Hit The Road Jack!

Final thoughts as we finish up our ministry with NAIM…

Last Monday started slow for us as we had a small number of children to begin with for “Kids Club”.  We walked around the road by the houses and had children invite children.  Rylan led games and did a great job.  He would later make up a great obstacle course with Addi.  Sharon, Brynley and Eden were busy making a huge amount of rice krispies squares.  After club was over, Rylan and I went to play baseball with some of the kids and Jayden showed up…he woke up at 4pm. I invited the older children over to our place in the evening.  A number of kids were out after supper and there was a toy rocket launch that was gathering kids.  Addi and I went to the playground to play volleyball afterwards and there were about 8 youth hanging out there.  We played ‘elimination’ with them and they began asking questions about us.  We then decided to play their favorite game which was “cops and robbers”…basically a great big game of chase around the buildings here.  Of course I was a cop and I ran with everything I had to catch the youth.  They soon realized I wasn’t giving up…well, after a lot of sweat and jailbreaks, we invited the youth and kids in to our center and played dice and apples to apples with them while Jordan put on “Lord of the Rings”.  I was able to get to know Tiena, Miles and Cameron and Jasmine and Jayden came in as well and it was great to have them back in the fold again.  Jasmine and Cameron took NTs with them so pray that God captures their hearts as they read!  It was about 12:30am when everyone left only to have a knock on the door around 1am when Zeb got a bad cut under his eye playing “cops and robbers” again.   

Anyways, we are super excited about the breakthrough with the youth and looking forward to getting to know them better. 

Now there is one thing that you have to check for every night and that is ‘wood ticks’!  They basically can imbed themselves into you and suck your blood…not too fun.  We find them on the dogs always and sometimes, surprise, they crawl on you!  So, you have to check for them before bed and I found one last night that was on my thigh!   We also got out to the ‘Sweet Dreams’ motel this week for our weekly shower!  Sharon talked to the owner, Perry, who obliged us and just told us to tip his cleaning lady for the free showers so we could be all smelling good for the mosquitoes again!

The story on Wednesday was about sacrifice and how some brave Kokums (Cree grandmothers) sacrificed their lives so that the rest of their tribe including children could escape out to the Buffalo hunt with their fathers before Blackfoot warriors came and raided their camp only to find these women who they would kill.  It was a story of sacrifice and friendship that led to a talk on John 3:16 and John 15:13 where we read “greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”  It was there that 6 children prayed to receive Jesus including Camden, Leon, Tristin, Jayden, Rashawn and Laura.  They all received Gideons NT and we gave about 25 in total.  In the evening Sharon and I did check out Bingo and we were too late to play, but were there long enough to see that it is a big event twice a week here and sometimes there is midnight bingo as well!

On Thursday, I had Jordan tell the story of “Cutknife Hill” and he did a great job.  We would continue to have kids in throughout each evening coming over to play ‘dice’, ‘apples to apples’ and ‘mexican train’ which all became huge favorites to play!  It was that evening where we were invited over to spend time with a family in the church, Dickie and LeAnn.  They have a large farm with cattle and had us over for a BBQ.  We also had the opportunity to go horseback riding which was amazing.  Afterwards, Jordan and I tried out bull riding on a barrel!

Our final week at KAHK also turned into hockey week as we took the kids and youth to the school to play every day after our club.  It was here that we continued to bond with the older youth including Cameron, Dallas and Miles.  It turned out to be a great workout and we even had some parents check out what we were up to.   Also, not to be missed on the bench was Laura who was intently reading her Gideons NT and letting me know just how much she read!

As a number of the kids headed to the exhibition on Friday as part of a sponsored event by KAHK so we held off our final celebration till the next day.  On Saturday we pulled out all the stops as Brynley, Sharon and Addi went on a bakefest finishing all of our cookie and brownie mixes along with rice krispy squares.  We actually had kids turning down cookies by the end of our “Kids Club”.  They also received  jumbo cereal boxes full of popcorn to mow down on together.  Now, it was up to Jordan, Rylan and I to keep them entertained and we had a small slip and slide that turned into a mudslide down a hill in the playground along with water bombs and water balloon fights which were a hit.  Brynley took time to lead some of the games as well.  We did all their favorite games from ‘dragon tails’ to ‘electricity’ indoors and gathered them together for one final story and we had one of the mothers, Crystal, and her boyfriend join us and listen in as well.  We then managed to escape to a great local beach in the valley, Melville Beach on Crooked Lake, before returning for one last outing of hockey with the kids.  It would be there that Eden would pull off the shocker win in the shootout that we would finish off each night with. 

As we packed up Saturday night, we had some of the kids come back to say their goodbyes including Jasmine and Jayden which was really encouraging.  We have them as friends on facebook to keep in touch as well.

Sunday morning we finished packing up and headed out to Camp McKay where Jacob Bear church held an outdoor service and had lunch together with the people here.  We went fishing here and both Jordan and I caught ‘jacks’!  We hooked them too good in their gills that it took Damon (Dickie’s son) quite a while to set them free.  Jordan’s fish never survived so he will become supper.

In the afternoon we headed back out to Melville Beach, but not before stopping into Cowessess for ice-cream and chips that cost us $3.95 a bag!  After swimming and fun there, we went to Bird’s Point to enjoy dinner out at Chillys, a restaurant recommended to us and we were not disappointed as the food was amazing.  In the evening we had a campfire and then it was lights out.

Monday morning was time to relax and for Rylan and Addi, it was time to go fishing one last time and both of them caught ‘jackfish’ in Round Lake.  It was Addi’s first and she was thrilled until she realized she managed to hook her fish in the eye.  So, I had the fun of setting the one eyed jack free! The camp had great showers  was super and we were joined at lunch by some of the Jacob Bear families who were returning for their family camp.  Shortly after lunch we made our way back to Fort Qu’Appelle for our final debrief and shared stories and highlights of our time on the reserves over the past three weeks.  We also shared our own personal story and closed off the teaching session understanding the varying degrees of where people that we meet are on their journey toward Christ.

One of the leaders shared his own testimony of how after being here for a year had felt the frustration of wondering if he would ever bring someone to Christ.  It was at that point he really sensed God asking him, “When have I asked you to bring someone to me?  I want you to bring Christ to them.”

Early on before we began "kids club," one of the boys we met here named Landon asked Addi if our family was Christian.  She responded yes to which he replied, all the nice people that come here are Christians.  So, it is our hope that in the short three weeks here that we have continued to bring the presence of Jesus to the children and families here at KAHK and that the Spirit will continue to lead His children home.