From Famine to Feast

What a difference a week makes!

You might think I'm talking about the weather, but that has remained cold and snowy...pretty much the same. But activities here at church sure did change from one week to the next.

Two weekends ago we had the youth here for our annual thirty hour famine. That's right, thirty hours without food, with 22 teenagers no less! We spent the time learning about world poverty, hunger, and experienced (even if for just a short while) what it must be like to go hungry.

We learned that 1,208 people die each hour of starvation around the world. We made crosses, and lit candles, which represented this number.

The other statistic that we learned about is that 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day, which is the definition of extreme poverty. To help them grasp what a dollar really buys we went to Wal-Mart and gave each youth a dollar to buy food. Whatever they bought would be their meal the next day when we would break our fast. It was interesting to see how many youth bought cans of Pringles! Some were a little wiser and bought some vegetables, while others bought Ramen noodles and pop-tarts. Very interesting!

It was a tremendous weekend of fellowship, learning and spiritual growth and I am grateful for every youth that participated!

But, now fast forward to this past weekend...

We had our Camo Night Out and it was quite the feast!

Eighty plus people showed up and we ended up with four tables of food! We had wonderful dishes from venison chili to meatballs to turtle soup to squirrel and dumplings. The variety was amazing!

After we ate, prizes were given out for: the youngest successful hunter, the oldest successful hunter, biggest buck, biggest turkey, woman with the biggest buck, plus a few door prizes. All of these prize winners got to share their story of their successful hunt...and I think most of the stories were true.

We ended our night with a presentation by Matt Shelson, owner of Monster Plots in Vassar. He shared about wildlife habitat, and specifically about food plots on our hunting property. With the baiting ban in Michigan this was a very timely topic, and all the hunters, and non-hunters alike, were engaged by his presentation.

I think the only change we'll make next year is that we'll incorporate a recipe exchange.

See you around church...feast or famine.

Construyendo la Casa de Dios III

We just returned from our college mission trip to Anapra, Mexico and I wanted to share with everyone how well it went.

We left on Christmas day, to save money on flights, and returned about 3:30 am on January 4th.

When we arrived we stayed in El Paso for two nights. That time allowed us to gather building materials, health kits, and tools, plus allow the whole team to arrive before we headed across into Mexico. We made one material run into Mexico and had a two hour wait coming back across the border, which made us quite thankful we weren't doing that every day.

The team was itching to get to work, so Sunday morning we starting putting insulation in the dormitory attic. This wasn't a fun job, but we figured that it would help hold heat where we were staying and so therefore should be top on the priority list.

Sunday afternoon we worshipped in Anapra and then gave out quilts and health kits. The quilts had all been made by our very own quilters back in Caro. I think it was somewhere around 35 quilts that we were able to give away along with 50 health kits consisting of a towel, washcloth, toothbrush, toothpaste, a comb, nail clippers, band-aids, and soap.

During our work days we were able to:
-replace stucco on the front and back of the church with siding


-prepare two new main doors for the front of the church by installing a window in each
-install gutters and downspout on three different spots where water has been a problem inside the church
-install six "whirlybird" vents for the roof and two intake vents in the back gable

-fix up the playground by installing a teeter-totter, working on the merry-go-round, repairing the swing set, and repairing the ladder

-insulate dorm

-paint the whole sanctuary ceiling and walls, as well as the girl's bathroom ceiling

-install an attic access in the sanctuary
-install an 8'x6' LCMS cross on the front of the church

-cut tree stump down to make a step out of it
-pour concrete around the tree stump and under the downspouts

-install altar, vertical pieces on altar, hymn board, and pulpit

-fix a shower head
-replace some broken shingles on an older roof

It's a lot of odd jobs, but all stuff that needed to be done to get the church in Anapra where it needs to be. There is talk about that church being used as an orphanage or maybe a school. I feel like we moved them closer to realizing that dream.

The group was great! Everyone worked together very well and accomplished much. Our evenings were filled with good study of God's word (revolving around lesser known characters from the Bible), games, and a lot of laughter (sometimes to the point of tears). Celebrating the New Year in Mexico was a different experience for all of us. Anapra was full of loud music, bonfires, and fireworks on New Year's Eve. We sat on the church roof at midnight and watched some of the fireworks after having a little fire of our own.


When the work was all done, we celebrated our success by having some great Texas barbecue at a restaurant in El Paso. Early the next morning the team had to start saying goodbye as each went their own way...off to their new mission fields.