Friday was the last day, it was fun.  I hadn't mentioned this about Thursday, but we again only had about 4 kids @ the lake.  But today, we had 14, out of nowhere!  How awesome is our God!  All the kids that were there for the first time had told us, we wish we were here this whole week!  I know for a fact we definitely made an impact on here hearts!  I remember one little girl saying, this was so much fun, I'm coming back tomorrow.  After she found out this was the last day, she said, then I'll come back next week, we told her we wouldn't be here next week, so she told us she was going to come next year!  Lol.  We know that this is not a style of immediate results, but we do know this is a flame that we are starting, something we are implanting in them, that may some day be a bright burning fire, yearning for our amazing King!!!

One other blip, I wanted you guys to know…  Last year, if you didn't know, Kristina was crowned as the most injured person.  There were many on this list… this year, Caitie was attempting to steal that crown and away.  Today, while we did the VBS@ the lake, Mike W drove her into Verdon, about 25km west of ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Oak Lake, to the hospital.  What for you ask?  She accidentally sprayed herself in the eye w/ bug spray.  Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, the masqeeeters, are BAD!  Not big, just really really bad!!!  So, as a result of the bug spray in the eye, her eye developed an eye infection that was HIGHLY contagious.  The gave her some eye drops and said be careful, and don't itch!! 

Friday was also the start of family camp.  Our job wasn't initially very detailed for this, except we knew we would be doing the worship for it.  So, we also found we would be watching all the kids… so most of these kids are the same that were @ vbs, but we still used some of the same songs, and games that we knew they loved!!  That was about it for Friday.  The trip is almost over, man how time has flied.

Thursday brought us some more good weather, which I haven't talked about yet… the weather is awesome!!!  It gets incredibly cold at night, probably around the 30-40's, and gets up to about 70's, 80's during the day.  Enough of that now, Thursday, we had a good crew for the morning service @ the church.  It went fairly well again.  We had a little problem w/ the success of our game, but we managed & it went well.  After the lake session we went swimming @ the lake.  It actually ended up being kinda messy.  Only 5 of us actually dipped in… the water was frigid, and there was a lot of bad rocks, and a little bit of glass in the black water.  While everyone was swimming I got to take a 45 min drive to ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Brandon, MB, about 40 miles east of Oak Lake, for PIZZA!  One of the church members blessed us with a free will offering to take us out to dinner!  Thank you Jesus!  Didn't have to cook, and it was awesome pizza!  The culture up here isn't very different from the US.  The street signs don't have words in them, but the same symbols.  Driving is the same… but there is still a need!  That is one reason for this trip, we want this group of people to realize, even though the culture is very much the same, there is a battle field here, BUT AS WELL AS IN PLATTSMOUTH!!!!!  The mission's trip doesn't end when we get home!  Probably one of the other highlights of our trip was also on Thursday night, we went on a All Terrain Vehicle trail w/ a School Bus (which you probably see a couple times in our pics).  ATV, because this was The craziest bus ride I've ever endeavored.   First, I want to tell you about this man, his name is Lou, he's crazy; nuts.  Lol, j/k… he was our bus driver for this little excursion, and if there was a NASCAR for buses, he would most definitely be the best of the best!!!  In the next group of pictures, we'll get you some pics of Lou… but we first went and looked at some buffalo & elk, then he took us on this route down a CRAZY sharp turning, elbow bending, steep, fast, group of hills into a valley, that basically is like the grand canyon but w/ trees & grass.  After we got down this hill, we went up about ½ way to a small place that over looked then entire valley.  I'll have some more pics of that next, but this was 1 very large reason why there is no possible way God didn't create our beautiful earth.  You can see the land for miles… and a small creek leading to a river that snakes through the valley.  It was incredible!  We took the safer route home… lol.  P.S.  Thanks Lou for the ride of our lives!!!  And for the ice cream!!!  Mmmmmmmm, swirl.

Wednesday was good!  Of course the second day is always better.  We no longer had any technical problems that kept us from running smoothly.  We had 20 attendees @ the church in the morning, and had around 14 @ the lake. 9 of those 14, were kids that had come to the church vbs on Tuesday instead of the lake.  Basically, that means we had 9 kids that weren't @ the church today that were there yesterday, but since we had 20, we had that many more kids, a whole different group!!!!  God is working!  What an incredible God we have… that is our theme be the way, Empowered by the Son!  The other good news for today is that we had one child answer our invitation to learn more about salvation & a relationship w/ Jesus!  She asked Jesus to come into her life, and to empower her to spread God's word to all of her friends!!!  What an awesome God we have!!!!

Here's a lot of the Pictures we have so far:

I bet you can't guess what this sign was for?

A Canadian border sign:

You can tell what toy we used on this trip to help pass some time:

CHUBBY CANADIAN BABY @ THE LAKE:

I first want to thank everyone that is taking the time to read this, and for everyone's prayers & support for our team in ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Canada.  We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for your support, and the power of God!  Almost at the last minute we decided it would probably be a better idea to camp out Sunday night.  If you weren't aware of what the basis of out trip was, it is to drive to Oak Lake, MB Canada (13-15 hrs north, west of Plattsmouth) and present 2 separate, Daily VBS Sessions for 4 days.  One will be at the Berean Bible Church from 9:30 – 11:30 am, the second will be on location at Oak Lake Beach (don't let the name fool you, there is a beach, but the place we are hosting the VBS is more like a picnic area not too close to the beach itself) – just to give you a picture. 

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Our sleeping arrangements are that of a camp dormitory/bunk house, consisting of many mattresses laid on the floor.  We have Ruth & Esther, the names of the "girls" dorms where he camp owners placed us.  Because of the location of the camp, we don't have any kind of a internet connection where we are.  So, this is being blogged kinda like Mississippi, on a asaicgac basis = as soon as I can get a connection, basis.  So, if you're trying to stay up to date, I apologize, but we'll keep it as daily as we can. 

So… where to begin…  The drive was lovely, a lot like NE…  a lot of grassy nothing… but still obviously a gorgeous blessing from God.  Personally, I realize that on any trip like this, I've never been this far north, and the extended daylight is incredible.  We camped out in Grand Forks, ND @ Turtle River State Park on Sunday night.  We got to the camp sight @ around 11pm, pitched our tents in the dark, but never-the-less got them up quickly and we were asleep. 

To cut through some of the boring stuff, we got through the border rather quickly the next day.  We had heard a rumor that border patrol could stop anyone going into Canada w/o a passport for a 2 hour background check.  So, we were a little scared something like that would happen.  BUT, the nice border patrol guard checked our ID's & Permissions slips, and let us right on through.  Right after passing through we stopped in front of a HUGE Manitoba Sign and took some pics, check all of them out below.  After arriving in Oak Lake, setting into our sleeping arrangements and getting dinner, we went back to the church and set up for VBS on Tuesday morning. 

VBS… our morning session @ the church had 21 kids ranging from K-6.  It went fairly smoothly for our first session.  There were a lot of happy faces… I noticed as Connie played the review game after reading the bible lesson, that a LOT of the vital points were retained by the kids… it was surprising… but sometimes the work of God surprises us. 

The afternoon session @ the lake didn't have as many kids, around 4.  But, that doesn't mean 4 is ANY less important that 4,000.  We ran our VBS as planned, despite the high winds and a couple of technical problems, God's word was spread! 

We later found that the, VBS@the Lake, posters we had made and mailed, Just got here like today… so we are expecting a larger group tomorrow, and we plan to kinda run around a spread the word.  Other than that, the day went well.  I'll leave you w/ that and check this again soon, we'll have more.  Oh, and please excuse the time delay.  The pictures may not be posted till later as well… but there are some in the pics folder from the myspace home page… check those out, we'll blog the rest later.

You wouldn't believe how much fun Ice Block Races actually are!  I bet you've never heard of it huh?  I hadn't either until I actually experienced it.  Anyone interested in coming to youth group, you're all welcome!!!  It's a blast!!!  You don't know what your missing... but here's some pics from the races. 

We meet every sunday night @ 7pm, @ Plattsmouth Bible Church.  Everybody come!!!

Note to readers:  I apologize if this was hard to follow, because of the limited amount of time I actually had to do the blog, I was writing the post for what happened on Thursday, on Friday.  Were actually back now, because I didnt have internet access on the way home, I had to wait until we got home to finish the blog.  So, heres the rest:

Day 7, Saturday July 15^th

Today we leave!  Pearlington will be greatly missed.  We got to sleep in today, till about 7:30.  It was nice!  Our plans today were to go to the gulf to go swimming, but from what we had heard it wasnt going to be a really great idea.  I guess due to Katrina most of the beaches were still full of debris & they were really dirty.  We drove a little way down the interstate and went to Gulfport.  That may sound familiar, its the same Gulfport that got some attention from the news when Katrina hit.  Driving down the HWY, it was kind of weird.  All the old building had been abandoned.  You could tell that it used to be a huge port city w/ some booming economy and nice hotels and a great beach resort area.  Now, it was hardly much of anything.  Most of the hotel windows were boarded up and out of business, the other buildings had been deserted, and a lot of the good hot spots were closed.  So, we just drove to the closest beach.  It wasnt as bad as some made it sound.  There wasnt a lot of debris around, but the water was kind of dirty, and lots of rocks and some glass around.  Also, LOTS of jellyfish.  We notice at first, not until Zac, Caitie, Aaron, & Brian went out into the water, and then as I started out, Zac, Caitie, & Brian started walking back in they had gotten stung.  They werent the stereotypical big ones, they were really small, as you can see in the pics below.  They made it burn and get really red and poofy.  So, Aaron & I stayed out a little ways and played some football until we started seeing the jellyfish all over the place, so we went back in.  We stayed for about another 20 minutes, until John & Kristina had walked down the beach to a doc to get some really good pictures of the ocean and the port.  Well, the doc had been a little rickety, and they fell off the doc to some rocks, which wasnt a bid deal but then they slid down the rocks into some waist deep water, where in the bottom there was a bunch of really sharp jagged rocks in the bottom.  They both cut their feet up really bad, as you can see in some pics below.  John wasnt too bad, he fell to his knees too, but Kristinas were really bad, and really deep.  But, Kristina being the toughest girl Ive ever met was fine, she could wait it out till she got home to go see a Dr.  Stay tuned for further info on the status of her feet.  After the beach we went to Wal-Mart and changed clothes and got a couple things for the road.  We got back on I-55 and headed to Graceland.  Yes, Graceland.  We stopped in Graceland for about an hour to check out his house and a souvenir shop.  We couldnt get on Elvis property because it was like $31 per person just for admission, more for tours and such, kind of steep if you asked me.  So, we left Graceland on the way home.  We drove into Bynum to pick up the Blue Wonder & drop off the Enterprise Durango.  And, what do you know, do you think it would go smoothly, nope.  We couldnt find the spare set of keys to the blue van.  We found.  The spare set was accidentally left in the van, and the main set was given to the mechanic, which was closed.  So, the tow truck guy could let us in, but we had no keys.  So, Mike W searched his luggage thinking maybe he had left the spare set in a pair of his pants.  In the mean time, I was wondering if the van had even been locked or not.  I asked Charlie if we had double checked it and he said yeah, it was locked, but I figured Id triple check it.  Well, it was locked, but there was one window, in the back on the drivers side.  It was SMALL!  Id have to say maybe a little more than 2 ft wide and maybe 1 ft tall.  The only thing I thought was BRIAN WOLFE!!!  So, I walked back over to the entrance and grabbed Brian.  We walked back over and I stuffed his little body into that window and WOOO HOOO Thank you Lord for Brian Wolfe and his little body.  We got in, got the keys and we were off again.  Well, its so true, when a door gets closed, God opens a window.  To make this short, we drove up to the same state park we stayed at on Monday night, John W Kyle near Sardis Mississippi, made camp, then hit a Waffle House for the last time.  We woke up around 6:30 the next morning, ate breakfast, opened our last day of Pearlington 2006 with a devotion and worship, and drove home.  We got back to the church around 12:50am, Monday Morning.  Ill be adding to this as we get more info from the trip, for whoever wants to add, just comment, if youre not a member, let me know, I can add the comment at church.  Please let everyone know how God worked through you and in you by the use of Pearlington 2006.  NEVER FORGET:  you messa wit us, you messa wit da Pearlmart.  Wip Wip Wooeee (or however that goes-Kristina, Marin, Caitie, Connie, & Michelle).  Trust.  Blessed be the name.  Mofia. 

Like I had said, some of these came from Friday.

Travis from the Massachusets Group, we did a devotional together Friday night:

More of those Great Restrooms @ the Pearlmart:  (top pic is south end of pearlmart property)

This is the Unfinished Murial w/ Marin & Kristina:

This is the Girls Bunk:

The majority of these are the Beach Pics from Gulfport:

Zac & Caitie Showing off the Jelly Fish Stings, Caitie in Left side of Face, and Zac, all over, arms, legs...  they didn't go back in:

Kristina's Cuts on her Feet:

We had to carry Kristina & John because of the cuts on their feet were so deep:

Then we went to Wal-Mart in Gulfport:

Mike didn't need a wheelchair, he just got it for Kristina.

Day 6, Friday July 14^th

Because of the size of the job at Garys house, w/ demolishing ½ his house we took most of the pbc crew to his house to finish that, it was going to take all day.  Mike W & Charlie went back to the Drums house to finish the stairs.  We were up & working again, same time...  at the worksite by like 8am.  It was a hot and muggy day that God had blessed us with to work in beautiful day!  Ill be honest, as you may see from the pictures Garys house was in pretty good condition Some of us couldnt figure out why we were demolishing a mans house that may not have needed to be demolished.  Later that day we found that this man had made an agreement w/ Laurie (the leader of Pearlington recovery center Pearlmart), that if we helped him tear this section of his house down, he would in return let the PRC (Pearlington recovery center) borrow his trailer; to haul things, etc.  This would be a huge blessing to PRC, there is most definitely a need for something like that.  PRC was currently just using trailers that were borrowed from the people there helping, so if there werent any groups w/ a trailer, then they didnt have one.  So, this, in return was meeting a need!!!  About 11am Mike & Charlie came back to Garys house, and told us that they almost got done, but couldnt finish because all the materials werent there to finish & so Mr. Drum had to go buy the rest of the wood, in Slidell, and they would have to finish at a different time.  Although they were now about 90% finished, there was only a couple other things, you can see below the after pics.  So, from there on, for the rest of the day, ½ it was raining, we finished tarring down Garys house.  This day was quite a hard day.  After we got through the roof, we had found that there was a 2^nd roof.  I guess this addition to his house was built over an enclosed porch, where a roof already was.  So, after we got that roof off, we had to tear down a 2^nd roof.  It was a long hard day, but as you can see below, after many injuries and sweat, it was Gone its such a huge difference, check them out.  P.S.  Injuries included but were not limited to (which means I might miss a couple, sorry guys).  Kristina, Nail in head, stung on face by wasp, hit on head w/ shovel.  Zac was hit w/ a shovel, and Caitie was hit on the head w/ a shovel.  The reason they were hit on the head w/ a shovel is because when we were sawing off the 2^nd roof, we had to use the shovels to hold up the roof so that the heavy roof wouldnt fall on us and we could lower it slowly.  There was a bit of chaos involved in our work.

There aren't a whole lot of day 6 pics because some of them got on day 5 from demolishing the house.

This is our finished product for the stairs:

same, w/ Charlie & Mr Drum:

The Landscaping team that worked @ the pearlmart before, then after:

Caitie running from the glove:

Caitie fighting the Glove:

The Final AFTER picture after Gary's Demolition:

John after a hard day's work:

Communion Service after last day of work:

PBC_Youth Murial - one small way of how we left our mark:

Again, today was GGRRREEEAAAATTT!!!  It was a long day, and it rained on some of us, but still quite plentiful.  Once again, we were up by like 6:30 in the morning... wow, that's really starting to get old.  Especially for the younger ones... and the same great stuff for breakfast... We were off to work around the same time as well, about 8, and the teams stayed the same.  We started off to a house where the work order had been requested over 3 weeks prior to today... so when we drove up, the yard that was requested to cut and groomed, had already be done.  Mike W had gotten out and talked to the man, and just explained what had happened... he was ok, but now we had no yard to clean.  Fortunetely, there are hundereds of houses/property's that need help.  So, we drove down the street to the next one on our list that needed work.  THIS WAS DIFFERENT.  As you can see below, from the pics, it was a "war zone."  We arrived @ a couples house that had helped cook lunch the previous day.  They are the Gardener's.  Believe it or not, they have been waiting for the FEMA Camper/trailer since Katrina, almost a year ago!!!!!!!  I'm not sure what the circumstances are under which they get one, but this woman was living in a shack and out of a tent, and there was trash EVERYWHERE.  Including kitchen appliances, cars thrown upside down into the trees, and man our group do a number on that one... the bad news is that part way through the work session, it POORED down where they were.  So, they were drenched.  See the pics below of the Gardener's.  While the 2 landscaping teams did that.  Mike W's team went back to the same  house to finish the stairs, we eventually found that we were short of wood so he had to leave with the job 90one.  After lunch we started a new project.  It was a Man named Gary who had been working on his house for a while.  He had a section of his house that he need to tear down, so we were called in.  Below you'll see some before and after pics of all that... and tomorrow when we finish the rest will be on there.  P.S. there are so many pics, I can't put them in order, but I will comment on them:

Zac's wound from indoor frisbee:

Zac, Brian & Aaron waiting for the van @ the "war zone" cleanup site:

Zac, Aaron & Mike grilling chicken for dinner:

Worship:

Thersa prepping for dinner:

RoachMotel @ the war zone cleanup:

Pile of trash from war zone cleanup;

More Pic's of the war zone clean up:  (found out it's the Gardener's house)

after cleanup & rain:

the beautiful restroom we have available all week long @ the pearlmart:

Leftover seashells from Katrina:

Larry's House:

At the drums (stair finishing job) after painting the hand rails:

The drum's poof ball puppy:

well, I actually have a lot more, espicailly from the gator feeding... but I have to go, I'm really short on time.  I'll complete this tomorrow.