That’s a wrap!

Sick Chart Update

	Not Yet Sick (as of Friday, at drop-off)	Sick	Mostly/Better
Saturday	everyone else...	Alyssa Lori
Sunday	everyone else...	Alyssa Lori
Monday	everyone else...	Heather Rachel Tirzah Sara Christy Mike	Alyssa Lori
Tuesday	everyone else...??	Tirzah Jake Mike Jeremiah Walker	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy
Wednesday	Tom G Angela Gloria Antonio Colleen Jim Bob Messiah	Logan Ryan Paco Mike	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy Tirzah Jake Walker Jeremiah Mike
Thursday	Tom G Angela Gloria Antonio Colleen Jim Bob Messiah Tim Sue (note – still some names here!!)	(note – NO NAMES HERE!!!)	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy Tirzah Jake Walker Jeremiah Mike Logan Ryan Paco

Yes, indeed. Final count:14 of the 24 total folks from Wisconsin got sick – and better – during our time in St Louis. Aren’t you glad we didn’t post pictures of that?!!
We are so grateful – both that folks got better, AND that the bug seemed to run through pretty quickly. Everyone still got chances to do most of the various activities that comprise a work trip in St Louis.
Thursday wrapped up well – we said good-bye to the kids we’d tutored, we served in the afternoon for a last time with the folks from St Louis that we’d gotten to know throughout the week, and then we headed out for Indian food as a way to celebrate a great week. Yum! As a final wrap-up today, Andrew gathered us together to reflect on what we’d experienced and learned throughout the week – and to challenge us to bring it back with us.
On Friday we experienced a few hiccups getting packed up (my – Angela’s - car battery konked out and needed replacing before we left), but for the most part got out without too much trouble. Other than a complete downpour that was a tad nerve-wracking to drive through, things went smoothly and we were back in Appleton by around 7pm.
I have to say – the kids and leaders were just great to be with. In spite of the sickness and other things that could really have thrown a wrench into the week, folks maintained positive attitudes, volunteered to help out where they could, and generally contributed a lot to everything going well. I couldn’t ask for a better team to serve with – thanks, Mike, for all you did to help pull together an incredible time for all of us! And thanks to God that the 7th St Louis Trip joined the other six in being an incredible, rewarding, exhausting, and amazing time.

Your Calling

My girls: from left to right: Sarah, Nazra, me, Anna

Hello all! This is Sara blogging to you now. I am just going to give you a brief moment of something that stood out to me this week. We do devotionals with Andrew every morning and there are many things he says to make us think, but one in particular got my attention. He was talking about Micah 6:8 (NIV) “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” He told us that our occupation is not our calling, it’s our vocation. “You can lose your job tomorrow, but you cannot lose your calling,” he told us. That struck me. I have been called to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with God. When Jesus was on Earth, He spent a good amount of His time with the people that have little. If He found them valuable, then I should too. This is the 7th St. Louis trip for me. I wouldn’t have gone this many years in a row if I did not find value in these people that God has placed on my heart. I look forward to walking humbly with God wherever He takes me and see the same beauty in people that He sees.

Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday

It seems pretty sad that an update for this week feels like it should start with a "who's sick now" update, but that is just the way this week has rolled. Maybe we should make a table:

	Not Yet Sick (as of Wed)	Sick	Mostly/Better
Saturday	everyone else...	Alyssa Lori
Sunday	everyone else...	Alyssa Lori
Monday	everyone else...	Heather Rachel Tirzah Sara Christy Mike	Alyssa Lori
Tuesday	everyone else...??	Tirzah Jake Mike Jeremiah Walker	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy
Wednesday	Tom Angela Gloria Antonio Colleen Jim Bob Messiah	Logan Ryan Paco Mike	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy Tirzah Jake Walker Jeremiah Mike
Thursday	???		Logan Ryan

So yeah, it’s been quite a run! That being said – the kids really have had great attitudes and overall have enjoyed their time here a lot. It’s been neat to get to know the other group from Iowa that’s here this week, and have a chance to connect with kids, each other, and with God.
Today we had to bid farewell to 4 of the “grown-ups” (ha!) that have been with us so far – Tom, Lori, Christy and Jeremiah. They had to get back to jobs and other grown up things. Fortunately, 2 brand-spankin’ new ones arrived later to continue carrying the torch – Sue and Tim (yippeee!).
Normally our days go (roughly) tutoring –> lunch –> work projects –> supper –> Kids Club. But today we started before breakfast with tie dyeing the t-shirts we get from this week, and instead of our afternoon work project we had a 2 hour retreat of silence. That was a change for high schoolers who are used to going at a crazy pace: talking, listening to music, or sleeping. Andrew challenged us not to talk, or sleep, during that time, but rather to take time for quiet prayer and reflection. Neat stuff!
It was hard to wrap up Kids Club for the week. The kids just seemed so sweet and willing to connect this year. A couple of 20-year-old guys that Ryan was talking with live in the same complex as these kids. They told him, “it’s just so neat to see the children smiling and having fun. You brought them joy”. Just cool stuff! Tonight in addition to our normal game playing and dispensing of sno cones and popcorn, we handed out dental supplies! Alyssa had asked around with dentists in the Valley and rounded up a big supply that we were able to package and get to the kids. They loved them and kept coming back in line to get more for their brothers and sisters.
We wrapped up the day at the laundromat –hopefully we now have enough clean clothes to end the week in style!

Wednesday pics VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Tuesday–a day in pictures

So – 3 1/2 people were out sick today (Walker, Jeremiah, and Jake. Tirzah was able to join back in the fun around noon – hooray!!). The rest of us had a great day, tutoring, serving, doing Kids Club, and hanging out.

	We brought stuff and know-how down – and helped the kids make tambourines today
	At the work sites…
	At Kids Club
	Packing up dental supplies

flexi-cookies!

How do you handle it when things don’t go as planned? Do you carry a pack of flex-cookies with you and pull one out as things get crazy? It works for us! The super flexi-powers just flow and suddenly you can deal with pretty much anything the situation throws at you.
This flexi-cookies were needed much sooner than we anticipated. We were thinking we’d stock up, pull ‘em out toward the end of week as we got more tired, things got more crazy, and we were trying to process everything here and at home. Little did we know…
On Saturday, both Alyssa and Lori (separately) started feeling nauseous, and Alyssa was up multiple times during the night with stomach yuck. By Sunday night Alyssa was feeling somewhat better, but Lori fought to hang in there and eventually went to bed early. Three more girls (Heather, Tirzah and Rachel) were out for the count by this morning (Monday) – they also had been up through the night making good use of the toilets . By 8:30 AM, Christy and Sara were out as well.
It’s a big deal – for morning tutoring they match each high schooler with one or two students. With that many folks out, they went from man-on-man to zone defense; each tutor helped multiple kids – a pretty big deal given the, um, attention needed by some of the students (flexi-cookie power!).
We then broke into our work project groups for the afternoon and had fun meeting folks, helping with all sorts of projects, and generally doing what we had hoped to do. By 4 or so we were all drifting back to the main building and a fire alarm went off. Everybody (sick people included) evacuated and waited maybe half an hour before the all clear was given and we headed back in. We still don’t know what caused it to go off. (more flexi-cookies!).
Our next adventure was a Kids Club that didn’t happen – it had been storming and rain had been positively pouring down for hours and it was likely to continue through the evening. So – flexi-cookies! – we hung out, watched Night Servants (a movie by our very own Appleton True North group), ate popcorn, and debriefed experiences from the day. Aside from an emergency run to the 24-hour pharmacy for albuterol (have I mentioned it’s a very good thing we have a nurse and a family practice doctor here this week?), things wrapped up fairly calmly.

		monday pics VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL