Missions Week: A Recap

Hey y'all! So last time, I just talked about the first three days of missions week. Now I am both happy and sad to say that the week is over. It has been incredibly exhausting but also wonderful and rewarding. I was able to create friendships with 7 great middle school girls and 19 interesting/entertaining middle school boys. (The fact that there were more boys on the trip was both shocking and encouraging. We are praying that they will continue to lead and serve as they grow up in the church.)

Day Four: We went for the last time to The Corners for Camp Outreach. We sang songs, played, and had a wonderful time. I decided that day that we should make masks out of paper plates (example pictured below) which turned out interesting... Some of the girls really enjoyed it and created beautiful butterflies, dogs, lions, etc. The boys mostly created monsters, scary pigs with bloody fangs, or angry birds. But whatever. They had a great time which is all that matters, right? Right.

Don't judge my butterfly too harshly! I was creating an example as fast as I could to help the kids! Grace people! Give me grace!

As always, after lunch we were able to just play with the kids and spend time with them. This precious girl went around and got pictures with everyone. I mean, how cute is she?? Both the kids and our Jhi students were incredibly sad that we had to leave, but thankfully some of them will be going back in a couple of weeks during Goldrush! (Goldrush is a completely student lead week-long retreat for middle school and high school students at Perimeter. Lots of other churches from around the US attend and we usually have about 1,000 students attend. You'll be hearing LOTS about this later. Oh, and that's another thing you can be praying for: the preparation for Goldrush!)

Day Five: Oh. My. Goodness. Today we took our Jhi students to White Water, the water park. We started the morning with devotions, like we did every other day this week. It was obvious, as I talked to three of the girls, that they were very effected by their experiences this week. Then we left for the park! I walked around with three of the girls which made for a perfect group. (Most rides are for 2 or 4 people.) We had a wonderful time, but I forgot how boy crazy middle school girls are! I don't know if there were 15 minutes together that we didn't talk about boys. They had code names, rankings, and loved to find them to ride rides. I was never like that, right...? Oh the things I'm learning. We arrived back at the church exhausted and I think everyone will get a great night's sleep tonight. Thanks for any prayers that y'all sent up for us!

ALSO: It was supposed to rain this entire week, and we had no plans for if it did. The Lord provided! A couple of the mornings it sprinkled a little bit, but it was just enough to keep the day cool. Then, today at White Water, at the exact time that we started heading to the vans to go home, it began to rain. Such a huge blessing!