4th outrigger island in the books

well so i just finished up my 4th outrigger island...i still have one more to go but thank goodness we get a break for just a little while at least!! next week we'll be in radersburg, doing vbs but thank goodness its going to be the cactus canyon version of it!! we are a little worn out on outrigger island as you can imagine! so i got you filled in up to saturday. sometimes i feel like i probably bore people with all my blogging but truth is i've got to write it all down somewhere so i wont forget what happens out here and believe me i am a way faster typer than i am writer so i do this partly to help me remember everything. haha days really start to run together out here!

so lets see saturday we started at floral park. we went to church there sunday and got to meet several people. we went out to lunch at a pizza place with several families from the church and met two college aged individuals...who just happened to be guys...there. one of the guys lives with the "youth person" and she loaned us her car and really tried to make our stay here fun before she had to go out of town. so sunday night after bible school we went and got something to eat at wednesdays. as soon as we walk in all 4 of us start cutting up so that we could barely talk. we had been standing in line for a while, or at least we were just standing around laughing with micah and jacob and finally we got around to getting up to the counter to order. as soon as i made eye contact with the cashier i blurted out "I know you!" and the girls just looked at me strangely...i had to tell them how i knew her because they were just thinking i was crazy. see the reason i recognized her is because while i was in the concession stand at the park street carnival she had come up and was talking to another girl who was helping me. she was really sweet and we got to talking about the seven love languages and which one we were. about that time i had to serve someone a snowcone so i turned around for a second and while i was doing that the girl, stephanie, just quietly asked, "does any one have a cell phone i could borrow?" without even thinking i turned around and handed her mine and then turned back around to make snowcones. about 5 minutes later i thought "oh gosh, that wasn't smart of me!! i only have a certain number of roaming minutes and who knows who she is calling!!" just a second after that she handed me the phone and said thanks and walked off...i never expected to see her again and never really thought twice about letting her use my phone...until i walked into wendy's sunday night and there she is taking my order!!! that was cool in itself to see her again but little did we know God had orchestrated a plan for us to be at those places at that time. We all ordered our food and sat down and began giggling again...about 15-20 minutes into our meal she walks over to our table and asks me, "so, what are yall out celebrating?" we just told her we were hungry after the bible school we had just finished at floral park so we decided to come there. out of no where amy says "can we pray for you about something?" and stephanie breaks down and gets teary eyed...she had just had one of the roughest days and was feeling completely alone, she told us she was really struggling with her relationship with God, she had just moved into an apartment by herself, and she had no car or phone and basically life had just been dealing her one bad card after another. I asked her if she went to park street baptist and she said she did but now because of where she lives she cant walk there and she has no ride...immediately i said "well, where do you live at?" and she told me and i asked micah how close that was and he said oh, just right over there. Floral park baptist has a van ministry that picks up kids from all over the neighborhood and so i asked him if he thought they would go over there and he said im sure they would. so stephanie wrote down her address and all so that someone could get in touch with her about going to church. we didn't get to talk to her long but she told us she worked every night this week except wednesday. so as a group we decided and told her that we would be back to see her before we left butte. tonight, we went back to wendy's...stephanie wasn't the one taking our orders and we couldn't see her in the back. so we asked one of the workers who came out to wipe off a table if she knew stephanie and she said yeah, shes kinda my neighbor. so we asked if she was working and she said "no, they fired her...she was one of our best workers but they let her go." we asked if she knew how she was doing and she said, "shes got it rough, she lives in a place thats not very nice cause she moved out of her mom's place." we asked her to just let her know that we came back to see her and that we are still praying for her. When stephanie came out to talk to us sunday night...you could almost feel her hurts...at so young she is fighting to fend for herself and its starting to get to her...please remember people like stephanie and especially her. Montana and especially butte seem to be full of those type of people.

after the wendys trip sunday night, the 4 of us, mrs. terri, micah and jacob all went to the park and just basically became kids at heart. we sung on the cowboy swings which are basically those swings that you sit on kinda like see-saws and you pull bars back and forth...it was so fun and we laughed like crazy! then the boys taught us a game called star tripping...you have one person stand with a flashlight and then another goes about 20 feet or more from them and spins until he is dizzy then when he starts the one with the light starts yelling at him to tell him which way to go and when he gets close to him the guy turns on the light and shines it in his eyes. you should she it cause as soon as the light hits the dizzy person, they fall over just as though they had been shot. it was absolutely hilarious!!!! monday we ate lunch with a newly married couple who are in their 40's and instantly fell in love with each other right after they had both decided God was not going to send them someone to marry...it was so fun to sit and hear their story. monday night after vbs we all, along with a bunch of youth went over to mrs. terri's (the youth person) house and had dessert and played rockband and guitar hero...yes i totally rocked out on the easy level haha tuesday we went back to their house for lunch then went up to another ghost town. this time it was a real ghost town, there was absolutely no one living in it...we took a half mile trail back in the woods and there were just old wooden buildings that had fallen in. A couple were still standing and sturdy enough to walk in, but this place was really pretty and so peaceful!! it was alot of fun. Last night we went over to our supervisor for the weeks house and had coke floats and played music. like guitar and fiddle and all that and sang songs...that was alot of fun. today we went and ate lunch with them and then did some shopping at some of the uptown shops. that was fun. after vbs, as i mentioned earlier we went to wendys then we went with rachel and micah and jacob to make an artillery bomb with fire crackers...that was alot of fun!! we didn't get caught by cops or anything although i think we might have woke up some people haha but it was a fun night.

I think probably the highlight of my week was leading two of my students to christ. after the gospel presentation night they offered an invitation in the closing rally and one of my little girls raised her hand. i got her and went and got my bible as we started heading out the door and she kept saying to me her mom was here and i just told her it would only take us a minute, but as soon as we walked past her mom she grabbed her and wouldn't let her go. Samara just kept looking at me so i walked up to her and told her it was ok, that we could talk about it tomorrow if she wanted. and she asked, "well can it be in the middle cause my mom will come at the end?" so i told her that as soon as she got there on wednesday we would go talk. so on wednesday she walks in the door looking at me and i walked up to her and asked her if she still wanted to talk and her response was, "well i didn't know last night but i kinda am already a christian." so i said "oh yeah, hows that?" and she says, "well im stopping making sins and i am starting to pray to God." (i loved how she said "making sins" haha children are so innocent so i told her we should probably just go talk to make sure she understood everything. we went into a room and i used a salvation bracelet to explain everything then i asked her if she admitted that she was a sinner and she said, "oh yeah" then i said "well do you believe jesus died on the cross?" and again she said "yes" and i asked "well just who did he die on the cross for?" and she pointed to herself and said "me, well everbody" so i asked one more question, " how much do you think jesus loves you?" and she just blurts out, "a whole lot if he died for me!" and so after i knew she understood what she was doing i told her we had to say a prayer to god to tell him just what she told me...that she was a sinner and she was sorry and that she knew he sent jesus to die for her sins and that by him doing that we could see just how much he loved us...so i asked her, "do you want me to help you say that prayer, like i say part of it and you repeat it or you want to do it yourself?" and she goes, "i think i can do it if thats all i have to say." so she starts out and this is kind of how her prayer went..."god i want to be a christian. and i know i have made sins but i dont want to make any more sins and i want you to make me clean. i know jesus died for me and i just thank you that you love me that much. and god, i dont want to live my way no more, i want to live your way...amen" that little girl has a ling road ahead of her, not only is she not churched but her family situation is not the best. i'll continue to pray for her because she has such great potential and i pray that she continues to grow in God. today while i waited with her because her mom was one of the last ones getting there, she said, "well we can look at it this way, at least i get to spend more time with you before you have to go back to mississippi." samara will have it going on if she can find someone to lead her in the right way...some one Godly to look up to.

Riley, a little boy in my class, raised his hand during the invitation on wednesday and when i talked to him it took him awhile before he would admit that he was a sinner...finally after using the "how many 10 commandments have you broke" method he realized he wasn't as good as he thought he was. i went through everything with him, but wasn't sure if it was his time since he had come in thinking he was not a sinner. i showed him an example of the prayer that he needed to pray and told him he could do it now or later. i was thinking he probably didn't quite get all of it, but he chimes in and says, "can i just say it now?" so why should i object...i told him just to tell God what he had just told me, and he did...just like samara he told God he was a sinner and that he knew he needed a savior and that he didn't want to live Riley's way anymore, but God's. Riley also is not churched and only came to vbs because he lives across the street from a member of the church. pray that these two kids and the other older girl, chanel, that made decisions this week would find a way to get to church and be discipled and taught God's word and truths.

samara out at games

some of the boys from floral park at games: johnny, derek, cade and noah

johnny and riley with their sailboats

whole group on the final night: sitting l to r: marlene, jade, bobby

standing l to r: mercedes, cade, noah, jasmine, samara and johnny and maria is hiding as usual

at the ghost town, coolidge. we think it was the school house. over the years the creek has shifted and now runs right through its remains.

the 4 of us in the ghost town

watching micah make the bomb while we all froze!

few facts about butte i forgot to mention: its the hometown of evil knievel; and they have this statue of mary on the mountain that overlooks the city and it just so happens to be only 20 feet shorter than the statue of liberty. at the turn of the century there were over 100,000 people living in butte, and thats only in the uptown area...personally i dont know how they all fit!