Arizona - Update #3

Sunday at Middle Mesa Bible Church was quite the experience for our group.  Church started at 10:00am with a few people in attendance.  0ver the next hour or so people constantly trickled in until the church building was about full.  Part of our group ran a children's church for most of the morning.  The scheduled time for church to end was noon but since the food wasn't ready church just kept going and going and going until the food was finally ready around 1:45pm.  We spent the rest of Sunday setting up and preparing for VBS.

Monday was our first day of VBS.  Jeff and I went out early to pick up kids.  I felt like I was in a Jeep commercial as I navigated what were supposedly roads.  Let's just say it's good thing I have 4 wheel drive.  It took over an hour to pick up kids due to the distance and road conditions.  In some spots you could only drive 5-10mph so you can swerve to miss the really big holes.  Other parts were really sandy like driving on a beach.  We had 33 kids on our first day while Don and I had 5 adults for bible study during that time.

The plan was to visit the Grand Canyon this afternoon but due to 30-40mph winds and massive dust storms we postponed the trip to later in the week.  This has allowed our group for our first rest time this whole trip.  We have been going non-stop since Friday.  They are enjoying the much needed rest.  Please continue to pray for us. Pray for the kids, myself as I pick kids up and take them home, the adults in the bible study, and for our team as the sand storms are getting sand everywhere!

In our adult bible study we looked at John chapter 3.  We had some great discussion and eventually started talking about God's unconditional (agape) love.  It was encouraging to hear how everyone there, including us talked about how we are called to love people with the love Christ has lavished upon us.  We can't manufacture that love on our own, in fact we need to die to ourselves, put off the flesh and put on Christ to love people unconditionally.

We found something in common...volleyball!

The kids were a little worn out after a long day.