VBS Week

I realize I haven't been posting in the last couple of days... honestly there is just too much to write. There would be 5 page long posts every day if I tried. If you'd like to get a taste for what has been happening in Riggins and Kamiah please read http://idaho2011.blogspot.com/ This is the team's blog, so you can have sample platter with that, then talk to me in person if you want to hear more stuff. Thanks for reading, I'll go back to my usual posting patter on Saturday.

June 27

Today was really cool. We had VBS at 9:30, and everybody was great at helping me practice the motions for all of the songs I was learning. I would say that I got 75% of the motions correct without too much glancing at Leah trying to check if I was doing the right thing, which, when you consider that I learned all seven songs the night before, is pretty good… in my opinion at least. After VBS I took a much-needed nap for about an hour, then went to Back-Eddy’s for some lunch where Mark and Mccoy were hanging out. Sam Runyon and I talked with them a bit, and it seemed like they were getting along pretty well. I hope to see both of them around a little more often. After the canvassing we chilled at the church for a little bit. I made up a new song to go in the Moses Musical I’ve been working on for forever, as well as how to change the modes on the synthesizer in the sanctuary. At 6:30 we went up to the football field to play games, and there were a bunch of new people who hadn’t come in the last two years. That was really great to see. I hope they all come back. We played kickball and ultimate frisbee and I learned that I enjoy ultimate a lot more when Jordan Tiff is on my team. He knows my style way too well, and when we’re on the same team he can place a frisbee in the perfect spot for me to cherry pick down field. When we’re not on the same team, he knows the perfect spot to stand to stop me from cherry picking down field. After the games we gathered on the bleachers and Jordan and Leah shared their testimonies. Then we went home had showers and had family time. It was a good night spiritually, physically, mentally and emotionally. Praise God!

June 26 (for real this time)

Let’s see, what happened yesterday… Church with the VBS team. That was fun. I lead worship and it went very, very well. Thank you to Kelsie, Leah, and Jon for working with me and being patient with my incessant practicing. (point for the vocab word) After church we headed out to the fish hatchery for the all-church picnic. We had oodles of food, as well as some fun times. Pastor Jim told me that morning that I would be doing a magic show at the picnic…. Fun surprise… It went ok, I just wish I had had a chance to practice the routine I did beforehand. I was a bit rusty. After that we did a three-lEGGed race. It’s a race concept that I created for the picnic that is a combination of a three-legged race and an egg race. So the partnered contestants had there inside legs tied together, and they also had their inside hands tied together holding a spoon with an egg on it. It was a lot of fun. After the race as a payback for the punishment I had just put upon the participants (three-lEGGed races are really hard) I allowed an “Egg Stephen Session” to ensue, in which all the kids lined up firing squad style and I was their target. It was actually really fun getting egged. The sad part was that Jordan Tiff’s wry egg got my martin case, so now it has a nice big egg splat stain on it. The guitar is safe though don’t worry. I could hear many a guitar fanatic holding his breath. After the picnic, and after I finished scraping all of the egg of my face (ba dum chhh) we headed back to the church to get ready for VBS. I got to do some freehanded drawing, which I realized that I really miss doing, and drew a statue of liberty that was nine feet tall. It turned out very well. Then I set to work learning the VBS music, had dinner, family time, chatted then headed home to Doug’s. It was about midnight last night when I realized I had no clean undergarments, so I got to wake up at 2 am 4 am and 6 am to move my loads of laundry through the cycles so that I would have something to wear today. That was my night.

June 26

too tired. will write tomorrow.

June 25

Today was a bit blah for most of it. I came to the church and did a few odd jobs… fixed the copier tray, played around with opensong, set up the stage for the worship service, things like that. At about noon I drove out to the Cornforth’s house (they live 20 miles out of town) and picked up Mike’s djembe for music practice. Then I went up to the football field and practiced hitting some golf balls by myself. I’m really doing well with my slice, If I’m concentrating on the right things the ball will go exactly where I want it to. After that I came and hung around the church until… wait for it…. THE TEAM ARROVE… arrived? Arivved?... they got here. We fed them cleaned them up a bit then practiced music and ran through some logistics for tomorrow. Can’t wait for the remainder of the week. It’s gonna be great! Please pray for us. You know what.

June 24

Today was another day of work. Started the day at the church working on finding a new program for the lyric projection. I actually found a really great free program called opensong. It is pretty amazing… you can tell from using it that it was designed by a guy who ran the projector at his church and knew all the problems that usually come with presentation software. Once I played around with that for a bit, everyone else showed up at the church and we started putting the basement back together. I moved a bunch of benches, the piano, and some pews and did some vacuuming. After all of that I went over to Buck and Jeannie Fitch’s to help with more computer stuff. They got some spyware that impersonated their security center, so it took me a while to figure out what was going on. Eventually we got it off of there and got some antispyware software installed. It took a lot longer than it should have. After that little excursion I went and had dinner with the Shoemakers. It was delicious and I met the Peytons, who are from Fort Worth originally, so I got to “talk Texas” with someone. That was real fun, and I learned a lot about the small town dynamic. After dinner I came back to the church, packed up my stuff and went home to Doug’s. Tomorrow night the team will get here and I’ll get to practice for Sunday worship with them. Please pray that all goes smoothly with their travels from Seattle to here.

June 23

PAINTING! (That was the answer for what I was doing tomorrow/today which was yesterday’s tomorrow but today’s today… confused yet?) Let me clear it up… we painted today. Much like yesterday we spent most of the day painting. Painting benches and walls was our mission, and the mission was accomplished. Also interspersed with all the painting, I got a hair cut… actually I got lots of hairs cut, not just one… as well as mowed the volleyball court again and fixed our last table. After all of this was done Pastor Jim and I went up to the football field and hit some golf balls to unwind a bit. It was fun. After that we came home to Doug’s and had the most delicious salmon I have ever had in my life. No joke--the best. Can’t see my feet it was so good. Anyway today was work filled and fun filled. Great day all around. The team leaves tomorrow morning, so again pray for safe travels and the will of God to shine through their actions this week, and every other week for that matter. Can’t wait to see them. :-)

June 22

Today was rather interesting. We did a little bit of painting then a little bit more painting… then a lot more painting. Then for a change, we painted with the dark blue paint instead of the light blue paint. After that we did some glaplainding… which is a word that I made up that means painting. I was a little bit aggravated with the paint because I worked really hard on coming up with a method of taping off a line on the wall so that the paint wouldn’t bleed under the tape as it had done with all the other methods we tried. My test piece worked great and the paint sat in a beautiful straight line on the wall, then when we tried it large scale, the paint bled like Bella swan at her birthday party at the Cullen’s house in the second book of the Twilight series, not very much. (two points for the twilight reference. Three different girls just fell in love with me. :-P ) But it was enough that the taping would not work, so I was upset. Anyway, that little failure turned me off of painting for the remainder of the day, so I went upstairs and worked on music for Sunday, because we (the vbs team) are leading the worship service this week. Anyway that’s about all I did today. Paint. Guess what I’m doing tomorrow…

June 21

The day started VERY early (6:30) due to the fact that Buck Fitch had had an idea. He convinced pastor Jim to rake all of the excess trimmings around the volleyball court into the middle and burn it, so at 7:00 we did just that. However, the morning dew prevented us from burning all of the grass. We really just gave our clothes a nice smoky scent and covered the town in what looked like a low flying cloud. We decided to let the heat of the day dry out the court and attempt to re-burn it in the afternoon. After this little expedition, we went downstairs to start the wonderful wall-painting week! My time doing the actual painting was short lived, because I spent the whole day repairing more benches, tables and bookcases. I rebuilt 7 benches, 1 table, and 1 bookshelf. I spent a total of seven hours working in Mr. Spicklemeyers woodshop. It was really fun, but also a lot of work. I must have spent an hour scraping the top layer of paint off of the table that I fixed. After this I went back to the church to do a little bit more painting, then received a call from Jeanie Fitch saying that dinner tonight was at her place, with Doug and Charlene. So at about 6:30 I showered and headed to the Fitch’s. They said that the afternoon burn went well but they want to go over the court with a harrow, so I expect they’ll be doing that in the next few days. After dinner I looked at Jeanie’s computer and helped her with an error message that was popping up then went and packed up my stuff to move back into Doug’s house. I’ll be staying with Doug until July 2^nd. We’ve got more painting to do, so please pray for speedy but good work. Also, the rest of the team will be coming up from spring. They fly out this friday, so please pray for safe travels, as well as awesome work while they're here. and lastly, pray that our eyes will be opened to God’s grace, which is so evident in all of our lives if we simply look.

June 20

Today I got a bit of a late start, because Pastor Jim was out having a father’s day breakfast with Mrs. Judy. At about 10:00 I went to the church where we prepped the big room downstairs for painting. This meant hauling out all of the furniture (including a piano… bleh) out of the room then laying down plastic on the entire floor. The room is about 60’ by 30’ so this took a while. We also had to cover each individual light fixture with plastic which was surprisingly the most time consuming of all the prep work. After the prepping was done, we went to have lunch. After lunch we went to the woodshop where I spent 4 hours fixing benches and bookshelves that we had hauled out of the room. Some of them are pretty dilapidated, so it was quite a bit of work to repair them. After those few hours we went back to the house to Skype with my parents. That was pretty much my day. Tomorrow we’ll do some more painting, so please pray for our sanity. :-)

June 19

Howdy! Church today went well. I started by whipping up a powerpoint for Pastor Jim’s sermon, then set up the lyrics for on the projector for worship. I also practiced “Inside Out” for the offertory song. The service went well and Pastor Jim’s sermon was very good. He seems to be more organized when there is a powerpoint on screen. After the service Mrs. Karen and I took pictures of people in the congregation. We’re going to put people’s pictures next to their information in the church directory this year. After that I went back to Pastor Jim and Mrs. Judy’s house (they weren’t home) and made some pizza dough from scratch, and then a pizza from that. This was when I took a nap and slept through the time that I had intended to call my dad to whish him happy father’s day. When I woke up I called home to see how the day went and talk to my dad, who happens to be the best dad in the world. Then Pastor Jim and Mrs. Judy got home and we played crazy rummy and watched a movie before heading to bed. Tomorrow we start the painting endeavor. Goodnight!

June 18

Today was one of work… in the rain. We started by riding the quads up the switchbacks behind the Smids’s ranch to scout out rocks that could be used in a fire ring. The fire ring was to be built at the “creek house” (long story… essentially, an extra house on the Smids’s property) down next to French Creek. After looking for about 2 hours we broke for lunch, then headed back out with the tractor to pick up all the rocks we had found. Most of them were about the size of breadbox and weighed about 120 pounds, which is what made the work hard. To cap that all off, the place for the ring was in a patch of sand. It’s already been established that it was raining, so the sand was wet. Let’s just say big heavy rocks, wet, sand, rain, and a not-very-well-thought-out-fire-ring-plan lead to a long, tedious and painful day. However, in the end we got the rocks arranged in a very nice looking manner. It really reminded me of Stonehenge… and the druids. No one knows who they were… or what they were doin. But their legacy lives on… hewn into the living rock of Stonehenge! Bit much? Ok… well that was the main accomplishment today. After that was done, and I had doctored all my scrapes and bruises, Linda and I drove back into town for music practice. I found out that I’ll be doing the offertory song, and I think I’m going to play “Inside Out”. Pray that it glorifies God. Pray for recuperation, and for good painting in the coming week. Thanks so much!

HIKE PICTURES!

Thumbs. All packed up and ready to go.

My second rock stack.

Me playing around on the "swing-zip"

Purple pancakes, and the purple corn it's made of.

A better view of the "swing-zip"

Linda, Patrick and Carl. Patrick is Linda and Carl's Son-in-law.

June 17

Today wasn’t so much busy as full. Carl, Linda and Patrick took me on a four-mile hike out to where a man named “Thumbs” lives. He is so named because he has an extra joint on both of his thumbs, so that they are the length of his ring finger. He really just has two extra ring fingers that happen to be opposable, and where his thumbs should be. He also lives four miles into the mountain, accessible only on foot, with his two llamas and cat. He’s definitely the textbook definition of a mega hippie, but with a degree in biochemistry. Anyway, we hiked out there to where he lives (right along Wind River) where the bridge to his land was destroyed. We looked for a place to cross but there wasn’t any place safe, so eventually Patrick shot one round off and Thumbs came running out of his cabin. He rigged up a half zip line, half rope swing to get across where the remains of the bridge were. He got across to us and talked for a while, then asked if we wanted to take the “swing-zip” back across and get the tour of his place. He eventually convinced us to go once he got a new rope to string across in addition to the one that was already there, so we helped him set that up then clambered across. That was lots of fun. After we got across the river we got the full three-hour tour…three-hour tour… of his land where he grows a variety of purple vegetables, lives in a cabin that he hasn’t cleaned in the last ten years, plays the bag pipes, and contemplates the absolute truth that the government is constantly trying to kill you and steal your stuff. He was a major talker, I suspect due to the fact that he only sees other humans about once a month.. or less. He showed us a purple pancake he made and the purple corn he made it with, which was interesting. After we got familiar with the place he mentioned that he was heading into town today and we decided to hike back with him. He spent an hour packing up the supplies he needs for a two-day trip in a backpack concocted of burlap cloth and ropes of varying thicknesses. During this time I made a “boyscout/hippie rock stack” (for lack of better words) to add to his collection and went and played around on the “swing-zip”. Then we hiked back! 8 miles through poison ivy and a tour of a “hippie commune of one” made for an interesting day. Plus dinner was great. MEAT!

June 16

Today was fun. I went to breakfast with the widow’s row and afterward I went to Mrs. Anita’s house where we made scrapbooking boxes. I really just went because Mrs. Smid was running it and I was riding with her up the mountain to her ranch. It was fun all the same. Afterward we drove up to the ranch, and it is absoutely gorgeous up here. We went riding on the quads down to where Carl is installing a hydro-electric system to run all of the power up on the mountainside. It’s such an intricate system that I was having a little bit of trouble following it. After that we did a little bit of work on wiring, then went shooting. I shot a 44 magnum… the most powerful handgun in the world. ;-) Then we had dinner and now we are sitting around talking. It’s fun and it’s a great mix of work and play. I’ll let you know tomorrow how our hike goes!

June 15

Today was a little bit unfulfilling, but in the best way possible. I was going to go and work on some benches- refurbish and paint them- but as I was walking out the door Tammi Woodsley called me to have lunch. I was delighted and went to eat, and then went and helped her with her computer (I’m becoming known as the town computer whizz) so I spent an hour talking with her and cleaning up her programs in the process. After that I was going to go to work on the benches again but Lucky called to remind me that dinner was at her house tonight, and it would be in an hour. It was just the wrong amount of time, because if I had gone out to the workshop and started working, I would only have about ten minutes before I’d have to pack up and get back for dinner, so instead I took a quick nap. Dinner was delightful. Mrs. Lucky, Mrs. Lorry, Mrs. Charlene and Doug were all there and afterward we had a good old-fashioned chat. They told stories and gave advice; it was a wonderful time. I left there around 9 o’clock, which was when I got a call from Buck and Genie Fitch, saying that the RAM they had ordered arrived earlier that day, so I went over there and installed it for them. Finally I went back to the Thibodeaux’s house, where Pastor Jim and Mrs. Judy were unpacking from the their trip to Seattle. I chatted with them for a bit and told them about what I’ve been doing, then I headed off to bed. All in all, I didn’t do the thing that I initially wanted to do, but I did get to develop some relationships, which is pretty priceless in comparison. Tomorrow is breakfast with “Widow’s row”, then I'm going up to the Smids's 30 miles up the river for the remainder of the weekend. I don't know if I'll have wi-fi up there, so if there isn't this will be my last blog post until Saturday. TTFN.

June 14

Today was fairly busy. I started the day after an interesting night (See previous blog post for reasons). I got up at around 9:30 after going back to sleep at 4:00. I had breakfast and went to the Mareck’s house to help Patrick put up a fence around his garden. He’s a cool guy. He started a rafting company here 20 years ago after a fruitful career as a structural engineer. His wife Sherry is also very nice, and it’s funny to watch them because they are both very strong willed, so their compromises rarely involve a compromise. I’ll leave it at that. They have a cute little dachshund puppy named Ruby who looks like a rat, and an old bird dog named Kipp who is near the end of her life. After helping them with their fence I went to Anita Williams’s for dinner. We had a good time, ate some pizza watched Jeopardy and played gin. She is a very fun lady. Well I’m going to bed early tonight to try and compensate for my weird sleep schedule last night. Toodles…. Yes… I just wrote “toodles”… sue me. I’m tired.

June 13

Today I had a day of relaxation and me time. I slept in until 11:00 at which time I woke up and worked on making bread again. One huge bag of flour only costs $5.00, so I’m getting a lot of good practice for my money. ;-) I made some cinnamon rolls, and a loaf of white bread. I then made the stupidest mistake I’ve made since I’ve been here. I accidentally settled down to watch a movie at 6:00. I fell asleep at 6:30 and now it’s 2AM and I’m wide-awake... Yeah. Well given what I did today (yesterday) there’s not much to report. I’ve got a bunch of work lined up tomorrow (today) so I’ll let you know how it goes.

June 12

Today wasn’t too bad in the morning. Church was fine, and Pastor Ed gave a very good sermon. I came back home afterward and practiced making bread, which turned out ok, but not quite as light as I would have liked it. I then took a nap so as to be awake for the youth night at 6:30. The youth night was an absolute disaster; although I don’t know if something that doesn’t really happen can be a disaster. Nobody came except for Mark Stokes, who showed up at 6:45. We watched a movie and chatted for a bit. I gave up at about 8:30. It was very depressing, to have blatant proof that I’m not having much of an impact on any teenagers here. I’m going to email the events list out to everybody in Riggins that I’m facebook friends with and hopefully somebody will show up for our hike on the 18^th. Please be praying for my spirits, that I don’t get discouraged. Please pray for the spirits of the kids here. I need some sort of breakthrough with them that will only be achieved through prayer. Please PRAY. That’s all for today.

June 11

This morning I went to the church at 9 and spent some time in the word, and playing guitar. After about an hour I edited a few of the slides in the lyric bank of the sound booth computer, which was very slow work. I did that for a bit then went and had lunch at home starting a load of laundry in the process. When I came back I had a message from Mrs. Fitch who was having some computer problems. In the end the solution was just to get more RAM so I helped her order some. After that I went back to the church and changed into my grunge clothes and started “weed-eating” the outside of the volleyball court. “Weed-eating” is in quotes because it was much more like mowing than “weed-eating”, mowing grass that was hip high. It took me 4 hours to mow a 20’ by 20’ area. I’ve still got about that much again left over to do, and hopefully I’ll get it done by Tuesday. Tomorrow is the next, and possibly last, Sr. High movie night. If it gets a good turn out, I’m going to tell people about all the other events I have planned and I’m a bit apprehensive about how they react to it… so please pray for that. God bless.

June 10

Well my first day without a boss went pretty well. I went to the church at 9:30, and spent an hour on the phone with Dell… I’ll leave it at that… After that little expedition (ok… I guess technically I’ll leave it at that…) I went to lunch with Mrs. Pauline. We went out to Pinehurst, a little place about 15 miles out of Riggins, where the Hacklers, who I mentioned in my post on May 18^th, run a trading post and restaurant. It’s a cool little place, and it was nice to see the Hacklers and where they work. It was also really good to get to know Mrs. Pauline a little bit better. After lunch I went back to the church and did some pressure washing. One of the things Pastor Jim wants me to do while he’s away is get the church parking lot pressure washed. I did that for about an hour when Bruce Bovey and Carl Smid drove up and unloaded a bunch of gear. It turned out that they were going to be hanging the house monitors from the ceiling. I spent the next 4 hours climbing around in the church rafters helping them to get that job completed. They look great, and having the monitor stands out of the way really keeps the stage looking less cluttered. Once that was done I headed home to grab a shower before the Jr. High game and movie night. There were three kids who came, and it was a good time. We played Wii then watched “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. I actually feel a lot more comfortable having the Jr. High youth night, because I am enough older than them to be an authority figure instead of just a friend. It makes it a lot easier to guide the night where it needs to go when I’m not just one of the teens at the event… and I still have a lot of fun. Afterward I cleaned up, then came home. I’ll probably make the volleyball court my project tomorrow, unless it’s raining, in which case… I don’t know. Pray for guidance, peace of mind, and a fun Sr. High Youth Night on Sunday evening. That’s when I’ll be telling people about all of the other events that will go on this summer. Pray it goes over well. Thanks for reading, and praying.

June 9

Boy am I tuckered out. Woke up at 7:30 to go to the widows’ breakfast where every old lady told Kate (one of the owners of “Cattleman’s”, where the breakfast is held) to put my breakfast on their ticket, none of them hearing the one before them offer and find that it was already taken care of by Bernice. After breakfast I went to the church and started calling places that I will be taking the youth through the summer. I spent about an hour working on that before pastor Jim took me out to show me the pressure washer. After a while of doing odd jobs and random tasks around the church we went to Pastor Jim’s house for lunch. Once we were fed we talked about paint schemes for the rooms downstairs. Later we went back to the church where I did some work compiling a list of furniture prices for chairs and tables to replace the ones in the basement. It took a while but I eventually got a good list together and it was right as I finished that we went to Doug’s for dinner. Pastor Jim, Mrs. Judy, Doug, and I had ribs, which were delicious. It was a fun evening but after dinner it was back to work. The Thibodeaux’s are leaving for their grand daughter’s christening in Seattle, so I’ll be house sitting for them for four days while they’re gone. The remainder of the evening was spent learning the ins and outs of their house, so I’ll know where everything is and how to water the lawn… things of that nature. It will be my first chunk of time at the church without Pastor Jim supervising me, so please pray that I stay motivated, and don’t blow anything up while they are away!

June 8

This morning I slept in a bit, because I had gone home so late last night. I didn’t go to the church until 9:30 where I did a lot of office work. I was working on organizing all of the events I’m planning on doing with the high schoolers. Hiking trips, camping trips, Zim’s Hot springs, bowling, beach days and other things. I was setting dates and times and looking online for various rates and fees and what not. After that I went over to Mrs. Katie’s house and installed more RAM on her desktop. Afterward she took me to lunch at Cattleman’s for payment. It was nice. Once back at the church, I was put to work painting cabinets that Pastor Jim had been fixing up. That took about an hour, and once done I went back to work planning events. I also drew up a sign up sheet because we are going to redo the church directory with new addresses and pictures, so the congregation needs to sign up for picture times. For dinner I went to Buck and Genie Fitch’s house. We played games and listened to music afterward and I went home around 10:00. It was really fun. Tomorrow holds pressure washing… we’ll see…

June 7

Today was pretty cool. Started the day by going to the church to have a devotional with Pastor Jim. Afterward I came over and met with Mrs. Judy. She taught me how to make bread, which is something I’ve always wanted to do in the back of my mind but never really had the presence of mind to mention. I made a cinnamon loaf, a white loaf, and dinner rolls from scratch. It was tons of fun and now I’ll be baking up a storm in my apartment next year. In return I taught her how to organize the photos on her computer and explained some computer basics so she doesn’t feel so lost every time she sits down at her desk. After that I set up her new computer (which came with the new one for the sound system) and had an unpleasant surprise during. The computer did not come with the WLAN driver installed, as the last one did, and I tried to download it myself, but had the wrong driver, so I spent an hour on the phone with 3 different support people from India, registering the computer before they would let me ask the simple question, “Which is the correct driver?” In the end I got it all working, and got all of her pictures on the new one. After that I experienced a small town church board meeting. It was cool because, all of the people who were helping out at the yard sale, and fixing lights, and doing trash dump runs were the people on the board. I think that simple fact epitomizes the small town church. The board members are the ones out doing the service labor. After the meeting I went back to Pastor Jim’s house and worked some more on the computer, then we played crazy rummy late into the night. It’s really late now, so I’m goin to bed. Planning on starting the painting downstairs tomorrow. I'll put pictures up tomorrow.

June 6

Today was pretty cool. Monday is my day off, so I slept in until 10:30. After waking, I spent a few hours cleaning up the RV and stripping the bed and what not, because it was my last day at Mrs. Williams’s. I’m staying with Doug Crump, one of the coolest old guys in the world. He’s survived three bouts of cancer, was at Iwo Jima, and is the core of Riggins. He opened the Chevron Station, and now his son is Mayor, and his grandson runs the station that he started. He’s also a great grandfather. I came over and settled in at Doug’s at 3:00, then went and had dinner with Dan and Kris Catherman. They are also really cool people. Dan works at the Chevron Station as the small motor mechanic, and he’s a self-proclaimed “junk man”. He invented his own machine for mining gold, and he built himself a sauna, and a smoke house and some other stuff. He has the imagination and heart of a young man, and I really think he’ll be a key in youth ministry around town after I leave. After dinner I went to the church and had some devotional time, after which I worked on the paint designs for all the remodeling we’re going to do downstairs. Then I came back and visited with Doug before heading off to bed. Can’t wait for the rest of this week. It’s going to be fun. Tomorrow Mrs. Judy is going to teach me to make bread, and I’m going to teach her how to organize her photos in her computer!

June 5

Just got back from our second youth game/movie night. It was ok, not as good of a turn out as last week, but there were some people out of town, and some car trouble. We had five people, two of which weren’t there last week, so it was good and bad. The only problem is that I have a bunch of food that didn’t get eaten. I’m going to plan our next one with a bit more head notice so that more people can plan on coming. I’m also getting a little bit further on my Jr High game night, which I’m hoping will happen some time next week. I did however forget that Pastor Jim and Mrs. Judy will be leaving town on Thursday and won’t be back until Monday, so it might have to be postponed… but I’m going to see if I can do it even though they won’t be here. Earlier today I ran the computer for the service, and we are trying to figure out who can take over the computer once Jon, the high school graduate who has been running it, leaves for college. After church Larry and Joyce Barnard took me on their four-wheeler up cow creek, and we had a picnic on top of the mountain. It was so gorgeous, and a lot of fun. We got back around 4:30, which is when I went shopping for out youth night food and prepared some snacks and things for the night. Please be praying for a good turn out at our next few game nights/get-togethers, as well as someone to come forward from the congregation who can take over the roll of church techie. As always, God bless and thanks for your prayers.

The view half-way up the mountain. Pretty huh?

Larry and Joyce Barnard on the way up.

June 4

Today Pastor Jim and I went to the “Big Water Blow Out” in the morning, which is when all of the rafting companies come and give rides down the river for pretty cheap, and it goes really fast because there’s really high water this time of year. We didn’t go down the river, but we went and saw the tents and merchandise they were all selling. Afterward we went to the church and had a planning session for what we want to do with the Sunday school rooms in the basement. We’re going to be doing a lot of painting and refurbishing in the next week to get them ready for VBS week. We also picked up some pressure sprayers that dispense weed killer. We spent the afternoon spraying the overgrown sand volleyball court with poison. After about a week we’ll go and pull all of the dead weeds and till the sand in the court to get it playable. Once we were done spraying, we went inside and talked with Bruce, the music minister, about the new computer/projection system. Then I tried to put the magic TV Cabinet on ebay, and as it turns out… ebay is stupid. Evidently craigslist is the way to go. I’ll be doing that tomorrow. That is, in between four wheeling with a member of the congregation, and having our second youth night. Pray for awesome times in the next few days!

Pastor Jim after we played golf in Boise.

The kayakers we saw on our way into Boise.

These were class 5 (the highest) rapids

My toyota... in the day time. Those are paint chips... not bird.

June 3

Today was a little slow. I went to the church at 10:00 and worked on the senior retreat brochure to completion. Then Pastor Jim and I went to Lucky’s house and sang to her. It was pretty fun. We played some of the old classics… Come Thou Fount, In The Garden, Blessed Assurance and a few others. I also worked on an arrangement of It Is Well that I think I’m going to record next chance I get. After that we had dinner at Pastor Jim's, courtesy of Mrs. Judy, and I watched an episode of Scooby Doo with Matthew. Then I went back to the church and set up the new stuff that I had bought for the Wii while I was in Boise. That was all we did today. I’m planning the next youth night hang out, so I’ll keep you posted on how that goes.

June 2

June 2

Well today was fun. We started the day by packing up Pim and Pam’s house and left Boise around noon. It wasn’t a bad drive actually. I slept for half of it. We got to Cascade and picked up Pastor Jim and Mrs. Judy’s grandson, Matthew. That boy sure can talk, but he’s funny and a cute little kid, and fun to play pretend with. When we got back to Riggins Matthew and I played for about an hour while Pastor Jim unloaded the car and Mrs. Judy made dinner. After dinner Pastor Jim dropped me off at the motor home and I’m getting ready for bed now. I’m planning another teen night soon, so be praying for that if you could, as well as general boldness on the part of the few Christian teens here in Riggins. I also have a few middle-schoolers interested in arranging a game night for their age group, so pray for the younger teens to come out of the woodwork and have some fun when that happens. Thanks so much for reading, as always. God bless.

May 30, 31 and June 1

May 30

Today there was pretty much nothing going on. I slept in, woke up at 11:00 and packed; we left for Boise at 3 o’clock. We Got to Boise at around 7:00 and grabbed a pizza then went to Pim and Pam’s house, which they are lending us for our time in Boise. After eating we went and saw a dollar flick, “The Adjustment Bureau”, then came back and got some sleep.

May 31

Today was one full of shopping. Mrs. Judy and I went out in the morning to get shoes. I Bought new sneakers, and hiking boots. We also went to Gamestop, where I got some stuff for the Wii. At around lunchtime, we went and picked up Pastor Jim, and had Chinese buffet for lunch. After that I had my first Costco experience. I wasn’t too extremely impressed simply because I couldn’t get past the membership thing. But it was an ok place. After that it was just a bunch of running around Boise for different errands.

June 1

Today was fun. Pastor Jim and I went to play golf with an old friend of his named David Minnick. He was a really nice guy, and we had a lot of fun. After golf we met up with Mrs. Judy. And went to Costco for lunch. Cheap food. Large portions. Good combination. Afterward Pastor Jim took me back to the house and I took a “nap”. I guess I didn’t realize how tired I was, because I slept for four hours. I got up at 8:30, played cards with Mrs. Judy and ate dinner, then headed back to bed. It was a very fun day. Golf and sleep. These are a few of my favorite things. :-)