The van smelled like people. Sweating, tired, people. At least it wasn’t 104 degrees like the day before, but none the less, it was really hot. The funny thing is, I didn’t mind the heat. Being in China 2 years ish ago, I learned to enjoy the feeling of having to perspire a lot. It’s weird, I know, but at the end of a long hot day, having a simple cool shower makes a refreshment that we cannot otherwise understand. It is so cleansifying… I know cleansifying isn’t actually a word, but it serves the meaning I wish to convey better.
Coming down here to Montana we were stuck at the border for 3 hours by a crossing guard who I was sure thought we wanted to smuggle in herds of buffalo or thought we wanted to get all the cattle in Montana to start a revolution. As such, we had to wait for a while in the office. While we were waiting, I found after a while I could relax a bit and as such I was able to cheer the others up a little. I even realized that their office was actually painted like their flag. Red, white and blue… weird. We aren’t near as proud of our country. It’s a shame sometimes. One of the main reasons they held us there was that one of our letters of invitation, out of three, was an email print off with no letterhead. As such we had to get VTI to send the border a detailed summary about who we are, what we do, and whether or not we were going to serve juice or hand out markers (seriously….) So, we waited… and waited… three hours in, a different guy came up very apologetic saying that the fax machine had gibbled up and accidentally lost our fax in with another. So they did find it, but had taken a while.
This was our introduction to the U.S. of A.
We did Day Vacation Bible school the first week were there in a town called Ulm…Olm…I forget now… But it sounds like those. It’s just slightly south of Great Falls. Anyways, I immediately realized a couple things. One, they still had mosquitoes south of the Canadian border. And two, that things are a lot more ‘Christian’ in the States. I mean, in Canada, religion has to be carefully regulated and *gasp* to think you could maybe find something ‘religious’ in a store or something?! Oh the horrors. But in the States, ‘Christian’ things are everywhere. Advertisements for example sometimes portray cross necklaces being worn on the advertisement. It was different to see. Other things like that.
Perhaps, one of the reasons it interested me so much was that I had recently been reading a book by Rob Bell called, ‘Velvet Elvis’… It talks about ‘repainting the Christian faith’. Now one of the things he talked about was that by definition, a Christian should be living a better life. You know a more fulfilled one. Or simply a better one. Living life to the full. Using the talents God has given us and just giving a 110% to give God glory in what we do. This is Christian. And there are times where people will sell things that are ‘Christian’ that aren’t. Like, say, there’s this new ‘Christian’ band out but they don’t portray anything good…. Is it truly ‘Christian’ then? Anyways, I was in the middle of a whole lot of thinking and trying to figure out things like that when at the end of the week at VBS I became very upset. Not angry. More depressed. I was looking over my life, my purpose and how I should be living. I realized that no matter what I did, I always seemed to mess up. I’d ask God to help me be a good leader, or to work hard, or to not sin, the typical, but I kept on messing up. What’s with that? It was a very hard time for me. And I was like that for nearly 2 weeks.
Meanwhile we had been doing 2 DVBS programs a day in the towns of Avon and Elliston. The kids were great but I felt awful. But God broke through. I don’t quite understand everything that happened, but I remember driving home one evening and that despair that had been floating above my head lifted and I felt joy again. It was amazing. And it was really great that I was back on my feet just before camp started at Camp Mizpah. We worked with Dave Caroll and his family. It was a great week at camp. God worked there. We were able to share so much about ourselves with these kids and they with us. It was great. We’d be out there at this little fire pit area with an American flag. Out there we saw these kids spill their hearts out to each other. The first night we really started sharing with each other, there was so much pain that they poured out all at once that you could feel it hanging in the air. We sent up a lot of prayers and there was a lot of group praying that was done.
The next night there I was able to share about letting God take us. It’s only from Jesus that we can find who we really are. My problem was I was looking in on myself, and the more I did so, the more I lost myself. The more we look to Jesus, the more we find who we are. It’s weird like that. Anyways, so we had more prayer and praise and it was a great time. I miss all those kids now. It was a great week at camp. I have pics up from all of that. It was great. I had a nasty sunburn. AJ and myself. As such, on swim day I was out there in a full big brown hoody so as to not burn myself any further. They thought was I was weird. But they were really glad I came, especially the guys from my cabin.
So, this last week we had another 2 DVBS programs every day. One in Belt and the other in Highwood. I think that’s right. It’s also somewhat near Great Falls. We had a good time there and the kids were great. We also had a lot more energy this week because of all the helpers they had to assist us in the games and crafts. I enjoyed making tie dye shirts. Hehe.
I realized that they liked it when I spiked up my hair… so I did that a fair bit of the time… Those kids were great. The Pastor there is named Brent, and he would faithfully water down the road every morning. The reason he did so was it would get so hot that the tar on the road would get sticky… I mean, really sticky…. And it would inevitably end up on kids’ shoes and on the church carpets. Therefore, he’d make sure to water the road to try to keep it cool enough not to get sticky. I sometimes got quite stuck later in the afternoons anyways though….
After our fine time there and being able to stay with Ron and Pat Long, we made our way back to Canada in a big ol’ white van.
And now we arrive at where we first found ourselves.
AJ was content all afternoon listening to music and occasionally listening on something crazy that was happening.
Bryce was content all afternoon reading, eating and (when he could get a hold of the laptop) to play freecell. We had a grand time bugging each other and comparing speculative thoughts on varying issues.
He liked eating the cookies.
Coralie and Rhys sat in the front after we got back into Canada, making sure to wave at every oncoming vehicle. What they discovered is that on the main road, roughly 10% of the drivers waved back. On smaller roads near smaller towns, the percentage increased to more than 25%. Very interesting. My theory is that Alberta people are just playing hard to get. Unlike Manitoba who’s licence plate motto is ‘A friendly place’ or something to that effect. Alberta is Wild Rose country… hard to get…beautiful but with some thorns you know? Saskatchewan’s people are always looking to the ‘living skies’ because they don’t want to look at the roads they have to drive on… J
Janelle. She was trying to learn some German and to count the train cars we would see whenever we were stopped by a passing train. Our job was to try to make sure she’d lose count. It was a blast. Hehehe.
Me? I was just thinking over what to say in this entry and trying to make sure that Janelle would lose count of the train cars. It was a great ride back, and this time we didn’t have trouble at the border.
God has been doing amazing things and He helped renew my spirit and I’m eager to get back out there doing my best for Him. So we learned a few things on the way back…
One, people must think we’re weird because we’ve been so overtired the last while. You know how you can get loopy at the end of a long day? Yeah… it’s great.
Two, that God can do amazing things if we are willing to let Him work.
Three, God can use anyone…
Four, bikers are more friendly than the rest of the vehicle drivers.
Weird.
Now today it is Sunday and I'm hoping Karina will be swinging by. We're heading off to Camp Evergreen, near Okatoks, this afternoon. Should be an interesting week.
Thank you all for your prayers!
Grace and Peace
~ James
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