Day 6-7

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Day 6: Day 6 was the first day of our trip in the Seattle area and we started it off with a bang by sleeping in. The hotel we were at was fairly casual- People had dogs in the building just letting the walk around, so I'm thinking Hauser didn't drop too much money on the hotel if dogs were present. What a wonderful gift that was. The plan for the day was to go into Seattle and walk around the Pike's Street Market and see the grand sights and taste the delicacies provided by the locals. We had to check out at 12 and had nothing to do until supper time and no where to leave our stuff so we left a giant wall of luggage outside the hotel which really added to the scenery. We went into town with the intention of picking J up at the airport down the road at 3 and getting lunch before hand. Snow, Josh Clarkson and I got some fish at a local cafe and Snow proclaimed it was the best fish he had ever put in his mouth. For those of you who went to Alaska and got to taste the salmon, I would compare the two fish, but Alaskan being better. Some other people made their way into the Japanese restaurant and approved then we went into the first ever Starbucks right by the market. A handful of us departed out from the city toward the airport to pick up J. We made it there smoothly and wrapped the package and headed back to the town in order to pick up the rest of the people that needed the ride back. About 10 miles out from the exit, we got a call saying they were going to squeeze 22 people into one of the vans because they were tired of waiting or something. So we got off at the intended exit because it was the easiest and turned it around and got back on the highway. We had semi-directions to get to the school but were intended for coming from a different direction. We missed an exit and it was all down hill from there. J and I decided to whip out the map that was provided to us by the women who packed the boxes in our van. Who ever was in charge of making the roads and labeling them is probably one of the biggest idiots ever. The road WA-167 S is horseshoe shaped, so when you get to the bottom curve and start heading north, you are still on 167 S which threw us into a loop. We had to whip out the compass and figure out which way to go and still ended up in a completely different town. We stopped for directions at the first gas station that we came to. When we went in and asked the cashier, he questioned Orting and was expressing himself as how were we this far off. He gave us directions and we got back on the road and he said that he got us to a close location and should just follow the signs in (which there were none until we were right up on the town). When the directions ran out, we almost immediately made a wrong turn. We made it back just in time to get some supper and head into service. Brandon Carter and Sterling Griggs led worship and then we headed back to our hotel to set up camp for the night.

Day 7: Today was our first day of going out and doing door-to-door, vbs or b-ball camp. The guys went in to get pancake breakfast (which were awesomely made by Chris Smitherman). We ventured forth to the church for our send out where a couple in the RiverChase Church led worship and Hauser had a devotional. Vbs was sent out first and so I have no idea what happened afterword. Our group headed over the park (which is right across from the HQ for the events) and started getting ready for the day. We had crafts, which involved making hats, sandals, tie-dye shirts and face painting. We also had a giant parachute which we started the day off with to attract some kids into the festivities. We also had a puppet show with a puppet that could talk with out moving his mouth and afterword the puppet master was giving out autograph(s). We had about 30 kids show up through out the day and had a really good time. We shared a lot with the children, handed out information and a lady in our group would 'survey' (anyone that has ever been involved with Frontliners knows what that means) their parents. At the night service, I saw some kids that were at our park wearing some of the tie-dye shirts they had made- and one of the girls that was at the second portion of our party in the park won the Wii that we gave away at night. After lunch we headed out to our second location, and it was desolate. We stayed there for about and hour and no one showed up so we headed back to our original park and started back up there. We did the same thing as the first time with a few less kids there participating. I thought it was pretty cool when a kid rode his bike up to us and asked if we were the ones giving out Bibles. Apparently Carl, Sherry and Laura had ran into this kid when they went out at the other park trying to find people to come and sent him over toward the city park. Either way, it was really good to hear a kid wanting the get a Bible. Since this was after lunch and we were right across the street from where we ate, A lady that helped with food brought a cooler of lemonade out to share it with the children. When we packed up and headed back to the HQ, a man came up and talked to the the lemonade lady and all I heard as I was passing by was something along the lines of "I really appreciate what you all are doing out here showing you care," and handed her ten bucks. I don't know if she took it or not because I was well passed her when this happened, but when I heard and saw that, I was blown away that someone so random and from what I remember didn't have any children involved with our vbs, wanted to donate to our cause. After all was said and done for the day, we shipped out and headed back to our lodging for a few hours. Snow and J needed some razors from Wal-Mart and I needed new shower materials since I left everything in Montana so I went with. If you can believe it... we got lost. Our first mistake was getting directions from Hauser. When we realized we were lost, I called in and Hauser got me on the horn with a local, who had no earthly idea where we were after I described our location out. When we finally made it back to the church she handed us a map and we were on our way. We made it back just in time again for food and the service. It was family night and had inflatables and a skate park, which is apparently pretty big in the area. At a certain time, the band performed and a few of us went out and helped take down the inflatables. We only got to hear two of their songs but the youth seemed to enjoy it. After that, some of the UGBC youth did a skit to a Lifehouse song which was pretty amazing and saying the did a good job doesn't really cut it. After that Power Force, a muscle group that is on an evangelical mission around the world demonstrated some of their strength. They were the main attraction and the speakers for the night. The two of them ripped up a phone book, license plate, a baseball bat, twisted an iron pole around a few times and tried to completely snap a solid metal hammer over their thighs. They spent some time on it handing it off, but couldn't pull it off. I think they were playing us since they would be back on Sunday for the service, so it was a cliffhanger until next time. If and when they do pull it off, it will be quite the sight.

I'm not sure what happened with the other VBS groups, but I did hear some reports on door-to-door. If there were people home, they didn't really seem too receptive. But this could just be a biased survey and some other teams really did well in other parts of the neighborhood.

Tomorrow, we will be doing the same thing, so continue to pray for us.

Over and out,
Rob