Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Jan/Feb Newsletter from Shellly

Hello friends, just want to connect with everyone and let you know how things are going here in South Dakota. We hope that you all had a great start to 2008 and we enjoy news and phone calls from you all. I am going to try to send the newsletters monthly, but sometimes every 2 months is all I can do.

We received $600.00 from the AIC (American Indian Council) for the Ladies Group that was started here last summer for supplies. We were able to purchase fabric by the bolt, cutting mats, cutters and other supplies to get our ladies going on sewing projects. One of the great things is that we have four young ladies 11-13 that are participating in the group and are excited about learning to sew. Once everyone has learned all the initial things they need to know about sewing, machine and practice some we'll do a beginning project and then take a quilting class as a group project. I think this is going to be a great time of learning and uniting our women and a way of generating income for them. I would like to thank Sam Johnson, president of the AIC for making this possible.

I would also like to thank the churches in Fairfield and Jersey Shore that helped us with a project this year to bring Christmas to some special people here that might not have had much. I thank God for you, your generosity and compassion for the people here and your willingness to always help. I would like to continue with some special programs here at Christmastime and anyone that would like to be part of this, just let me know we can use all the help we can get. THANK YOU SO MUCH!

I want to thank those that support us in prayer, with clothing, things for the Thrift Shop, financially and by planning their work camps to come out here and work and provide VBS for the children here. We are planning some special things this year for our work camps, we are focusing on building relationships and really submersing you with the culture here. So come prepared for a time this Summer like you've never had before!!!

We have some other special people to thank, they are Norval and Mary Justice from Faith Fellowship CHoG. They sent us 30 beautiful padded chairs for our sanctuary, a much needed and appreciated gift. We were able to carpet the sanctuary at about the same time the chairs arrived and the two matched so closely you would have thought it was planned to match! We thank you and all the members of our church thank you. It was so great to have the first wedding of the year in our beautiful newly done sanctuary.

I think our next project will be linoleum for our fellowship hall and then it will be time to expand. We have noticed that it is getting harder to fit everyone in the fellowship hall when we have weddings and large dinners, but that is truly a good thing.

We are looking forward to the Tri-S Group coming on the 9th of March, our first work camp of 2008. It will be good to see Ed Breeden and Emily Clark again, and to meet a new group of students. In my next letter I will print out the scheduled work camps and when they will be here. This is going to be a busy summer and our goal is to lead others to Christ and to build relationships in the community and with all of you who work so hard and are so dedicated to the Lakota people.

God bless,

Barry & Shelly Bentley

Monday, March 03, 2008

Pics from the Italian Dinner

















Our "Beauties" from the Beauty Contest