It’s another beautiful morning in Shamattwa, the town is quiet and so is our apartment here in the teacherage. Most were up quite late last night. It’s 7:00 AM . This morning we will need to pack up and be ready to fly out before we go to Vacation Bible Scool, as we will have little time for packing after class today.
Early Morning View Outside Our Door 7-30-2010
Today’s lesson for us and the children is about how Jesus keeps us close. The story is the parable of the lost sheep from Luke 15:1-7 . Our craft for the day is making cotton ball sheep, the main song for the day is Jesus Loves Me.
We may not finsish this blog for a day or so, because internet connections are not always available. Our travel plans are not yet certain for the trip home. We know we fly out at 6:20 PM from here in Shamattawa, going straight to Thompson. Daves vehicle is in Thompson, so can pick that up, but then we are not yet where we will stay tonight, Friday, before driving to Winnipeg with the Norway House Group on Saturday.
Keep us in prayer as we say our sad goodbyes to these people of Shamattawa. We also ask for your prayer support for the many hurting people here that do not know Jesus.
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[The following was added on August 1st by Lori.]
Our last day teaching at Shamattawa…makes us feel sad that this awesome week is almost over. We got up and showered, which was a good thing, as they shut off the water in the city right after that. Radio said that we should boil the water when it comes back on at noon, then refrigerate it before drinking it. We have been filtering all of our drinking water anyway, so we had quite a bit in the fridge already.
We were happy to see Chasity today, as she just flew in from visiting her Mom in God’s River Narrows…she was a special VBS student from last year and we had missed her this week. We were so glad we got to see her again and note how she’d grown. Sure didn’t take her long to warm up to us again!
VBS banner Church Basement in Thompson our Friday night accommadations
We packed up most of our belongings before VBS, ate grilled cheese sandwiches and headed out for our last day of teaching. We had 53 kids today and I think most of them had sugar for lunch….very wiggly today! But by craft time, they had settled down pretty good and enjoyed making their lambs with cotton balls…today’s lesson was the story of the Lost Sheep. We were surprised when we asked who had ever seen a sheep and only a few kids raised their hands! After class, we cleaned up the schoolroom and headed back to the apartment to finish packing up there as well.
Heading to the airport (no taxi, but alot of help)
We had a handful of kids with us the entire day, especially our two special kids for the week, Tristian and Karien…and a special thank you to our airport shuttle crew…um, that would be the five of us adults, Tristian, Karien, Dyrell, and Greg carry/drag all of our gear/sleeping bags, etc. across the field and the loose gravel field, over the road and up to the airport…dusty and hot! Pretty funny sight, though, all of us straggling along, dragging our stuff…
More kids gathered at the airport so they could see us off and say goodbye. They plane coming in was over 1/2 hr. late, so they were there for a long time…I think the airport employees were getting a little annoyed with the crowd we had in there. It could have been the balls that were bouncing around, too, maybe.
Shamattawa team boarding plane for Thomson. Photo coutesy of the pilot.
We finally said all of our farewells and gave last hugs and headed out to the plane for departure from Shamattawa…what a feeling, flying off over the town, looking down at it from the air and knowing that part of your heart will be staying there with the children for another year. We have committed to pray for the people there, especially those kids on the fringe…praying that God reaches out and gathers them to Himself before the dark side does. We had a safe flight to Thompson, arriving at 8 p.m. Al Anderson, Director of Ministry for LAMP, met us at the airport and gave us a ride to the place where he is staying for the summer in Thompson. He and his wife, Darlene, gave us a delicious supper and offered us the opportunity to shower before heading over to the church for the night. Al got us to the church, where we settled in and had our popcorn/devotion time.
Aerial shot while leaving Shamattawa
The original plan had been for us to drive to Norway House from Thompson, but with all of the road construction and the fact that our team there had to move out of the church where they had been staying for a funeral, we decided it would be best for our team to stay in Thompson and meet up with them on Saturday.
