The BBC

I have started writing this post several times, only to get stuck or be at a lost for the right words to describe what went on the first day at the back yard bible club. As I get farther away from the events of those days, the details all start to run together. What happened on which day? what all did we really do to fill those hours each afternoon? How did God work and what was accomplished? Whenever I start to put it down in type, my words don't seem to paint an accurate picture of how God moved in our hearts and in the hearts of those we served. So, I'll try again and see if I can get some organized thoughts about our first afternoon at the apartments.

Our BBC leaders, CF and AW did an amazing job getting things prepared. It was a really big job! They made our daily plans for everything from crafts to story time to object lessons. They gathered all the supplies and had everything organized by days so that we only had to take the supplies we needed for that day. They were truly a gift from God!

That first day, we were immediately greeted from kids running from their apartments in mass to our vans. Even before we opened the doors, they were there and ready to go. We started by going into a room adjacent to the manager's office, which was where in our planning we thought we might do a lot of our activities. It was large enough to hold 30 people and it was air conditioned. What we didn't already know was that it was going to be filled with desks. We also quickly discovered that it was also very dirty and quite loud when you put thirty or more people in it. But we thought we would give it a try. Some of us worked on name tags for the kids, while others began setting up for the other activities. Fairly quickly we were ready to begin.

My job on day one was to tell the bible story and truly it was quite a fiasco! The room echoed every noise and people were coming and going in every direction. I went on way, way, way too long (where is John with the prayer music to signal me to wrap it up when I REALLY needed it!!). One bright spot in the story time was that the Baytree kids did enjoy being covered with "spot" stickers and wrapped in police tape! See, we were doing the story of the 10 lepers and we put spots on the kids who had "leprosy".

However chaotic and crazy some moments of the first day where, though, I must say that day was overall very successful. Yes, if you had been there to assess the effectiveness of our organizational structure or our systematic methods you would have not used the word "successful", or anything close to it. Yet, God is much more interested in the heart of those who do deeds in His name and the level of love and kindness shown. And in those areas, the mission team received an "A+" for the day!

Our own kids jumped right in and served and loved those children as though had been friends for years. They endured heat and craziness and helped where ever they could. Our adults hugged and loved every child they could, showing patience and compassion every where you looked. And each child that came to the BBC had a great afternoon of fun! (By the way, day two went much, much smoother! Our expert leaders knew what we were dealing with and adjusted to our environment with great success!)

The most bitter sweet moment came when it was time to leave. We packed our supplies and loaded up. I never ever expected our exit to be so complicated...the kids, on that very first day, did not want us to go. They hugged us and hung on to us. Kids climbed into the van we were in, refusing to leave us...asking to go with us.

As soon as we would get three out of the van, two more would find their way in. One little girl held onto the bumper and wouldn't let go. At one point, a young girl, maybe 5 years old had climbed into the van. I looked down at this little girl who looked back at me with her arms up as she cried "I want to go with you". Almost immediately an older child helped this little one out of the van, the door shut and my heart broke into pieces.

Oh, how these kids longed to be loved and wanted! The true mission of our trip was never more apparent to me than it was at that moment. We were to love them the way that Jesus Christ loves us...we were to treat them the way He treats us...we were to look at them the way He looks at them...we were to do everything we could, through the power of the Holy Spirit to use our remaining time to point them to the hope that we have, not because of what we have or where we come from, but because of who we belong to!

Sappy I know, but it is the truth.

Morning - Day 2

The next day we started off right with a hot breakfast, devotion and then some preparation and practice before packing up and heading back to the apartments...

Do you like the condensed version of the morning? Some great friends gave me major grief at lunch today about rambling on, and on, and on in detail (all in good fun!) so I am trying to be a little less "wordy"! Enjoy it while it lasts... I am sure I can't do it for long!

The Running W

Our next and last stop on that first night was to the place that we would be staying during the week. It was called "The Running W". Let me ask, what kind of images does that conjure up in your mind? Does the word Bonanza come to mind??

It took us about 30 minutes to get from the church we were at, which was .6 miles from our mission location, to the Running W. We were mainly on interstate, with some time on two lane road, but the very end of our journey led us down the bumpiest road I have ever been on in my life! At the urging of JR, the kids learned to love riding down that road. (They pretended that they were on a roller coaster ride and rode with hands in the air, yelling in joy!) Those of us over the age of 16 weren't quite so fond of it! JG, who often rode in the back seat of the van gets the best sport award. No joke, one time she started with a full glass of water at the beginning of the road and ended with an empty one, and never even had a sip!

The Running W is located on a horse farm. The owners had a huge warehouse that they were no longer using. They decided to turn it in to a place where people like us could come and have an very inexpensive place to stay. It was absolutely perfect for a group like us. There were two rooms loaded with bunk beds. There was a central area with pool tables, eating areas and sofas. There was a TV, which we only turned on twice for two movie times. There was a loft with a ping pong table. There was a kitchen and bathrooms. They even had a pool and a basketball court. There were some critters that I hesitate to mention, but really to get the full effect you need to know that as well. My sister said we should have been thankful for the bats, because they would have eaten other things that would have been considered pests!!

The kids had hours and hours of fun just hanging out at the Running W...no electronic devices required!

We Are One in the Bond of Love

Our first night on mission included a visit to a church. The music minister at this church was a friend of our friend who is a minister on staff at our church, Dr. D (I bet he would like being called that...sounds like some kind of super hero or something). The church planned an ice cream and dessert fellowship for their members and for us. Everything was delicious! There were tables of homemade desserts and all kinds of ice cream. By the way, if you have never had homemade banana ice cream I would highly recommend it!

The kids were thrilled to be greeted with desserts and treats. These good baptists certainly did know how to cook (and churn ice cream!) As we were eating, the kids made there way around the room and talked to many of the church members that were there. I was so proud of all of them! They were polite and enthusiastic, easily making conversation with people of all ages.

We then did a skit for them and JR and Dr. D shared with them our hope and our purpose in coming to their county. (Dr. D also told a really funny joke...I'll save that for another post!) After the time of sharing, their members made a circle around our team and prayed for us. It was very moving to hear the voices of people that we had known less than an hour, lifting our group up in prayer and asking our Lord to use us for His glory and purpose! I know that their prayers made a difference.

We finished our time there by letting our kids expend some energy on their playground equipment, while we adults talked about what was going to be for dinner... Okay, this is my kind of trip - dessert first, dinner later! while we were talking, some of the members who had helped with the food gave us leftover spaghetti sauce which R and S used to fix us a delicious meal.

Moral of this story (or for those of you familiar with our Sunday morning ministry...the bottom line for today is) don't ever minimize the impact you can make in the body of Christ by showing hospitality, by being kind, by sharing what you have with some one else, by praying for others. God used that time to prepare us in many ways for what was getting ready to come. (Okay, that was too long for a bottom line, but you know what I mean!)

Warm Welcome

One of the things that we as a team and also we, as a family had been praying about was that God would prepare the hearts of the people at the apartment complex for our arrival. Personally, I tried to imagine how these folks would receive a bunch of strangers in a church bus coming into their home and telling them about Jesus. In my mind, it didn't always go so well!

But our prayers were answered far beyond what we could imagine and from the moment we arrived, our team was welcomed literally with open arms.

The purpose of our first trip to the apartments was to hand out fliers and also deliver a bag of groceries to each apartment. As we pulled in, the residents who were out side waved and smiled. It wasn't long before many of the kids who lived there were outside with us, helping us go door to door. They wanted to be a part of what we were doing, eagar to carry the bags or just walk along side us.

And isn't that what it is all about...we weren't team of people swooping in to deliver these folks from their life of woes. We were just people of different ages and backgrounds, who had been sent by our Lord to walk along side these precious families and share with them the hope that we had found in Jesus Christ.

Does Anybody Look Good in Pale Khaki?

Just one question...who picked the color of these shirts? The ladies on our trip have a suggestion...next year let's go with red. Okay, really any color but this one!!

It Didn't Take Long to Figure Out...

Here comes lunch!!
Waiting for a turn in the line.
The Amazing "S." talking to D.
J3 is glad to be out of the bus!

I don't know about you, but I had no idea that I could go on a mission trip and get spoiled!! Yes, that is right - spoiled rotten as a matter of fact! Can you imagine a week where you don't have to put a moments thought into one meal, one snack or one dirty dish! No, it didn't take me long to figure out that God had been at work in every single solitary detail of this trip!! Everyone who was there had a purpose and an important part in what God was going to do! Truly, beyond just being spoiled, S. and R.'s service gave the rest of us so much more time to put our focus in a different area and was such a vital part of our mission trip being a success! Their servants heart was an incredible example to us all!

The trip to Jasper County was going to take about 3 1/2 to 4 hours, so it was decided that we would stop at a rest area along the way and have lunch. Well, after we stopped and S.and R. showed up with their trailer and coolers, it truly didn't take me long to figure out that we were going to be eating good all week long! S. and R. are a married couple who came along on the trip to prepare our food, so that we could spend our time doing other things. And boy was it good food. Everything we had was delicious and well thought out. For example, at our stop along the way, they had several choices of sandwiches with smaller sizes for the kids. They had every condiment you would need and a platter of really good tomatoes, lettuce and onion. They had chips, drinks and homemade cookies for dessert. Nothing was left undone or even half way done! And it was like that all week!! AW said it best.."I had no idea I could go on a mission trip and gain 5 pounds from eating so good!" And then to top it off, they handled most of the clean up too!! We did divide the kids into clean up teams to wipe down tables and help with clean up, but for the most part everything was taken care of!