In July we had the privelege of going on a Missons Trip "locally" (4 hours away) with our Church. It was a last minute trip that was taken over by our Church for another local Church that normally does this trip every year - they couldn't this year due to conflicting scheduling of another Missions Trip! So we jumped on this opportunity and went along with 16 other adults and 9 other children. We stayed at a Campground and tented for 6 nights. This is the first time we've camped as a Family since Elijah was 18months! It was great! (besides the wind on the first and second days - it was windy like I've never experienced, and unfortunatly I've developed a wind-phobia in the past couple years. Ugh)
Here we are loaded down with all of our gear and food and bikes on the back - ready to go!
So the whole mission for this trip was to LOVE the migrant workers & fruit pickers that come to this area (primarily from Quebec) by providing them with a big dinner for the 5 week days. We were going up to their Camp (which was just basic with a tap for running water that they drank but probably shouldn't have and an toilet - they can stay at this "campground" for $75/month!) with all of our gear (borrowed from the Church who usually does this trip) like tables, chairs, huge BBQ, pots, bowls...etc.
there were lots of dogs up at this camp - the kids all loved the dogs
we were told to expect about 175 people coming up for meal; but many of the days we were feeding closer to 300! God provided! It was really neat working in a "kitchen" outdoors with the group to prepare salads, cut vegetables, serve food - our Pastor said if he doesn't see another BBQ for the rest of the summer though, he'd be good with that! There was A LOT of que-ing going on!
one evening we handed out these little packs of toothpaste, toothbrush deodorant...etc. and then another night we handed out Bibles in French to those who wanted one
all 3 of my children were hard workers - setting up chairs, taking down chairs, picking up trash and recycling and their favourite job was handing out cups and filling them up with Lemonade... check it out:
there were 2 of these handy dandy backpacks (that Jason has on) - we would pass out the Lemonade to the people in the line waiting for food, great time to converse with them!
At this final meal, we had invited a few of the Workers to serve food with us (in the pink, for example) - and see this Family getting food? They live up at this camp; the husband fruit picks and the wife is with the 2 children. They otherwise live in a nearby town in the off season. Wow, what a brave mother! It is just dirt up there - man our kids came home sooooo dusty/dirty each evening!
Another thing we did for the workers, was provide a Laundry Day for them! We handed out garbage bags one night and said to return them to us full of dirty laundry and we would then return them nice and clean! One morning the Ladies (and one husband - the one whom had the back of his truck full of the bags!) got up early to do Laundry at a Laundromat that specifically let us in 2 hours before he opened the store to regualar customers. That meant 7:00am. It was another neat experience!
And yet another component to this week was the opportunity to work at Gleaners. 4 of the mornings that week a group of us went to work there, cutting onions!
a part of this special Mix sent all over the World:
That was the work part of our trip! In the afternoons we met as a group for a meeting and devotional and then had an hour or two to do whatever before heading up to the camp for meal preparations!
One afternoon our whole group met at a local lake - the kids had a blast! It was almost like a week-long-playdate for the kids!
and one afternoon our Family drove into the next City to get to a Walmart for a new air mattress since we were waking up a bit to close to the ground each morning - and so we stopped for an ice cream cone at Tickleberry's
and finally, our Campground had a pool, so we took advantage of that!
Fantastic week - would we do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Am I happy to finally gone on a Missions Trip (never have)? Yes! Even if it was so close to home, I'm happy to have given this opportunity to our Children already as well! (I'm hoping one of my 3 children will want to go on a Missions Trip through their High School (yes, we're taking a decade from now!) and I'll go as a chaperone - that's my plan! I want to get to Haiti yet!)
cute turkey, hey? this was a make/take session we could join if we wanted, so Gabi and I did:
pinecone creations was another session available for kids
and while Elijah and Jason were on a lengthly hike, Sam participated in relays, which he just loved doing!
Food was aplenty there - seemed we were always eating some sort of huge meal... it's really great and beautiful up there!
there were lots of dogs up at this camp - the kids all loved the dogs
we were told to expect about 175 people coming up for meal; but many of the days we were feeding closer to 300! God provided! It was really neat working in a "kitchen" outdoors with the group to prepare salads, cut vegetables, serve food - our Pastor said if he doesn't see another BBQ for the rest of the summer though, he'd be good with that! There was A LOT of que-ing going on!
one evening we handed out these little packs of toothpaste, toothbrush deodorant...etc. and then another night we handed out Bibles in French to those who wanted one
all 3 of my children were hard workers - setting up chairs, taking down chairs, picking up trash and recycling and their favourite job was handing out cups and filling them up with Lemonade... check it out:
there were 2 of these handy dandy backpacks (that Jason has on) - we would pass out the Lemonade to the people in the line waiting for food, great time to converse with them!
At this final meal, we had invited a few of the Workers to serve food with us (in the pink, for example) - and see this Family getting food? They live up at this camp; the husband fruit picks and the wife is with the 2 children. They otherwise live in a nearby town in the off season. Wow, what a brave mother! It is just dirt up there - man our kids came home sooooo dusty/dirty each evening!
And yet another component to this week was the opportunity to work at Gleaners. 4 of the mornings that week a group of us went to work there, cutting onions!
a part of this special Mix sent all over the World:
That was the work part of our trip! In the afternoons we met as a group for a meeting and devotional and then had an hour or two to do whatever before heading up to the camp for meal preparations!
and one afternoon our Family drove into the next City to get to a Walmart for a new air mattress since we were waking up a bit to close to the ground each morning - and so we stopped for an ice cream cone at Tickleberry's
and finally, our Campground had a pool, so we took advantage of that!
Fantastic week - would we do it again? Yes, in a heartbeat. Am I happy to finally gone on a Missions Trip (never have)? Yes! Even if it was so close to home, I'm happy to have given this opportunity to our Children already as well! (I'm hoping one of my 3 children will want to go on a Missions Trip through their High School (yes, we're taking a decade from now!) and I'll go as a chaperone - that's my plan! I want to get to Haiti yet!)
unfortunately his Christmas Concert for school was to be tonight and it's cancelled...
and this cut tree was surrounded by cut pieces of tree on the ground for future firewood - the boys had a hayday playing with the pieces and getting their wet clothes covered in tree sawdust... again, "go for it!" This is Elijah and William
When we signed up to go to this retreat in May, we had asked one important question 'will we have our own place to bunk in?' and the answer was yes. This question is extremly important to me who has children who do not sleep all night and is not about to have a stressful-retreat (oxymoron) b/c we have company in our dwellings! Well, we arrived and what did our package say, but that we had the main level of one of the "suites" (I don't know exactly what to call it; cabin doesn't seem to do it justice). We quickly asked what "main floor" meant before unpacking all of our stuff... well, beyond the expectations of the Planning Committee over 300 people signed up to go on this retreat... so when we had asked if we would get our own place and the answer was yes, she meant that we'd have our own place since who would have ever anticipated this HUGE of a turnout for our first Family Retreat?!! So, so be it, we unpacked and dealt with it! Funny - our kids all slept all night! But the Family upstairs (2 boys ages 4 and 16mo.) had much less luck with their toddler... let me say, I sure didn't mind that he was waking me up - I was just thankful it wasn't us waking them up! ;) This Family - who it was so great to bunk "with" and get to know - didn't stay to sleep the second night but rather went home to their own beds for their own comfort. They did join us for breakfast again in the morning. (my kids did not sleep all night the second night, so that worked out well that it didn't matter so much anyway!)
