The Hallelujah Roadshow (Day 34)

"Knitwits!"

The Hallelujah Roadshow is alive and well. I cannot believe how fast this summer has gone by. There is one more week left of Service Corps and I feel as if we have accomplished a lot. The road show has been an awesome experience.

We just left Oregon, the land of "it's illegal to pump my own gas so someone does it for me." Check out this lovely price.

We started off today with a bit of coloring and then knitting with a group of kids that visit seniors at a senior home. They call themselves the Knitwits. There we learned the ancient arts of knitting and crochet.

Steven had a spot of trouble but Matthew was a cheater because he has had years of experience knitting at home. By himself. In his room.

We moved on to do Vacation Bible School in an empty house on the lot of the future Gresham Corps. The kids arrive at 6pm and we go to about 9pm.

Duck, duck, goose.

Shalini sets up the deflated ball for another rambunctious round of pilfer the pork (aka steal the bacon aka stealeth the soy bacon).

During coloring time I gave Larry boy a makeover for his costume to get it up to date. This is the bumblebee edition Larryboy. I like coloring.

Chris found these sunglasses in the corps and asked if he could posses them forever. The Major said, "Yea."

Surgery went smoothly. Matthew should be able to walk in a few days. Just kidding, Jimothy.


The Roadshow has one more week of music and laughter. Peace be with you.

Monkeys!!!

I can't believe we are over half way through. The summer is going by wayyy too fast!

We finished working at the Ranchinho. The kids and teachers threw us a party. It was sooo cute. We miss the kids there. They were so adorable. But we seem to find a new set of adorable kids everywhere we go to distract us.

Right now we are on our day off back in Sao Paulo, but we've been staying at a camp and working at a corps called Itaquaquecetuba (practice saying it out loud a few more times... I know you want to... or maybe you already have). During the day we've been painting at another playground at Itaquaquecetuba and cleaning up the corps daycare center which is currently being remodeled. It's been tiring, but fun. And at night, we've been hanging out with the monkeys at camp. And I'm not talking about the officers who are there at their officer's councils, although they can get pretty crazy. But there are real monkeys!!! There are also real snakes, but fortunately we haven't run into any of them yet.

We've also been to a variety of corps and taken part in many types of worship. Some that are very foreign and a little bit frightening at first, but in the end it is evident that we are all family and share in our love for Christ.

I know I said it before, but the people here are truly amazing. Everyone has been so nice to us. And everyone we meet is so unique and quirky in their own way. One man, who is the contractor for all our projects can hardly understand a word we say, yet is constantly laughing and teasing us. He visits us on our projects a couple times a week and is excited everytime he sees us. We now call him Uncle Eddy... he loves it. But he's also a bit mischievous. We just learned that he told our new hosts that we eat a lot. And when we asked him about it he said it was because he wanted us to get fat so that when we return to the states, people will know that Brazil took good care of us.

It's good to hear from everyone. Sorry we don't have any pictures up yet. I forgot to bring the connection for my camera.

And Elisa... I would respond to your comment, but I can't navigate around this site because it's all in Portuguese. And we don't have a number you would be able to reach us at out at camp. Maybe at our next location. Hope you're having a great summer. Love ya!

And to everyone else... Take care and God Bless! And have a great last three weeks!!!

Hallelujah Road Show - Loreen

Loreen is unhappy. She just deleted the blog she wrote! I'll try to rewrite...

We are entering our third week on the raod and have been having a blast. We have been to Sacramento, Redding, Camp Redwood Glenn, San Francisco (3 different corps... and an ARC), Gilroy, Monterey, Capitola and San Jose. We are now in Spokane after making the crazy 18 hour drive in our two awesome vans. A few thousand poor bugs have met their maker after meeting our vans... Here in Spokane we have done a two day mini VBS, fliered the neighborhood and are revving up for a carnival tomorrow morning. We have encountered so many awesome officers on the road who have blessed us and made sure we do not get scurvy... :) We've appreciated it all!!! We leave on Monday for the other side of the state. After that we go to Oregon for a few days and then down to San Diego for the last leg. Then we see you all at debriefing.

Our team has gelled as musicians and friends and we are having a blast serving the Lord together. Being on the road is tiring but we have a great time and have used the time well... For example, our entire team can now solve a rubicks cube. If you think I'm joking, we'll prove it at debriefing! :)

Blessings on your last weeks... and we'll try to be more faithful about updating...

three weeks?!

has it been three weeks already?!
EXCITING!!!!
seattle is sweeet.
it is soo beautiful right now.
i know all youve seen are photos of us just chilling.
but that is because we arent really allowed to take photos of the people we work with.


hmm, next week our team is going to have a teen outreach at the corps.
were doing some might funn stuff.
we're going to hanging out with the kids.
devotions, games, funneeesss!

yupp, nothing really to say just wanted to update for the ppl who read this =]

-the road show will be closer to us next week, very excited we might get to see them.
-called hong kong, they seem to be chill =]

here are some photos for ya =]


prettyness of the pretties.


pretty of the lonelies.


south valley mission team && service corps seattle team =] 2007


mattsta sleepin.


brent let me shave his hair!


tracy sufin with the pigs!


the guys from their room!


me on top of the troll!!!!


that is all gooood days!!

writing from asia...

Two weeks in Hong Kong and these five western territory girls have been officially initiated into the city of rice, street markets and sauna-like conditions.

We were blessed with ample time to explore the city in our first days here and have done just that. The streets where we are staying in Yau Ma Tei are bustling at all hours. It helped a lot once we figured out that you have to walk on the opposite half of the sidewalk than we are used to in order to avoid the fish-swimming-upstream-in-a-sardine-can dynamic. A few stops down the MTR subway, the harbor line is lit up every night with clusters of shining, surprisingly stunning, towering buildings and a 15 minute light show to music is shown nightly.

Eating has been quite the experience here in Hong Kong. We have eaten both in restaurants and a variety of unidentifiable food from carts on the busy streets. My personal favorite to date were the duck and chicken feet (that’s right – a round bamboo plate of no longer feathered bird tootsies) placed on the table in a dim sum restaurant we went to yesterday with a few girls from the William Booth Secondary School. Props go out to Meghan, who gobbled down both types of feet, and to Jackie and Nikole for trying the latter mentioned fowl footsies.

I also read today the U.S. banned seafood from China. I’ve strongly encouraged my teammates to lay off the eel, squid legs and octopus bits due to the following quote from cnn.com, “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Thursday it would detain three types of fish -- catfish, basa and dace -- as well as shrimp and eel after repeated testing turned up contamination with drugs unapproved in the United States for use in farmed seafood.”

Our hosts are incredibly gracious and welcoming. Living in a headquarters building, we even have a bag of sandwiches hanging on our door practically every evening.

Our main host, Major Ma, took us to the Tai O fishing village on the far west side of the island – famous for their dried and salted fish that hang along all sides of the village. A couple of the open stands even had full sized dried and salted sharks. Riding in a mid-sized motorboat, we toured the town on stilts above water and caught a glimpse of the pink dolphins that are unique to Hong Kong.

The annual dragon boat races (a national holiday) were held at Stanley beach last week, which we attended in the seemingly 200 degree Fahrenheit weather. In one leg of the crew-like competition we watched, the USA team – wearing American flag headdresses and led by Uncle Sam – won! Go team.

We also attended the Hong Kong and Macau command commissioning ceremony, held last Sunday at a Salvation Army school and attended by roughly 1,000 people. The five of us helped celebrate the ordination of this year’s two cadets.

Thursday and Friday we visited the William Booth Secondary School, one of the many schools run by The Salvation Army in Hong Kong, to get to know the high-school aged kids and interact in English. Friday morning we expected six or seven kids that we planned to split in two groups. When we arrived, we were told there were six classes of nearly 30 kids each! Good thing we have chameleon like characteristics – we quickly modified the plan and I am confident our team and the kids we spent time with enjoyed the experience.

Today we traveled to the Kam Tin corps and community center to run one program for seniors and another for junior soldiers. The nearly 40 seniors who came to see us smiled throughout our entire meeting and presented us with a gift of appreciation in concluding. The 10 kids who came for our hour-long Saturday program especially loved that squeeze-the-hand-in-line game.
We helped with childcare for a wedding in the afternoon and spent a whole hour balloon sword fighting.

Another thing we have to mention…Our one concern thus far are the drops of demise (air conditioner fluid) that fall from every rooftop hovering over the sidewalks leaving passerby below darting about to avoid the inescapably vicious juicy batter.

Tomorrow we are visiting and worshiping with the Tai Hung Tung congregation and hopefully staking out a seat along the harbor to watch the much-anticipated fireworks show to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China. We are hoping the now four-days straight of torrential downpour will cease upon our arrival to the outdoor celebration, but aren't counting on it. We do plan to purchase umbrellas, and keep meaning to – at some point, we will.

Attached are a few pictures for your aesthetic delight.

We’re thinking of you all – be safe and enjoy the days ahead.
christin

Bom dia!

I can´t believe it´s been almost two weeks since we´ve arrived in Brazil! We´ve been keeping ourselves busy working at a daycare center called The Ranchinho. We´ve been so busy, that we haven´t been able to write our blogs :) Our primary responsibility is painting, but we also enjoy chasing around and hugging the adorable little kids whether or not they want us to.

We´ve been staying at the THQ apartments. Almost everyone we know lives here as well. We´ve found a bunch of good friends and have been having so much fun.

One thing I´ve learned is that Brazil is home of the BEST PIZZA EVER!!!! I don´t know how I will ever return to Papa John´s.

But the greatest thing about Brazil is the people. All of the officers and soldiers have taken us in as their own and have made us feel loved and welcomed.

Thank you for all your prayers! We´ve definitely been blessed and are looking forward to a great summer!

today, the officer´s here in Mendoza decided to take us on a trip to the Andes...it was pretty exciting...learned lots of interesting facts and saw some great views.

tomorrow we wake up early and have a TV interview over in the town promenade...I think it´s going to be awesome...

yesterday we did some more house/corps/shelter cleaning and later in the afternoon we passed out magazines in the street, that went well and the people enjoyed receiving them...

we leave for paraguay on thursday...the officer here informed us that the bus ride is not 20 hours like we were told but more like 30 hours!!! the plus side to this is i´ll get to check off 30 hour bus ride from my list of things i want to do before i die...i´ll let you know how that goes...keep us in your prayers

Hey everyone, team seattle is doing good. We will complete our first full week here today. We were talking last night on how it really feels like we have been here longer than a week. Only 5 more weeks to go! Tomorrow we decided to use our free day and drive up to Camp Arnold and help out for the day so we are looking forward to that. Tomorrow at youth group from Colorado is flying in and will be here for a week so we are going to be able to do some things with them next week. We are even going to go to a mariners game this coming Monday with them.

Tonight we are making a lot of hamburgers to do our weekly feeding at City Hall park where a good amount of homeless hang out. We have been there a couple times this week to pray over the park and talk to homeless. Some of them even came to our bible study on Wednesdays afternoon which was kind of exciting. I think we had about 5 homeless come in which Chris said I believe was the most that has ever come. We also had a good discussion on Revelations 4.

Thank you for keeping us in your prayers this summer and always. Hope everyone else is well.