Time for a Picnic

This is my fifth summer being here on the Rez, and this week I did something new.  Instead of heading over to the Granberry house in the morning to cook for the teams,  I picked up youth girls to work at the new church building.  When we arrived Monday morning there were two large piles of 2x6's.  When we pulled away on Friday afternoon, there were 9 brand new,  half primed, picnic tables.  Six girls worked with me and Bob throughout the week to create the masterpieces.  They worked very hard learning to use tables saws and drive screws.  I was learning along side them from our enthusiastic teacher, Bob.  The best part is we sweat and labored for our church.  These tables will be used to feed  a lot of people many meals.  I am so proud of the work they did.   And they are proud too!

L-R: Bob, Yaanibaah, Tionna, Riata, and Felicia

Promotion Party

This week we promoted our graduating fifth graders into the Youth Group.  On Monday evening we gathered with them at the new church building to celebrate their entrance into the youth group.  We played games, ate lots of food, did some praise and worship, and handed out our official youth group T-shirts to ten kids.  We talked to them about the privileges of being in Youth Group, which includes fun events and the possibility of being in a D-group.  We also talked about the responsibilities of being in youth group, which include serving and cleaning up the meal at Tuesday Bible study and helping run kids club.  They were all very excited to finally be considered a part of Youth Group.  At one point I was eating ice cream with one of the girls and I asked if she was having fun.  She said, "This is the best day of my life!"

At the end of the night the girls were all huddled around me and I told them that we would be having a Baptism service soon.  So they started asking me questions about what baptism was.  One of the girls, Judy, was just baptized in our baptism service two weeks ago and she started telling them all about it.  I really enjoyed the few moments I had with the girls close around me talking about baptism.  I am looking forward to getting those girls into Discipleship groups sooner rather than later.  I am excited to see this group of kids grow over the next few years into our youth group leaders.