Families on Mission day 3- Happy Fourth

Well it’s the end of first day of ministry. And we are soooo tired, that’s the theme on this post. I think I speak for all those over 30 in this regard.

Working along side your family and other families you will have moments of great success and moments revealing the true heart. Selfish.

Cady was tire and grumpy. If I heard , “ I don’t want to do this” once, I heard it 20 times. She pulled off her part in their program well ( they all did better than the first time even having to improvise some) but when she crawled in my lap while Cody spoke (reading from his Itouch) I knew she was really tired.

Here’s what she had to say

A forced downtime was in order after getting a little mouthy.

Point being- rest is imperative on any mission trip. You can not make it on your own strength. You must be wise and use your down times to truly rest. Working with varied ages we built some rest into each day this week.

Here’s the team after their performance this morning. The backdrop Leona Norton made was functional and pretty.

I will never cease to be amazed at how awesome it is to worship with other believers from other places. Even different denominations. In today’s service we had campers, our group, the long term guy (missionary Nate), the short timers (aka barefoot believers find them here online) and another team of teens from Louisville, Ky.

The barefoot believers did 3songs before our stuff and it was beautiful! This first song was about peace. I loved it (it also had 2 harmonies going on) . Marvelous Light and Blessed Be your name.

I cried for awhile- it was just so powerful- and I was extremely tired and when that happens I cry.

In the afternoon we did two shifts of “beach reach” passing out water bottles, face painting and hair wrapping. I walked a long way. They have a lot of stuff they bring out there. They do it several times a week there at the public beach in Gulf Shores.

Note, I have yet to put on a bathing suit, neither have my kids- but that water has magnets in it and they get sucked to it every time!

Tonight we simply watched the fireworks on the beach, laughed at funny things from throughout the day . The kids looked for crabs in the sand- found a few.

The oil wasn’t as bad tonight on our skin but there were double red flags up most of the day and we figure it’s due to the oil. Double flags means beach closed. Nate told us the beach was pretty much empty today compared to most holiday weekends. Sad.

We are still praying about getting into encourage the workers with sno cones, prayers and conversations.