of 19 or more. The day after we would celebrated George's birthday w/a movie and a dinner of leftovers and apple pie. Thank you again for all your prayer support. May God be praised and glorified through all.
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