Good ol' County Fair

Celebrations mark the opening of Fair. A parade marches past. Flying candy, children running almost to the middle of the streets, Miss So-and-so and Miss Queen-of-something and Miss County giving their unrealistically refined waves and trying not to overheat their gowns, fire trucks annoying and startling more than they please, bands playing snatches of tunes that nobody has the time to recognize...And then at night, the fireworks! Magical light in enchanting colors and patterns dazzle the sky and reflect excitement in wide-open eyes. (If there were like Gandalf's, though!)

"The finest rockets ever seen, They burst in stars of blue and green, Or after thunder, Golden showers, Came falling like a rain of flowers." -J. R. R. Tolkien

Mom caught these!

You ought to be gasping with me. They were so exciting! I hadn't seen fireworks forever!!!

Is this not beautiful?!

The cheese curds were gargantuan. They were not bites, they were hand fulls. You spend the first minute gazing at them and trying to pick one to eat. You can't decide whether to save the big greasy one for last, or not. So you grab one and take a nibble; a grin lights up your eyes and displays stringy cheese to a crowd of persons who don't know you, but having mozzarella draped over your chin doesn't bother you today. Your eyes bug out when you remember that you have numerable nibbles left.



In the 4-H building, scents and colors dance wildly for your attention. Homemade clothing swells proudly on it's display. Pictures of events judged earlier stand boasting in their awarded ribbons. Creativity made manifest in numerous venues; scrapbooks pull colors together in charming collages, bilboards broadcast "quickfacts" and "My Story" in alternating bursts of before-and-after pictures and short sentences or paragraphs. Ropes sag around display tables, upheld by soldier-stiff metal rods.


Outside, sterotypical heat necessitates costly water balloon fights and dunk tanks. The ferris wheel turns in it's traditional circles, lifting fairgoers to glorious hights before sinking them into noisy reality again. The subdued roar of the rides accomanies the chattering roar of the people. Every so often, someone jumps up and waves his arms, having noticed a friend he must talk to. People amble past, ignoring and ignored - all minds are on rides, food and fun. The midway streams with scantily dressed girls clinging on their shaggy haired boyfriends and mothers who've eaten to many snacks pushing strollers and searching for another dollar, rescuing an almost-dropped chili-cheese-dog, and calling after the one who graduated from stroller-hood and thinks she can go anywhere.
 
It is the first time I have paid attention to the stables since last years fair. The first thing to catch my attention is a flashy new sign reading "Horse Barn." Two horses, from the whithers up, are outlined. I grimace: they are not well drawn horses. The lines are smooth, but they are horrible proportionately. Almost like caricatures of horses, but bad even for that. I know my artistic and horse-loving sister will have a fit when she sees them.



Inside, things are not so dis-familiar. Stall doors all hang at the same nearly straight angle, tattooed with staples that, 363 days ago, held ribbons, posters, signs, and pictures. At one end of the barn I remember the manure pile used to be. Likely to be there this year too, I reflect, since the other end of the barn is towards the fair and people will want to keep up appearences. But right now a pretentious and self-righteously clean folding table stands, holding an assignment list of the stalls and turning up it's corners at the rustic structure behind it.


By Thursday, there is no more table. Mocking manure is chunked and heaped where the table stood. Horses fill the stalls - making friends, declaring enemies, or generally ignoring the hubbub. Older horses stand relaxed with their heads in the quietest corner of the stall. They've aquainted themselves with the hay pile and the water bucket and they know they should rest while they can. Middle aged horses turn about their stall, still hopefull that they can make it comfortable. They are mostly to proud to acknowledge bystanders. The youngest fillies and colts are too busy discovering if they love or hate their neighbor to eat immediately. One filly takes an instant dislike to the mule behind her and expresses her feelings by applying her teeth to his rump. Minature horses - always two to a stall - ignore the world and eat in silent companionship.


Well dressed chidlren clinging to slender mothers shriek with excitement or gape in awe as real-live COWGIRLS(!) walk casually past carrying grain, pitchforks, and brushes with careless ease and nachalance. The youngest ones stare as farm boys in dirty shirts - sleeves long since torn off - enter stalls and talk softly to equine friends. Anxious mothers chide their children that saddles should already be on the horses which are still only being bathed. At the riding ring, the only relaxed ones are those unrelated watchers sitting on the single bleachers. An announcer commands the attention of those on the horses, announcing the games, calling out the names and numbers of the next riders. Riders command the attention of the parents, who run around holding reins of their childrens horses, cheering when their children ride, comforting when the children lose. Riding instructers pay attention to everyone, announcers, riders and young children running annoyingly and dangerously close to the horses.

Little Bro washes his horse, Knightly.

Little Bro rides Jewel, our Appolousa.

Art Maniac ('Lil Sis) rides the two-year-old horse that she has been training through the spring.

Little Bro shows Knightly in Halter Class.

Art Maniac shows her horse, Dance, in Open Class horse show and takes Grand!

 Little Bro does the barrel race.

Little Bro does the Trail "race". You have to open a gate and ride through without dismounting. He did well!

Waiting between games!

Waiting for results...who will place?

 Art Maniac and Midnight run the keyhole race.

Art Maniac (Horse maniac?) and Dance celebrate a victory.

And all the stalls undergo the necessary decorating.

What kind of plan is this?

Ponemah was shocking.


I craned to see past Tiffany, our driver, as we pulled in to the small town of Ponemah. Where was the church? We stopped at a house with a sign on the side that said "Wah-Bun Chapel." I mentally crumpled the image of VBS in a church basement and reconstructed one of a garage with folding chairs. Ok I thought, I guess this can work.

The first day was a wreck. Images, actions and words came barreling at me and left me breathless, wondering belatedly how I should respond. Mainly it was the children. They were sweet and lovable, hard and concealing, bright a cheery, moody and unresponsive almost at the same time. They wouldn't sit still during the singing or the lesson. They didn't understand the structured game, or the questions we asked them as follow-up. After two hours of seemingly pointless words, we ended up playing with the kids outside on the lawn, waiting until it was time to go home. Half-an-hour later, we climbed into the van sweaty from giving shoulder rides in the sun and playing Duck Duck Goose.

After dinner I found a quiet corner and curled up with my Bible for some contemplation. I finally released tears of frustration. After all we had said and done, none of the children could remember the theme verse or point out which piece of Spiritual armor we'd discussed. Discouragement piled on my shoulders and I trembled as I asked God, "What difference will we even make? This is pointless!"

Aching shoulders interrupted my thoughts, begging for muscle rub. I reflected on our last half hour in Ponemah that day. I must have given Jack 3 shoulder rides, and he'd asked for more. My name tag had been swiped to embellish a collection one girl began on her shirt. I'd been poked as "It" so many times I almost tingled. It was exhausting. But the kids loved it. The same smiles that disappeared when we sat down beamed when they tagged me. 4-year-olds smiled at me with big eyes when I handed them a glass of water.

"Is that it, God?" I wondered: holy light bulbs illuminated fleshly cobwebs. Then there was a plan! My perspective rotated 180 degrees as I realized our VBS simply took us to Ponemah. Our love for the children touched their hearts. Strategies formed in my mind - more shoulder rides for Evan. My name tag to Chalise. More tag with Katherine.

Tuesday afternoon, before VBS even began, I was attacked by a child with brown eyes and a larger marker. "How do you spell your name?" She demanded. She wrote carefully, saying each letter out loud. In seconds, my name tag was applied to her shirt. With concealed delight, she ripped her own name tag off and planted her flag on my shoulder. "There." She sounded satisfied. Joy thrilled in my heart and I thanked God for allowing me to join Him in his work.

Mark 10:41 "I tell you the truth, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to Christ will certainly not lose his reward."
 

This was our team joined with the Grand Forks team. Our team includes me (right in front of fella with green shirt) Jorde, (guy in the middle) Danae (left end of the front row) Christa (right end of the second row) and Tiffany (far left).

Phandie gathers the children around her the first day after the game to ask them questions - whether they're enjoying the first day, and if they got the point of the game etc.

Tiffany and Taylor. Jack is on Taylor's shoulders.

From left: Hailey(?), Me, Kaitlyn, Jacob (on shoulders) Jorde, Shaylee, Caleb (on shoulders) and Nahid. 

 Corey takes on Katherine in an arm wrestle. She won...!

Gwen participated in the game that correlated with the Beld of Truth: we wrote out lies from the Devil and put bubble wrap around them. When the children discovered and understood the refuting verse we'd placed underneath, they could stomp out the lies. Gwen did this with Tiffany and Tiffany was able to bless her with love.

Laura let Caleb and Kaitlyn play with her guitar. She had such a fun and loving spirit! 

Barb - proprieter of Wah-Bun chapel, told us casually that there were bears at the dump as we were leaving on Friday afternoon. Tiffany gaped and said "Tell us how to get there!" We saw three bears and they were all as skinny as the one in the photo above. It was awesome! 

Kaitlyn and I got to be friends that week. She was the sweetest little child! I pray I never forget this experience, and that I always remember the lessons I learned. Father, keep the fire burning in me for these children and chilren everywhere!

Grow

I know that it's been forever and a day since I've blogged. You'll have to find it in your hearts to forgive me. I had too much on my heart and on my mind and in my life to put into words. The last week of June, I and four others from our church went on a missions trip to Ponemah in the Red Lake Reservation.

At the end of this trip, Tiffany asked us to prepare answers for people who we knew would be asking us about our time at Mokahum and Ponemah, and she told us to just take the one aspect of the week that impacted us the most deeply and to talk about that. However, I just can't get away from the fact that there were two things that really stood out to me, so you get to hear about both of them.

The first is that on this trip, I really gained a strong sense of the unity of the church and really being the body of Christ. It's a concept I've read about before, and I've heard sermons on it, and heard songs about it, but it hasn't really resonated with me before this trip. I first felt this on Sunday the 26th, when we were commissioned. As I felt hands on my shoulders and as Pastor Bruce prayed, I realized that all of us were coming before God together, as one, and seeking His protection, His guidance, and His hand to be on our team. But the Spirit was there, and there was unity. I realized that our team was not leaving church for a week and coming back with a news report of how another church grew, but that we as a church, as the body of Christ, were reaching out to a broken people who were not in the family, and our team was truly priviledged to be the fingertips.

That knowledge was both amazing and comforting to me. We going to serve aware of the people we would be serving and also aware the supporting prayers from the rest of the Spiritual family. When we got to Mokahum, we met the team from Grand Forks. Hearing them talk about their church and the leadership there and the people praying for them took everything I'd just learned about unity and magnified it 100-fold. I realized something that I hadn't had time to even think about before, that our church wasn't alone! There was a church in Grand Forks that was reaching out by our side - a church that we could serve with, work with, worship with and fellowship with and pray with! My concept of family grew by lightyears. Throughout the week, our whole team, I think, felt a strong connection to the Grand Forks team. By the time we'd known them almost three days, it felt as though we'd known them for years because of the Spiritual oneness that was so present. The experience was completely beyond anything I'd ever imagined before and it brings to mind Philipians 1:27 "Whatever happens, conducet yourselves in a manner worthy of the Gospel of
Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absensce, I will know that you stand firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the Faith of the gospel without being frightened in any way by those who oppose you." And also Philipians 2: 2 "Then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose." That was Mokahum all the way.

The second thing that was really impressed on my heart was the power of the the need for prayer. This lesson also started, I think, with our commissioning. The fact that we were all gathered together to pray, really made a strong impression on me. Afterwards also, so many people came up to me and us and just encouraged us by letting us know they would be praying for us and all of your prayers have been a huge blessing. At Mokahum and Ponemah, our team and the Grand Forks team were praying together all the time. We prayed in the vehicles on the way to Ponemah for the kids that we would be seeing that day, we prayed when we ate together for the afternoons ahead of us, or behind us, we prayed in the evenings before we went out sharing the Gospel, and even as we walked around sharing with different people. And whenever we sat down together to talk, we would open and close in prayer, and all this prayer really was powerful.

The day that I really learned this though was at Ponemah on Friday. We had just begun the last afternoon of VBS and we were opening with some singing. I was standing at the back of the room, almost squirming. I could feel that there was a strong oppression in the room. I felt almost smothered and I couldn't sing at all. I wanted to go grab our team and take them outside and tell them all to pray, but they were all busy keeping a child in line, or holding somebody on their laps, so I just started praying by myself. I just begged God to put his hand of protection over the building and over the hearts and minds of everybody present, both the leaders and the kids, and I kept praying that over and over until it was time to move on to our next activity.

It wasn't until about 3 that afternoon, when we were ready to do our skit, that there was peace - and then it was so peaceful that it was exciting! We were enthused, the kids were actually quiet and listened, and we could all feel the freedom from the earlier oppression and the joy that came with that. The rest of the day was clearly Spirit-filled and beautiful. But Ponemah that day had been a true battle ground. It was challenging because when we started, there was such oppression that the natural response was despair - it was discouraging and intimidating. But if you read past the "official" armor of God, Ephesians 6:18 says "And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests."  And also James 5:16-18 "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops." God listens to our prayer, and our prayer carries weight with him. Prayer is powerful.