We are reviving the blog

The team is going back to Crownpoint next week and I think they may revive the blog. I will be turning this over to one of the new members and hopefully he will be able to keep everything updated.

More to come...

Getting ready

(Note: I know the dates are out of order but I wanted this post to show first so you could read from top to bottom in order. I wanted you to see the history first.)

This is a picture of our team from last year. We have a little over 60 people scheduled to go this year.

Crownpoint is located in New Mexico and is part of the Navajo Reservation.

As we are preparing for our trip to Crownpoint, N.M. for a VBS with the Navajo children and adults I just wanted to get a blog ready. We will be adding more information to this as we go and once we arrive, hopefully will be able to upload information and pictures daily.

For a little background, we are a group of Christians from Missouri Street Church of Christ in West Memphis, Arkansas. Lyndal and Loretta took the first team in 1974 and has led a team back here each year. My family started going with the group about 5 or 6 years ago. During this time the ages of our team members have been from 2 months old to quite a bit grayer teens. Sorry, they won't let me give their ages but some of us have been teens for a long, long time.

We will be adding to this as often as we can and hopefully once we arrive we'll be able to upload pictures and posts each day.

This is a picture of our kindergarten and younger kids in one of their Bible classes from 2005.

Here is a picture of Edison who is the preacher at the Crownpoint Church of Christ where we meet to have the VBS. You can't tell much from this picture but Edison has taken us up to the Mesa for a devotional for the team just before sunset. This is one of the most beautiful places I've seen. As you can tell our cowboy and Indian gets along very well.

The sunsets are absolutely magnificient in Crownpoint. We have devos for our team each evening and we try to go up to the Mesa at least once while we're there. These devos really help us to focus on God and to energize each one us to really put all of ourselves into teaching and building relationships especially with the Navajo kids.

No, this is not an ad for Cingular, "Raising the bar". These are just some of the kids that come to our VBS each year. I just wanted you to see how beautiful these kids are. We have given out T-shirts up to last year and a lot of the kids wear them when they come back each year. It's kind of cool seeing the different shirts each year.

A Time Capsule

Two years ago we built a concrete oven/grill at the church building in Crownpoint so the church members could use it for different activities. Our team decided that we wanted to make a time capsule to put into the walls of the grill. We typed up a synopsis of the history of the Navajo mission team and the 2004 team members all signed the document. We placed it in one of the concrete blocks before sealing it with the top. Hopefully, you can enlarge the picture of the document above to read the history.

Almost the whole team helped in building the grill. As you can see it took most of the "Manly Men" and some of the girls to get the capstone laid in place.

Almost Ready To Leave

This is a picture of part of our group from 2005. I think they said that we have over fifty people going back this year. Several of the ones in this picture will be going again this year.

We will be leaving this Friday, June 30, at 5:3o a.m. We are planning on driving into Albuquerque, N.M. Friday and spend the night at Montgomery Church of Christ, one of our sister congregations, who has been very gracious to let us stay in their Life Center the past several years. We will probably arrive there at or around midnight. That makes for a hard day of driving but it really makes the next day a lot easier. Plus we get to sleep in on Saturday morning! We'll spend the morning in Old Town (you know the ladies have to shop, but there's plenty for the guys to do) and then head on into Crownpoint around noon.

We have a lot more activities planned for our work this year. I think everyone is really excited about getting there this year. Hopefully, we will be able to get an Internet connection each day so we can upload more information and pictures each day while we're there.

Please pray for a safe trip for all of us and for a tremendous experience in sharing the Word of God.

We left West Memphis this morning about 5:45 and pulled into Albuquerque at . We actually made it without any tire blowouts—so far. Lyndal pulled the trailer with his truck which took the load off of the bus. We picked up some hitchhikers on the side of the road in Checotah, Oklahoma, that looked a little shady, by the names of Mark, Sherry, and Cooper Lay. They seem harmless enough though we think we’ll keep them with us.

Considering how long we drove, the team has gotten along extremely well. Of course, several of the kids had gone to Uplift at Harding and had returned home about noon on Thursday. They had to unpack and pack again for our trip—and hopefully, washed their clothes some time along the way. We’ll know as soon as we make it into Crownpoint on Saturday and start unpacking the trailer.

The only point of contention came when Stacy threatened to stick her ice cream cone on Wade’s nose.

Arrival on Sunday

Ok, here is our team for this year. I think this is the largest team we’ve had. We have arrived safely and are ready to really work this year. We took this picture just before worship service on Sunday.

As I am posting this on Wednesday, on an interesting note, it has rained a little each day we have been here. It very seldom rains at this time of the year and that causes a tremendous draught. In fact, it started raining last night while we were having our nightly devotional outside and the some of the Navajos just started clapping and running around in the rain. They so desperately need the rain.

A lot of the kids know some of the VBS songs we sing and some really get into singing with us. Monday we had 99 Navajo children and adults. This broke all of our previous year’s first day.

This year we have a new afternoon session called Overtime. They have a sports session where the kids are playing different sports like volley ball, four square and some other type of games. They are also having a session where the kids are learning the time line of the Bible, the books of the Bible and several other things.

A dedication

We wanted to do something special for Lyndal and Loretta Dale this year because they have been leading a team to work with the Navajo people for about 30 years. I was able to finagle getting a picture of them so we could have it printed and framed. Without them knowing about it we are placing this in the fellowship hall in their honor here at the Crownpoint Church of Christ. Edison is making a ceramic plate with a Navajo landscape and scripture to go along with the portrait in dedication to their hard work, but more importantly to the love they have had not only for the Navajo people but for the team members they have brought up here each year.

I probably won’t be able to post anymore until we get back. I will try to have more pictures and information up by next week.