I do love it when I see God at work in big and small ways. Here is where I see His footprints in a few things going on with the trip ...
Team Members
It was disappointing when Gary had to drop out of the team because I just know he would LOVE it out there, and we could use his services as a driver and somebody to work. *He sings fairly well too ;) Connie and I began thinking of someone who could take his place and came up with a few names, one of whom had said they wanted to go. Turns out, that person couldn't go either. Sunday night I approached Connie with the name of a man who has been on my mind. He hadn't said he wanted to go but I know his heart is with us and it just seemed like maybe we should ask him. Apparently Connie was thinking the same thing because when I approached her, she said she had just asked him to go and that he was 99% sure he would be going! I went to talk to him about it and he related how it had blown him away when Connie asked him because just last week he had been thinking about how much he wanted to go and had thought of asking me to keep him in mind just in case there was an opening. I don't know but this sounds like a God thing to me.
Africa
I was also a bit disappointed when our friend from Africa who attend our church (I am not going to attempt to spell his name correctly) wasn't able to come and share with our group about Africa. He's a busy guy but I would encourage you to talk to him at church sometime - you'll like him. Then by chance Cody mentioned to me that Allison babysits for a lady from Liberia who had to flee with her two children when the rebels came to her village. She has an amazing story and she will be sharing it with us in the June meeting. Be sure to come and hear her - even if you're not on the Pine Ridge team, it will be a blessing to meet her and hear her story.
VBS
For the past month or so I've been thinking off and on, mostly off, about what to do with the kids during VBS regarding the Blood:Water Mission thing. I knew I wanted to take a few moments each day to talk a bit about Africa and the needs there and I knew we were going to take up an offering but I hadn't gotten it sorted out in my mind yet how exactly that would take place.
Then, last week I got an email from Blood:Water Mission telling me about some new VBS materials called "Droplets". I went to the web site and checked it out. I LOVE it! It is really just perfect for what we need. It shouldn't take more than 10 min. each day and there is a theme for each day ending with an offering on the last day. I was especially pleased when I looked at the first lesson called "We Are All The Same". It talks about the differences in skin color, culture, etc. between people but how we are "all the same". I am going to change it a bit to fit even better with Lakota culture and talk about how "we are all related". Mitakuye Oyasin, or "we are all related" is a huge part of Lakota belief.
*UPdate*
I am back from shopping for Pine Ridge stuff. I set out to find VBS materials for the BWM thing. Basically, I needed to make a tree. I originally was going to follow the recommendations of the BWM VBS materials - BUT - it was a little difficult to find a piece of cardboard that was big enough to make a stand-up tree out of (I had an interesting conversation with a salesman at H.H. Gregg about this).
SO, I decided to get a presentation board and just draw a tree. The materials also suggeted that green construction paper be used to cut out shapes of leaves for the tree. The idea is to get the kids to think of ways that we are all the same (related) and write those down on the leaves and put on the tree. While I was out looking for green paper I happened across green, leaf-shaped sticky notes! PERFECT! I even found red and green apple-shaped sticky notes! TOO PERFECT! (the lesson also uses different colors of apples) And they were cheap!
Then I got the idea to put pictures of us, the Lakota kids, and some African kids all around the tree. This will show that we've been to the rez before and some of the kids will see their pictures up on the board and I imagine they will get a kick out of that. Thanks to Scott over at On A Mercy Ship, I have some GREAT pics of African kids around a well! He's a photojounralist who is in Africa building wells and he gave me permission to use his pics.
I couldn't have planned it this well.
Cool. Very cool.
* For those who may not know, Gary was the front man in a very popular local rock band and has an amazing voice. He plays a pretty mean harmonica too.
