Emotional Farewell

Our team has been very busy with carnivals and concerts, rehabbing churches and playing with lots of kids. We are having an amazing time and feel the presence of God in all that we do. We are so very blessed to be here and experience this together. Our team is bonding well and growing closer by the hour. Here are a few highlights of our last couple of days:

Our team at Green Grass has done an amazing job rehabbing the church. Their big project was to replace the roof which has been completed. They battled fierce winds but got the job done. We were able to all go as a team to Green Grass last night and look at their wonderful work which included not only the roof but repainting the entire interior of the church and replacing the carpet. We had an incredible worship service in the church last night which was very emotional! We finished the night by star gazing at the amazing South Dakota sky. We we in awe at the number of stars. NEVER have we seen that many stars.

These are some of the faces of the children we have been able to serve this week. They are beautiful children that love the undivided attention we have given them this week. They have been such a joy which will make it VERY hard to leave them tomorrow.

Our carnival was Wednesday and it was a huge success. We had approximately 400 people show up along with lots of adults which was a change from last year. We game away over 5000 prizes and fed everyone!

Our team getting ready for the big day!

The children started lining up at 10:30am for the carnival that started at 3pm!

We had face painting, a dunking booth, a bounce house and lots of other fun games for the kids.

The kids loved trying to dunk the others in the booth...lots of our kids even got in and that water was COLD!

Our happy clowns...Jennifer and Nita. They were a hit with their balloon making.

The winner of the clean-up game. Best game ever invented...kids get a trash bag, most trash wins the prize. We had that place cleaned up in 5 minutes flat!

One of the highlights of the week was our concert by a Christian rock band called " A Rotterdam November". We were able to connect with the teens in the youth center on a whole new level. It was an eperience they will never forget. The band also stayed with us for an extra night which was a great opportunity to connect with these special young men. They also led some awesome worship services for us!

And so our mission trip was a success on so many levels. We strengthened our relationships with Christ, formed bonds with each other that will last a lifetime and gave children of this community some joy. As we did our closing team meeting this evening we all spoke through MANY tears of the impact of this mission trip on our hearts. God definitely worked through us this week to show His grace to others.