God is love and cupcakes
‘Kay, so, this is my very overdue recap of what happened a couple weeks ago when caffeinemusic, devilusagi and I went with our church’s Youth Mission Team to teach VBS in New Meadows, Idaho. The reason why this is so late is cuz I was doing stuff for the DeviantART Yellow Day thinger. So... yeah. ^^;
So a few Saturdays ago, Em, Eriq, and me all got up to go to the church at 7:30. Then we all piled into a 15 passenger van. Since there were 15 of us total, every seat was filled. My bad luck got me stuck in the very back, which was the only seat for FOUR people instead of three, and non of the windows back there opened. So it was very hot and stuffy, to say the least. ^.^ We made several gas and pit stops along the way, and after having lunch in some park somewhere, I got to move up to the second row. That was much more comfortable. Anywho, throughout the whole car ride I had been listening to the Cowboy Bebop CDs Em burned for me and reading the 5th and 6th Harry Potter books. By the end of the 11 to 12 hour car ride I had finished the 5th book (I’d only had a few chapters left) and gotten 1/3 of the way done with the 6th. Made me happy-ful. ^.^
I don’t remember much of what happened right when we got to the New Meadows church, but eventually we set out these gym/karate mat thingers to sleep on. The mats really weren’t much softer than the floor, though, and Em and my mats weren’t that soft, either, so... yeah. Wasn’t really that comfortable. ^^; Anywho, New Meadows, as I learned, is this little bitty town (population ~ 500) that used to be a ranching and mining town. Well, now all the mines are closed and there are only a few ranches, so there’s a LOT of unemployed and poverty stricken people and kids there. It’s really sad, but the kids are really nice. I think we had a total of 36 kids there this year, which according to our youth director was twice as many as last year. They were all really cute, too. ^.^
Anywho, back to the trip. On Sunday morning we all got up and piled chairs and tables into some trucks and took them to the park a few blocks away for the church barbeque thing. Em and me played our guitars for the worship (we played guitars EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. @~@), and the whole Mission Team did a little skit to explain about Vacation Bible School to the congregation. After that we had the barbeque/picnic thing and they had CUPCAKES!!! YAY~!!! (I like cupcakes. A lot. ^.^) After that I think we planned some stuff for VBS, then went around the town looking for kids to give VBS fliers to. My group was the first group back, and we saw we had a few buckets of water balloons filled for the later planned water balloon fight. So we decided to ambush the other groups. It was all Pastor Debbie’s idea, and yet she was one of the few who didn’t get wet at all. I think my favorite part of the fight, though, was when the chaperone dad person tried to throw the bucket of water at someone, but the way he threw it made all the water hit HIM instead. ‘Twas quite silly. ^.^
The next day we divided into our groups to teach VBS: Games, Crafts, Teaching, and Food. My group had games that day, so we had set up an obstacle course thing for the kids to go through. Well, that went REALLY fast, so we played parachute games and Duck Duck Goose for the rest of the time. After VBS we took the kids down to the school for this special Government funded lunch thing they had, though the lunches weren’t really that good. Afterwards, any of the kids who were still hungry could come back to the church with us for some more food.
That afternoon we went to a 94-year-old lady’s house named Inez. A wind storm had blown through her property recently and blown down all these trees. The trees had been removed, but there were still branches and twigs and things everywhere, so we were gonna’ go clear out some of those things. It wasn’t that much fun, what with it being sunny, back-bending work, but Inez was so cool~!! She wasn’t very stooped over at all, and used a ski pole for a cane. She also had this ladder attached to her back porch, and when we asked her about it she said it was there so she could climb up in the winter and shovel snow off her roof. She also used to be an amazing painter and had all these cool pictures in her house. Before we all left, she gave us each a little “scrubbie”, which were these little crocheted balls made of scratchy plastic-y thread stuff. And THEN she had paid for dinner for us at the Senior Center, so we went and ate with all these kooky seniors. The seniors at Em’s and my table were pretty strange. One of the men was talking about his dog, but he couldn’t remember his dog’s name and said that he had her kennel in his car and he could go check if we wanted, but we told him that was okay. Then later he was talking with his friend about his dog and how after his wife died, he couldn’t decide weather he wanted to get a new wife or a dog. He said a friend had said he should get a dog, and he said he was “Quite happy with a dog. I mean, a woman has her place, but I’m quite fine with the dog.” It was so funny! XD Then after that, apparently the owner person thought we were there to entertain the seniors (which we weren’t), so we all got up and improved a few songs, including some VBS ones. It was... interesting. ^^; Anywho, after that, we went to this lake about 10 or 12 miles from New Meadows that was located in a much larger town to go swimming. And... yeah. We swam. o.O;; Then we went back to our hard-floored “beds” in the church. ^.^
The next day my team had Crafts. We decided to do this “thank you quilt” thing that was basically a bunch of little tin squares tied together to make a “blanket” (though I wouldn’t suggest sleeping with it o.O;;). Each kid was supposed to get a tin square and draw something they’re thankful for on it, then use a nail and hammer to outline their drawing with holes. we decided that the little kids could just draw on cardboard squares. ^^; Anywho, that was a good craft, cuz afterwards the kids could just draw all they wanted. That was fun-ful. ^.^
That afternoon... I don’t remember what we did. o.O;; I think we re-sorted bags for the towns weekly food drive. I really don’t remember. But sometime that day we had a lot of free time that I spent reading Harry Potter. I don’t remember if I finished it that day or Thursday, but I know I was done before the end of the week. Anywho, after whatever it is we did, we went to go take showers at this camp a little ways from town. The girls went to one shower house and used both the boy’s and girl’s side, and the boys went to another one farther down the road. Em and I were in the boy’s side, and it really amused me that they had all these peep holes covered up with tin can lids that had been pried off. Well, I thought it was funny, anyway... ^^;
The next day there was no VBS. Why? Cuz we were all out rafting! It was my first time rafting. It was really fun. ^.^ I think the only bad part was lunch. Not cuz of the food, but just cuz it was 105º, noon, and there was no breeze. I could feel my skin being fried by the sun despite the copious amounts of sunscreen I had applied. @~@ Anywho, rafting was awesome. Especially the last rapid, which was the biggest one that day. See, there was this big hole that was formed by the water going REALLY fast over this huge rock. My raft was the first to go, and our guide steered it just right so that we hit the hole dead on. It was REALLY exciting, and we looked back to tell our guide that... and he wasn’t there. o.O;; Apparently he had been thrown out of the raft, ores and all. He was under water for a long time (like, 30 seconds, or something o.O;;), but eventually he popped up. Which was good. We also got both his ores back. He said that was the first time he’d fallen out of the raft in, like, his 5 years of working there, and that it was also the one day when he didn’t lock in his ores. ‘Twas silly-ful and exciting and stuff. Did I mention it was exciting? Cuz it was really exciting. ^.^
On Thursday my team had Food duty. That meant snack and lunch. We had “Mud Cups” for snack (pudding with crushed Oreos*tm* in it) and grilled cheese sammiches for lunch. I’m not even gonna’ go into this one. It was a disaster. Never make grilled cheese sandwiches for a large group of people. Ever. It doesn’t work. -.-;;
Don’t remember what we did Thursday afternoon. I prolly read Harry Potter and listened to Cowboy Bebop. ^.^ Then we went to the lake again, only we went to the house of some of the VBS kids’ grandparents on the lake and ate dinner there. It was fun. I got to float on an inflatable whale. ^.^ So did Eriq, he wants you to know. Then we had a little service-except-not group thinger on their beach with some of the kids. ‘Twas fun. ^.^
The last day of VBS my group had teaching. That went pretty okay. The older and middle kid groups had fun. It was the little kids (ages 5-7 I think) that was a disaster. And even worse disaster than the lunch. So again, I will not go into it. -.-;;
That afternoon we went to a place called “Zims Hot Springs”, which was two pools filled with hot springs water. A little after we got there, a few of the kids from VBS showed up to swim with us. It was really cool. ^.^ And we got to shower afterwards, so that was cool, too. XD
On Saturday we got up bright and early to pile into the van for the ride home. Only I got lucky. See, we also had a truck that the chaperone dad had driven up with us that had lots of the suitcases in the back, and since one of the Mission Team kids had come late because of a sport thinger, we had one more person than seats in the van. So instead we chose three names out of a hat to ride in the truck. I got picked for the first half of the ride. Made me happy. ^.^ After we stopped at Subway for lunch (I think the Subway people were a little overwhelmed at first at there being 17 of us... XD), I got to ride in the second row again with Em and Eriq. I listened to more Cowboy Bebop for most of the ride. However, we did have these two walkie-talkies between the van and the truck, and somewhere along the way we ended up having a “song war”. Basically that means we tried to find which vehicle could think of the most songs to sing through the walkie-talkies to the other. The van totally won. I think my faves were when I got to sing the Ninja Turtle’s theme and meow out the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings themes. Everyone was rather impressed by those. XD
And then we got back. Over the week I had accumulated a cowboy hat, a tan, a chocolate cross, and a little magnet thinger with my name on it that had been on the van for the whole trip (like, on the outside, so everyone on the road could see our names XD). We had also made the kids of New Meadows happy, if only for a week. I know that sounds cheesy, but we did. It was really cool. I even drew a pic about it, though it’s not finished, so you can’t see it yet. ^^;
So... yeah. God is love. Ph33r. ^.^
Oh, and for those of you who don't know, Eriq is leaving for Arizona. We don't know for how long, but... yeah. 'Tis sad-ful. T.T