LAMP 2011 Blog

We woke up and had the fish we caught last night.   Yum.  Well it is now Friday and it was our last day with the kids.  It seems like we just got here and now we had to say good bye.  It was a sad day and the kids were all asking if we were coming back.  Lots of hugs were given.  We were invited for a fish fry meal with our friends from the community who so graciously accepted us.  It is hard to describe the feeling we have in the community.  We feel so welcome and are very blessed to have this relationship with them as we continue our mission from year to year.

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Soccer anyone?

Da Bears

Family Night

Family Night

C is for Cookie.

Family Night

This is our big day.  Family Night and it was at the church which we were

Family Night.Family Night.....Singing

not at because of the funeral and wedding.  We are thankfull that we could use the church on this day.  The day went well for all the groups.  It was raining as we were setting up for Family Night and guess what?  It stopped raining right as we were starting so we could still have it outside.  We saw well over  hundred kids and many more parents this year than last.  The kids are so much fun to be around.  Some then went on a Bear run afterwards.

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NH 1

NH 1

NH 2

NH 2

NH 2

Well we were unable to get into the library to use the computers nor could we upload pics when we were in there.  Here are few photos  from the day.  Each day the connection with the kids grew stronger.

NH 2

NH 3

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A Rare Occassion (Most are sitting down)

Leon and Dyrell enjoying a song together

Good Morning from Shamattawa! It’s a cool sunny morning here so far. The reality of us leaving is about to set in. This morning will be packing and cleaning. Teaching is done, we’ve said goodbye to many of the children, but I’m sure there will be quite a few coming this morning to see us off and probably many will escort us to the airport about noon . Thompson is our destination for this evening, staying in a Lutheran Church basement, then driving Saturday along with the Norway House group back to Winnipeg by Saturday night.  If we have acccess later tonight we will add to the journal later.

Leon, Lori, Dave, Sharlene, Jessica, and Joy

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SKYPing with Pilot/Pastor Steve Dreher

Joy and her “Teen Break out session”

It’s  a cloudy morning in  Shamattawa . No rain however. Last evening we were able to have our LAMP Pilot Steve Dreher visit us. He has a friend, a Pastor in California doing  Vacation Bible School there. We had our kids talk to there kids over the internet on SKYPE they could see and hear each other. It was fun for them, we sang a song for the group in California. Steve left about 8:00 , as he was afraid of keeping his plane at the airport here overnight for fear of damage to it . We went to the community event at the Big Tent, we sang some songs with our kids there.

Later we came back for devotions and prep for today. Today is our last day of teaching. We had 53 children at our Bible School today. We even had new ones that had not been with us at all yet this week. The story today was the story of the Ten lepers and how one returned with thanksgiving. We once again did the blanket toss with about 100 water balloons. We sang many songs, our snack today was fruit punch Koolaide w/ Fruit Snack Zoo Animals, (made with real fruit)I’m sure this is a healthy snack . Lori, Dave, Jessica, Sharlene, and Joy all went on a walk-a-bout, and just returned.

After supper tonight we will need to go through all of our supplies to see what we can pack and leave here for next year. This will be our last evening in Shamattawa. Tommorrow we will clean out our rooms, and pack up getting ready to fly out. Ou plane leaves Shamattawa at 1:30. We will spend Friday evening in Thompson at a Lutheran Church in the basement, but have an invitaion for supper from one of the ladies at the church. She is hosting another LAMP group at her Bed and Breakfast for the evening. We will meet up with all of the Norway House group at the Ponton corner gas probablly for dinner or at least late morning. Then we will travel together to Winnipeg  to stay there at a church Saturday night, attend church Sunday morning , then drive home Sunday afternoon.

Leon and Team from Shamattawa

Dyrell The Backup Drummer at the Big Tent

Antonio Our Friend

Wendy and friends doing the skit

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Jessica and her Front Porch Bible Study

Today is Wednesday and we have a full day planned. Everyone is awake and ready to go. Breakfast today will be Famous Dave’s pancakes. We will be filling another 100 water balloons for the blanket toss again today. Besides the puppets, we have a skit planned for today which we will try to include a few of the teenage girls from Joy and Jessica’s Bible study. The weather is cloudy and we expect some rain later so we may need to keep kids inside. Steve the LAMP pilot will be here late in the day to get us together with a VBS group in California using SKYPE over the internet. The kids here will bea ble to talk live and see in real time the children at a Vacation Bible School in the United States. We have a few chosen who are willing to participate. That will happen about 7:00 this evening.

 Later at 8:00 we have been asked to participate in a community event at the Big Tent that was used for the Tent Revival. Hopefully many of the kids and the parents can be there. We plan to have a little program with the children singing a few songs and we can share with the community just what Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots does up here in the North and a little history from Steve Dreher the LAMP pilot as he will be spending the night with us. I suppose we will have to pull out the top of the line freeze dried food for our guest tonight.

Our time here is going too fast. Only two more days teaching, as we will be packing up and flying out Friday. We will be flying back to Thompson Manitoba, Friday afternoon where we have an invitation for supper from one of the church ladies, who is hosting another LAMP team from somewhere else also. We are staying at a church Friday evening before driving to the Corner Gas station near Ponton to meet up with the Norway House teams.

News of the rest of the day will follow later as time permits……………..

Leon, Lori, Dave, Sharlene, Jessica, & Joy

Inside The Big Tent (Set up for a Camp Meeting) in Shamattawa

Craft Time

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Norway House 1.....More kids :)

Norway House 1

Jesus heals the blind. NH 2.

Norway House 3

Norway House 3......Priceless.

Tuesday
Norway House 1:
Today we had about 80 people! There were kids lined up waiting to come in, and we had to set up extra tables and chairs. We played Red-Light-Green-Light with them and they LOVED it. The kids seem to be very open to talk to us and trust us. There were even some of them who asked us to pray with them. Praise the Lord! We also decided to use up their energy (and ours) by running around playing soccer. We’re looking forward to see what God has in store for us the rest of the week. Everything is in the Lord’s Hands! Good thing, too!

Norway House 2:
We had 10 new students today and everything went much smoother than the day before. We broke all of our students down by grade for outside time which helped keep them zoned in. The students made some great crafts – all with beatiful pictures on the cross, and many said Jesus Loves Me and I Love God/Jesus, and some put their family members down. Our students can really sing with engergy and love to play the boomwhackers. We were sad to find out one of our student’s mother committed suicide not long ago and he just got back from bereavement camp. We hope to connect with him and try to help him understand that Jesus will be there for him always, and he can go to Him when he is sad or doesn’t understand for comfort. Please pray for comfort for him and his family.

Norway House 3:
They had a great day and their numbers jumped. One girl went out and picked up a rock and brought it in and wanted to paint it…others soon joined in and it was a great time. They have a student who is afraid of her dad and did not want to go home or take her projects home. Please pray for her.

The youngsters and I (Dan) went to the mall (a few stores) and shopped a bit and then went to Low’s (not the hardware store). Then we shopped some more, and I asked about smoked fish. The butcher told me to talk to a lady checking out who knew some people, so I told her where I was staying. We shopped a bit more and checked out. The lady was still checking out (she had a lot of stuff) and she was having problems with steering a bad cart, so I helped her out and had a coversation on the way to her van.  I found out that her husband was a pastor at a church that our teams were not at.  A group from Staples did not come up to do VBS at their church like planned. I told her more about our group and said that maybe we could expand and go to her church next year. Time will tell. We then ate some spaghetti with great Barb Peloquin sauce w/meatballs. Went for a swim and now to the college to write some blog for you. We are unable to upload pictures on here :( which is a bummer but at least we can tell you a few things. Tomorrow is family night from 6:00-8:00. It should be a good time. Thank you for your continuing prayers. There are some things that are improving since we started coming here 2 years ago.

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Good Morning from Shamattawa. This will be a short posting for now, more will follow later. Leon’s laptop computer crashed this morning and we have not resolved the problem. Most of the photos from yesterday are on the hard drive and we have not been able to get at them. I am now using Jessica’s computer. We should be able to get some pictures up later. It’s around 11:30 AM now and we are getting ready for the afternoon of VBS. Only a few kids have been at our door this morning. Antonio was here already at 7:30 or so waiting to play outside.

Thanks for following the Blog again today. More should follow later.

Ok it’s later, about 8:00 PM Joy is out ding a Bible Study with a few of the teen girls we met, a great milestone for us. She has a way of connecting with the youth it seems. Lori, Dave, Jessica and Sharlene are out interacting with younger kids. I am inside writing this Blog away from the bugs.

Today we had 88 children in Bible School, one schoolroom made for 25-30 gets just a little crowded, but we made it through another day. Dave and Leon filled 100 water balloons this morning for the water balloon blanket toss activity. About an hour to fill them, and about 5 minutes to see them all gone! We sang lots of songs, like Jesus is the Rock, Be Bold, Blind Man, and many more. Many of them over and over and over and over again. The kids just love to sing.

The weather is good, no rain, warm probably in the high 70′s Id guess. The bugs are bad though!  Wednesday Steve D. the LAMP Pastor Pilot is flying in to visit on Wednesday, we plan to Skype ( talk over the internet) to a VBS group in California, with some of our kids participating on this end. Steve has this lined up with them at 5:00 tomorrow, our time.  Pastor Steve is staying overnight with us here before returning Thursday morning.

Sorry no pictures today, but will try to get some in Wednesday

Leon, Lori, Jessica, Sharlene, Dave and Joy

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Whew!!  We finished day two of VBS. Today we had 91 kids that came to our session from 1:00- 3:30 or so. The Dave in the morning show on 96.5 Fm Shamattawa must have some listeners. Many of the kids told us they heard Dave on the radio this morning advertising for the Vacation Bible School. We had a busy morning of stopping at the Band Office to get photo permission sheets signed , stopping at the Northern store for a few supplies, and the radio station stop. The school was available again for us today which is a great place to have our class. All is within walking sistance frome where we stay, but we do need to carry everything we use for the day to the classroom. Today after the class Dave went with a few of the kids to “The Rock” as the kids call it. It’s a spot on the God’s river where they swim. He said it was a bit cold. The rest of us stayed back to organize a few things. Dave is the token “kid” we send out to play 1st after awhile others will follow. Most of us are a little exhausted today as we stayed out late last night at the Camp Meeting, many of the Christians in the community were there which included alot of the kids we see at the  VBS each day. This “Tent Revival” is going on here all week. It was an intersting evening.

Evening mealtime is here, and Lori is the head cook, someone else will be the bottlewasher. We are having Dave’s favorite tonight, freeze dried Beef Stroganoff, maybe toast , we did get our hands on a stray toaster for the week.

Tonight we will prepare for tommorrow’s lesson, and do our devotion during popcorn time. Once again, we are so thankful for this opportunity to be here.

Thank you to all who are supporting us in prayer!

Leon, Lori, Dave, Sharlene, Jessica, and Joy

The dave in The Morning Show 96.5 FM Shamattawa

Lori Teaching the Bible Story for the Day

Good Listeners

Group Shot at End of Day

Jessica "everybody's friend"

Thanks again for following our Blog!

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Norway House 1

Norway House 2

Norway House 3

Attending a Gospel concert.

Monday
Norway House 1: Had a great day and had 30 students. They ran out of time; they were having such a great time. We found out that the group will be in the Muli Plex all week, so they have a place to teach. Prayers were answered.

Norway House 2:
Had a great day as well and had 67 students. It is great to have a couple of extra people this year. Lorna who was with us from last year was also there to help us. The students have so much energy.

Norway House 3:
Had two new students from last year and had a good Nature Hike; the students didn’t want to come back inside. We ate, had supper, and then went to a concert of a Gospel group at the multi plex. The Lamp team was the only group that showed up…..we found out that they were on the radio which everyone at Norway House listens to. It is their form of communication. Pastor Deterding spoke, and Shari, Jane, Joanie, and Glenda sang Amazing Grace on the radio and also got to speak about the VBS.  A few younger folks, Pastor D and I took a dip and went back to our home station at the Catholic Church.

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Treated to breakfast at the Catholic Church. (The Sausage was GREAT)

Morning excercise.

Sleeping accomodations at the Catholic Church in Grand Rapids.

Gas stop….and also time for a snack.

Eating at Michael P’s in Winnipeg.

Crossing the boarder.

We made it through the border without any problems at all.  Stopped in Winnipeg for lunch at Michael P’s where we had extra time to spare, as we were not able to get into the church in Grand Rapids until 10:30 PM.  The trip was a little slower due to the trailer, but the comfort was well appreciated.  We drove in lots of rain and gained lots of weight munching on the way up.  When we arrived we were told that we would have breakfast in the morning with the Moorhead group who were staying at the church we stayed at last year.  This year we were at the Catholic Church.

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Sunday morning was beautiful here in Shamattawa, it was cool maybe in the 50′s or so. Many of the team members spent the morning outside playing with the kids. We were not sure until 11:00 or so whether or not we would be able to be indoors or outside as we did not yet have access to the school rooms.  The man showed up at our door just in time with the key. We started VBS today with the creation story and a song for the kids to learn about creation as well. The craft for today was a cross necklace that each child was able to assemble for themselves.The theme for this week is Jesus Is The Rock”.  Part of our acitvities today was to find a rock and write Jesus on it.  We had 58 children today that participated. The group we had today was very well behaved. We may have connected with the kids. After VBS we attended the Anglican church where there was a Baptism  today. We took many of the children with us to church which had started at 3:00 and lasted until 5:00 or so. The kids played outside with us before we ate supper. Tonight later there is a Christian Camp Meeting being held on the west side of town. We may check that out later on after our prep time.

Leon, Lori, Dave Sharlene, Jessica, & Joy

Sharlene and the kids with bubbles

Joy and two new friends

The Puppet show Sammy and Lucy

Lori and The Rock

Dave and Farrah

The Shamattawa Team except Dave

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Shamattawa from the air as we arrived

We left about 7:00 AM this  from Grand Rapids Manitoba, driving to Thompson by 10:30 and to the airport in Thompson by 11:15. The plane left for Shamattawa at 12:15 , in the air for about 1 hr.  We caught a ride from Vincent, a guy we met two years ago, who got us lined up with the teacherage manager. So we now have a place to stay at least. Our Food and other supplies are still locked up in the Anglican church and a funeral is being held there for someone who died in a house fire here last week.  We can get to that later.

We already have recognized alot of the kids, telling them about Vacation Bible School this week. Our plan is to start on Sunday afternoon, but we need to get contacts made with someone to let us into the school or get us a key.

Please keep us in prayer this week as we share time and words with the young people of Shamattawa.

Thanks for following our Blog

Leon

Getting re-aquainted with two teens

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Lutheran Association of Missionaries and Pilots

Thanks for visiting our Blog. We (The Shamattawa Team) will be traveling Friday July 22nd from Fergus Falls to Grand Rapids Manitoba, where we will stay overnight at the Anglican Church (on the floor). Early Saturday morning July 23rd we drive from Grand Rapids to Thompson Manitoba, where we then will travel by plane to Shamattawa Manitoba, a community of 1100 people that is very remote. This is a fly-in only community during the summer months.  Please follow our journals as we teach Vacation Bible School from Sunday afternoon through Thursday. Keep our team in prayer each day as we bring the Gospel message to the children and adults of the Cree Nation People. Our other three teams in Norway house will be leaving Saturday morning, staying in Grand Rapids, and then driving to Norway House Sunday. We thank God for this opportunity once again this year!

Leon Dawkins

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Watch here for updates from our LAMP teams.

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