St. Michael Missions Trip Pt. 5 Church!

Spiritual encouragement was a great part of each day. We began the day with devotions and ended the day with devotions. Several members of the team shared some thought or scripture as assigned, sometimes minutes before it was to be delivered (Dennis, not me!). Usually before the devotional thought or scripture we would sing. You can see how hard pressed we were for musicians as I was the main one. I haven't played guitar for years. You can tell by the fact the ONLY songs I can play are "vintage", you know, "This Is The Day", "Come Bless The Lord", "Just A Closer Walk", that sort of thing. What a great team, they all said how much they appreciated the music. It was enhanced greatly with an acoustic bass played by Bill and another guitar player Tommy. The occasional percussion instrument joined in as well. The percussion thing got a little out of hand for me as I was leading the Sunday service. There happens to be a cardboard box FULL of noise making instruments on the platform of the Assembly of God church in St. Michael. These were liberally handed out to any child willing to "play" them by well meaning team members. The resulting cacophony was too much for this rhythmically challenged worship leader. I not only could not hear myself play my own guitar or the other players I think I could have replaced the words to "Give Thanks" with the Pledge of Allegiance and no one would have known.

We had a great service on Sunday. Each day we were in St. Mike we would invite the residents we met to our "potluck" we would sponsor on Sunday. We had no idea how many would come which is a concern as that being our last day we only had so much food left and running to the AC was not only pricey but maybe inadequate for what we might need. However, it was all very manageable in the end. The ladies prepared all the remaining food and put on a nice spread. The reason I put "potluck" in quotes is that we were the only ones who brought food. We ended up feeding about 24 adults and 25 children. We had a great time. Lots of visiting and sharing with the residents and enough food to go around.

Well meaning team members started handing out balloons sometime after the kids were pretty much done eating. This was a great hit and made these people very popular with the kids. They loved squealing the balloons and batting them around the room. I was brought by one of the children a balloon that had obviously been inflated and deflated, inflated and deflated a number of times. It looked "moist". I was asked if I would blow it up and tie it for them. I hesitated. I thought I might change my sermon text to Mark 16:18. I tried best I could to blow up this balloon without putting my lips on it. I am still alive. Fun pandemonium. Great for a potluck, not so good for church. When church started the kids hardly noticed. I was trying my best between the aforementioned cacophony and the balloons.

Anita, bless her heart, had a sudden thought that she and another volunteer, Larry would take the kids to the next door quonset hut with the newly fixed floor (more on that later) for children's church. This enabled us to have a more subtle time of church for the adults and we had a very nice service in which there were testimonies, thanks giving for the abundant fish run and my message which everyone participated in from Hebrews 13:8. Two people responded for salvation!

The pictures of Anita and the kids in the quonset hut are awesome. Anita said she had to think of every Sunday School song she ever knew with motions and all the Bible stories she could think of and some she made up to hold their attention. The picture of the little guy on the steps is cute. He is not praying, he is peeking through the hole in the bottom of the door. Too shy to go in, he still wanted to see what was going on inside. He was coaxed, he was encouraged to join in with the fun (for the kids). Nothing could persuade him to enter the quonset hut. Until the one magic word was spoken. Candy.