Saturday, July 23rd, 2005 - 12:41am

Hey all - we are at the hotel in Florida, every kid in hand, and we are excited to see everyone tomorrow.

Since we now have 'real' internet, we'll update this web page tomorrow in our down time with more info, pictures, etc on what happened the past few days.

Night!

Friday, July 22nd, 2005  -  3:00 PM

The cruise ship left the Bahamas about an hour ago and the team had a wonderful time.  Everyone is exhausted (no surprise there), and the weather is sunny with a light breeze and no sign of storm.  Smooth sailing ahead!

Thursday, July 21st, 2005

Wednesday, July 20th, 2005

We've been incredibly busy here the past few days, I believe today we had about 50 kids at VBS, and have been working hard on 3 projects (instead of our original two).

We went to a really awesome bohemian church service tonight, the youth were just fired up for God after that.. it was really amazing to watch them sit through a two hour church service in 90F with suits & ties or dresses on, jumping up, dancing and singing. Wow!

Tuesday, July 19th, 2005

Well, Monday was a bit of a test for the painting crew - we assumed (wrongly) that we could just show up and paint, but no luck. By the end of the day Monday the paint we had put on the church had started to peel:

We had a local guy come up and tell us the obvious, that we needed to pressure wash and scrap down the entire church. So.. well, off we went doing that for the next two days:

Jim starting off the washing

Abby taking a turn

We keept it up until Thursday morning, when we finished what we could.

Monday, July 18th, 2005

Hello everyone! We are doing well, today we started our work, and it was great! We did a VBS in the morning, and that lasted until about 1, and most of the kids went home, but a few stuck around to watch and help us work on the church we were working on. We painted, sanded, and roofed two different churches, and we also got the opportunity to work with the other youth groups working with Island Encounter. After our work for the day was finished, we went out to dinner and back to the hotel. We had free time and most people swam in the pool or the ocean. Then we had worship on the beach, a great campfire, and went to bed. Thank you for your continuing prayers!

Sunday July 17th, 2005

Hello all. Short and sweet today, it's been a long day, and we're going to bed soon to get up early to begin work tomorrow. The ship ride was a great 5 hour tour! We arrived and checked in, had dinner and a worship time. We then hopped on a bus for a small tour of the island, and stopped by the work site, where last weeks group left us a message, which we've included a picture below. Hopefully a little longer note tomorrow.

Some of the youth relaxing or a bit sea-sick, ie. sleeping it off.

The worship team, holding worship on Sunday night for Lake Grove as well as two other mission groups!

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Hi everyone! Today was a great day, even though it started for us at 4:30, meeting at the airport. We flew for an hour and a half from PAX to Salt Lake City. Then flew for 4 hours to  Ft. Lauderdale, and arrived with the surprise of 90 degree weather, high humidity, and rain. We drove to our hotel room, checked in, and were free to walk around and buy dinner. We came back for a little meeting, had prayer/prayer partner time, and had a great worship. It was a long day, but we know we are here to do God's work and serve him, so we are happy to do what we are doing. Please continue to pray for our safety, travel, and all around smoothness of the trip. Be sure to check back tomorrow for a new update (that is if we have internet connection!).

July 15, 2005

We believe we will be able to update this web page daily during our mission trip. If that is the case, please keep checking back. If no updates happen, come back at the end of the mission for a full daily report.