May 19 & 20

Howdy! Yesterday was a pretty good day. I went to breakfast with “the senior’s” group at Salmon River Community Church (SRCC) and a few of their friends. It was actually a lot of fun. Old people with funny old people stories make for a fun morning. After that I went to the church and set up their new wireless printer, a feat that baffled the breakfast table, and I tore down their old computer to be packed up for the garage sale. There was something else I did yesterday that I can’t remember at the moment. After that I came home to my RV and played guitar for a few hours, working up some hymns mostly. Then it was off to bed.

This morning Pastor Jim and I started the day with a trip to the church to practice some of the hymns I had worked up and a general guitar session. We’re going to go around to some of the houses of people from the church and play them some music later on. It was then that Mr. and Mrs. Fitch called with the news that Mrs. Fitch’s mother had fallen this morning and broken her hip, as well as cut her arm up pretty bad, so Pastor Jim and I went over to their house and prayed with them. She’s 89 years old and there have been a few complications with her treatment because she has a rare blood type. If you could please keep her in your prayers I know that the Fitch’s would appreciate it. After we left the Fitch’s we picked up an antique stove for the garage sale and went and mowed a lawn in town for a couple who is out of town. After that we went and met with the Folwells about what sort of vision they had for the youth and where I was going to be fitting in at the church. It was nice talking to them to get an Idea of where they are with the teens at the church. Then, to cap off the day, we went up to the high school and watched the Riggins adult softball game which was a lot of fun. We met a young man from Germany named Johaness. He was biking across the states and had come all the way from Virginia. It was really cool to talk to him and see where he’d come from.

May 18

Today was a pretty busy day. I met Mrs. Anita Williams this morning who is the absolute softest eighty-three the world has ever seen, and spunky and energetic enough to come up with a simile here... which I obviously don't have the energy for... let's just say she's really spunky and energetic. Then we went to the church and sorted through all of the stuff that has been donated for the upcoming garage sale. There were A LOT of boxes and it took about 3 hours to haul them all inside, repack them and hall them back out to the shed.

On a side note, I had my phone interview with Paul Scrabeck about the Dangerous Men Man Up Advanced Training and I will officially be going to Colorado right after I'm done here in Riggins.

After the the garage sale sorting at the church (of which I I will post a few pictures later, courtesy of Mrs. Judy) I met up with a guy named Mark here in town and met a few other people who go to the High School.... Jordan and Caleb Hackler, who seem really nice. I also got to see Hannah Cornforth who has evidently been anxiously awaiting my arrival. It was really nice to see the old faces and meet the new people, and I can't wait to get to know them all better.

After Mark showed me around the Assemblies of God Church, across the street, Pastor Jim, Mrs. Judy and I went to Mrs. Williams's to have dinner. She cooked us some great burgers and we talked about her recent trip to California and all sorts of other fun things.

I'll try to snap a picture of Mrs. Williams some time as well as the rest of them. Can't wait to see what tomorrow holds... particularly since Mrs. Williams is taking me to breakfast with all of her friends...

Pictures!

Welcome to Riggins

I’m on the flight right now and Rob and I are SOO tired. Waking up at 3:45 to get on a plane does that to you. So far everything is going well. No problems with our flights or anything like that. I’ll write more when we get to our layover in Salt Lake City.

We’re landing in Salt Lake City!

Well now we’re in the air, and I was going to post this while in the air on the plane’s wifi… but I didn’t want to pay six dollars for it. I’m a little bit worried because when I got on the plane the flight attendant told me to leave my guitar next to the door at the end of the bridge, I just hope somebody put it on the plane!

Rob and I just stopped at the Carl's Jr. for lunch and the blue turf at Boise State's football stadium. Pictures to come. It was pretty cool, and I'm ready for the drive to Riggins!

I’m in Riggins!!! My guitar got off fine, and I am so excited that I am here. Rob and I had dinner with Pastor Jim and Mrs. Judy, and we went on a quick tour around town.

I’m staying in a mobile home belonging to a lady named Mrs. Anita Williams and it’s really amazing. I’m going to post a picture of it later. The weird thing is that she isn’t here yet, and she won’t be here until Wednesday. We also visited a man named Don and Pastor Jim showed us the work that they’ve done on Don’s new house. Their building a porch and they cleaned out the inside and a lot of other stuff. Well that’s all I have now. I’ll write more tomorrow!

It’s Tuesday now and we had a full day. Drove to McCall with Pastor Jim, Mrs. Judy and Rob to go and visit a lady in the hospital, then did some shopping while we were there. This afternoon we went to a performance/fundraiser that the elementary students put on called the Spring Fling. None of the pictures I took turned out well so I deleted them, but the kids were really cute, and Pastor Jim had taught a few of them a song on guitar. Lots of the kids I recognized from VBS, so it was cool to see them again. I also saw Jill Folwell, Charles Swan, and Megan Long, who I had met from last year, so it was really cool to catch up with them a little bit. That’s all for now! Thank your for reading and for your continued prayers!

57 hours!

We’re getting down to the wire now. I leave on Monday morning. 57 hours from now! It’s so crazy to think that it’s already here! I met with Rob today and we talked a little more about “stuff we’re doing”. Something new is that I will be moving around between different houses while in Riggins, instead of staying with Pastor Jim the whole time. Lot’s of it was just talking about what I’m going to be doing while I’m there, which you probably have a good idea of already if you’ve read all my posts. Rob also showed me a cool website that really gives a good defense for why we do rural mission trips like this instead of just international ones. http://rhma.org/index.php/resources If you have time I would suggest reading the articles on this page. Well that’s all for now. I’ll be having more frequent blog posts when I get to Riggins so keep your eyes pealed for new info!

Update!

Well we’re getting closer to the day I leave and God is working wonders.

I have purchased my plane ticket so I have an official arrival date. I will be leaving on May 16 at 6:30am and arriving on May 16 at 11:30 am. If you all could pray for safe travels I would greatly appreciate it.

One last thing that has happened since I last posted is that due to some of the summer school scheduling and what not, Jacob Trimm, the young man who was going to be interning at Kamiah, will not be going this summer. This is both a blessing and a disappointment. It’s a blessing because we are able to focus on only one intern. Since this is such a new idea, a project that has never really been tested things are bound to go wrong, and it will be much easier to fix the things that go wrong with only one intern making the mistakes. We will be able to focus the trip’s scope and be much better prepared when another student does what I’m doing next year. It is a disappointment though, because it means that Kamiah won’t get the experience of having a youth intern, and the youth there still won’t have a solid foundation in Christ. However, I’m sure that this is all according to God’s plan, and if He wanted Jacob to be in Kamiah, then He would have made it so.

Those are all the updates I have for you now. Thank you so much for being with me as I do this! God bless.

Spring Retreat

This past weekend the youth group had their spring retreat. We spent a weekend at the church just working together and loving God. Brian Aaby came down and led the weekend in teamwork and confidence building exercises. It was a total blast. Not only did we all get better at sharing our faith with others, we also grew closer as a group. From the crazy whiffle ball games, to the “speed evangelism” to writing and recording testimonies to be played at the larger Youth Mark spring retreats. We definitely got to know the people we were going to be working with this summer and now we can play better to each other’s’ strengths. I’m really excited now; it gave me an extra motivation to really get some work done before the group gets to Idaho, so that they’re work will yield even more results.