“Where’s Dan?”
Haha…like any other family trips, there are a series of quotable quotes and inside jokes, and “Where’s Dan?” has been a rallying cry for our youth this week.
As we do buddy checks to ensure no one has been left behind, group leader Dan has often been the last to join.
But as many of us have learned this week, it is often because Dan is praying or engaging in discussion with someone. It seems fitting that he shared the story of Mary and Martha with the group this week in team devotion. Dan has modeled what it means to sit at the feet of Christ and keep our focus on our relationship with Him.
Today started with a celebration of Ethan’s 17th birthday. Cake supplies are not easy to secure in Cyprus, but how many of us get to celebrate with a leaning tower of French toast?? We’re praying Ethan remembers that he was well loved by so many on this birthday.
It’s hard to believe that we had any shy kids at VBS yesterday! They were fireballs of energy today. To the parents of the these wonderful youth…we wish you could have seen them in action. We will carry memories of the ways they connected with some of the most challenging kids to ensure they felt included and welcomed. For their privacy, we won’t show any pictures of them, but you can see from the pics that we definitely were all in!
You couldn’t help but cry at the sight of two little girls from the Ukraine joining VBS for the first time and watching their faces light up when Stacia…aka Super Nova…address them in Russian because they didn’t speak English. In a three hour period they asked her for water and to explain the Trinity!
It was a sight to see Josh in a push-up challenge with a 10-year-old girl and Ethan and Cody smashing raw eggs on each others’ foreheads. (No HSM youth were injured in this experiment.
Ending the evening by serving and engaging with the volunteers at the Oasis refugee center was brilliant! (We are now all speaking in British accents and with British vocabularies. You’re welcome.)
Continue to pray for us as we head into Wednesday. Weariness has set in at various times, and we know how the enemy uses that to wreak havoc. Grace has flowed freely from the team, and we continue to pray that continues!
