Hi everyone. Today we rode in the rain (even me!). Then we came back to camp for lunch. We had a crew go to the church to finish painting and another crew go to Hiawatha Camp to do some work. At Hiawatha Camp, we moved brush to make the camp look nicer. Afterwards, we were allowed to swim at their beach because we had 2 certified lifeguards with us. We had a lot of fun on the blog at their beach. Then back to camp for supper and campfire. John and Judy, our hosts, have really blessed us with yummy meals, despite what jokes the students have been making. We will be back tomorrow about 5:00 pm.

This picture is one of the areas we cleaned the brush out of.

I got in a crazy bike accident today, and it was SWEET!!! Except That I have so much stupid gauze tapish stuff that I can barely move. I just made the sweetest fire in the history of fires!!! It was like art or something. We had this amazing food tonight and then brownies!! I FEEL A LITTLE WACKED OUT RIGHT NOW. Ooops. Stupid caps lock. If mi Madre can give me a ride from RBC tomorrow then I should be there around 5 P.M. And if she can’t she should talk to my Aunt Shannon. Just thought I would throw that out there. Everybody, pplleeelaaassseeee pray for clear sky’s tonight. I miss yaaallllllllllllll. Caleb

Hey heyyy. I am having a fantastic time here…. at fat camp. But sssssssssshhhhhhh that’s confidential if-i-told-you-I’d-have-to-kill-you material… if they find out that we figured out their top secret plot to thin us out, they’ll probably reduce our 100 calorie packs of cheez-its to 50 cals. They already taunt us by dangling pizza in front of our face while we are forced to split a fiber bar four ways. Not to mention the fact that we kill 70 bazillionjilliongillion calories per bike ride. But okay peeps so for shizzle dizzle here’s the low down on our starvage: There was no mission trip – this was just a ruse to make us bike our lives away and tend to their every whim. They purposefully wait for it to rain, and then send us on our way in a torrential downpour. The other day while we were biking a 10000000 mile bike ride, I witnessed my very close and a-week-ago-sane friend fight for his life over a half of a road-killed seagull. This is serious business folks. The same night, after trying my hardest to stuff myself with next-to-none calorie food and coca cola *zero*, I managed to escape my highly guarded tent with my mates and hunt our dinner with my newly found machete (also known as a 10 dollar pocket knife) named Junior. We ate good that night… fruit bat. Yummmmyyy. I’ve heard rumors that if we don’t burn another gazillion cals tonight during a grueling game of capture the flag, they’ll “accidentally” sabotage the bus so it breaks on the way home, and make us bike back to RBC. Of course by that time I’m sure we’ll have thrown ourselves to the massive killer bears to put us out of our misery…so it’s all good.

Peace out cub scouts.

~Bri

I’ve got a feeling that tonight’s gonna be a good night…That tonight’s gonna be a good night…That tonight’s gonna be a good, good night. I feel it. Woohoo.

Reina

Say “hello” to Seattle for me.

John

Nikki asked me a few days ago if I wanted to write something on the blog. I told her that I didn’t have anything to blog yet and kinda went on with what I was doing. The truth was that I had no clue why I was even still here.

This past march I was in a car accident. I was on my way to practice for a play I was in when a biker swerved in front of me and I hit him. Three days later he died, he was 12 years old. After that I struggled with so many things, but one was that I had planned on coming on this missions trip, and hadn’t even learned to bike yet. For a while I just assumed that God wouldn’t want me to come, since even the thought of getting on a bike brought back pictures and sounds that I never wanted to remember. But God had a better plan. After talking to a counselor (and practically begging my wonderfully protective parents), I decided to start training to come here.

For the first few days of the trip I struggled. I rode along with everyone else (well maybe a tad bit slower…) but still felt lost, like I wasn’t quite sure what God was trying to teach me, or why I couldn’t have just worked through things at home. Today I got my reason for coming.

I was helping to paint the sanctuary in the church we’re partnering with up here (funny enough, the name of this church is “the church”), and, because there were so many of us working, I had run out of things to paint. So I wandered around for a while trying to find something else to help with, and ended up finding a few of the other students talking with the pastor of “the church”, Joe, and his wife Kay. After talking for a while the accident came up, and I told Kay about what had happened.

Kay and Joe have been through their share of hard times as well, including Joe suffering from PTSD and having panic attacks bad enough to put him in the hospital, and just hearing that someone understood some of the pain I’m feeling brought me to tears of relief. Kay went on to talk to me about God’s plan, and how everyone has an appointed time to die. She told me that God wouldn’t have put me in a situation like that if he didn’t know I was strong enough to get through it (with his help of course). She talked about turning to God in times of need and how important it was that I stay in the word and keep my eyes on Him. The last thing she told me was that whenever Joe started having a hard time he would read Philippians, and thought that maybe that would help me.

So on the bus ride back to camp I took out my bible and started to read Philippians. I discovered another person who understood.

Paul, writing from his jail cell, talks about suffering for Christ. He talks about life and death, and how he almost longs for death just so he can finally be with his savior. But then he talks about Jesus. He reminds us of the example that Jesus gave us, of serving one another and suffering for the faith so that others might believe. Finally he concludes the passage by charging the Philippians to continue to push forward in their faith and to go on with out complaining or arguing or focusing on themselves.

This trip has given me a kick in the pants. To know that no matter what you’re going through or how hard things get, the big picture is not about me. Yeah there are times when I need to heal, and I need to be alone with my God, but those times should not consume my life. My reason for living has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with a loving God who wants to use me to show his love to those he’s created. So, as I start a new chapter of my life, heading off to college and becoming an adult, I am challenged to live not for myself, but for God’s Glory.

- Kieron