Blackstone Coffee, Fredericksburg

Vaccinations (sore arms!), passports, supplies, fund raising, physical and spiritual preparations are all in work. Which reminds me, anybody want to buy some pizza?!?

We met twice since the last blog update.  We met once at CCFred for a dessert-fest--if you like Walmart pies and mostly melted ice cream (that’s what happens when I host!).  But the homemade brownies were excellent and created by our own Youth Leader who is generally known for his Firearms, not his ability to fire up an oven-- a regular Renaissance Man! I even put one in my pocket to enjoy laterJ.  Our second meeting was at Blackstone Coffee in Fredericksburg.  The very friendly staff lady, who was a Mary Washington Art History major, informed me that the refreshingly cool, frosty beverage that I was looking for, without caffeine, could be purchased. They call it—get ready—a “milk shake”.  Who knew? It was great . I consumed it via periodic gulps of about three slurps each which was all I could handle and received the concomitant brain freezes in return for my “zealousy”.  But I digress.  We weren’t there to sup, we had business to do! The Vacation Bible School team’s mission was to put some meat on the bones of our (VBS) plan. 

In a pretty short period of time, thanks to an “always organized” (and patient!) assistant pastor, we managed to solidify our theme, verse, a couple of lessons, and a bunch o’ taskers.  With the theme of: God’s Love, we selected Rom 5:8 as our anchor verse, and selected two of five lessons that demonstrate God’s Love for us all.   The Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son are perfectly suited and so were an easy choice.  We’ll have the others in pretty short order.  The skits and drama folks have some great events already in the works and tested during the Dominican Republic mission trip.  We’re pretty sure there won’t be any repeat attendees.  Our local junior high expert has his keen eye set on several practical application crafts designed to bring home the theme and the team did some rough work on T-shirt design.  That effort too, is in the hands of some creative individuals and we made sure to establish a deadline, because we all know that creative perfectionists NEED a deadline. So do creative procrastinators for that matter—GUILTY!

Some great news and praise as we have learned that we were provided with over 400 pairs of crocs which will be greatly appreciated as they hold their strength, shape, and versatility much longer than your legacy flip flops. 

Next meeting for the whole Haiti Team is coming up real soon.  Keep praying for the preparation and that God’s grace will keep us humble and engaged in doing His work.