Death by Noodle

Hello all! Becca here!
Today brought many interesting and funny instances. For one, the weather was notably wet, even by Seattle standards. Pastor Ted informed us that the average annual precipitation (snow included) is around 15 inches, and it rained over 1-1/2 inches today alone!!! The rain, besides making outdoor games impossible, caused the downstairs toilets to overflow and flood both the men's and women's restrooms. We have now been reduced to using the upstairs bathrooms until the situation is resolved.

VBS this morning went well, besides the tiredness on our part and the small number of children. We are just trusting that God will send the children he wants us to influence, and that every child is attending for a reason.

Pastor Ted led us in the rousing "Potato Chip Song", which is sure to become a hit.

Mid-Potato Chip Song

The "worm-eating contest"

5th/6th engrossed in activity

I had a mini family reunion this morning when I found that my cousin Gabby (ok, my grandma’s cousin’s grandchild) is attending our VBS! I knew that she lived in Davenport, but wasn’t sure if I’d see her here. It was cool to talk a bit with her since we live so far away and don’t know each other very well.

Due to the wet weather, our service project at the baseball field was temporarily put on hold. A group of five (Heather, Jacob, Aaron, Daniel, and Diane) were sent to the Lincoln County Fairgrounds to sweep and mop one of the large main buildings there. According to Heather, the water smelled like eggs, but it wasn’t too bad other than that.

The mop crew

The rest of the team remained at home base where we washed and painted several walls of the church. With a little bit of teamwork and good company, the painting went quickly. While we were painting the upstairs we discovered the pull rope for the church's ancient bell. With the pastor's permission, we sounded the bell enough times to signal a wedding! :)

Painting prep

The bell rope

After painting, we washed up a bit and sat down to a wonderful meal of mac ‘n cheese, salad, and fruit cobbler, hand-prepared by our friend Carl. We have added master chef to his lengthy list of talents! J

Again, due to incumbent weather, we were unable to use the showers at the outdoor pool, but we headed to Davenport High School (Home of the Gorillas. How cool is that?!?!?) to wash up in their locker rooms. Afterwards we held youth outreach in the gym, where we played “Bring Home the Bacon” and heard testimonies by Kristen and Daniel. Afterwards came the highlight of the evening: the infamous “Sockey Hoc”. For those of you who don’t know, the objective of the game is for two opponents to use pool noodles to shoot a ball into a goal. Pretty quickly the objective became to beat your opponent into submission with your flailing noodle of death. We had an evening of good clean cathartic fun, and found that Carl, in addition to being a great cook, is an unstoppable noodle wielder!

Sarah steals the bacon

Not sure if Jacob is tackling Jeremy, or vice versa...

Daniel's testimony

Kristen's testimony

Best buds :)

Aaron cowers from the sting of Carl's noodle

Chari and Diane go at it

good times :)

We headed home, tired and laughing to two full pans of gooey brownies prepared by Chari (we love you!!!).

The team is clamoring to see this blog post, so I will sign off for now! We would ask that you pray for better weather as we head to Porcupine Bay tomorrow, and that God would use us effectively to reach others.

We love you all, but don’t worry, we’re not too homesick; we are having too much fun! J

Love,

Becca