Vacation Bible School

This is Evangelist Tom Rickard who conducted our Vacation Bible School.  It was so great to work with him and his family.  They all had so much energy.  He liked to call Mt. Dew his "orange juice", and in this picture his wife had made him drink real orange juice, and he was making a face at the taste of it.

This was "Crazy Tie Day".  Many of the kids participated, and it was funny to see some of the things they came up with.

The missionary story for the week was on John & Betty Stam to China.  Every day a different part of the story was acted out.  Bro. Tom played the part of John, and his wife was Betty.  In this scene, they are meeting for the first time, and John thinks Betty is the greatest thing.

Here John Stam has just gotten off the boat in China and is waiting for someone to come pick him up.

Unknown to John, Betty had to travel to the city where he was because she needed to go to the hospital.  He is very excited to see her, and proposes right there on the spot.  (All the boys said "Ewwwww" to this part)

Here is a line of girls getting ready to play the "snakey game".  This little girl is named Alexandra, and she is my flute student.

As soon as I moved here, the Lord blessed me with a friend who, scary to say, is just like me.  Her name is Rachel.  We had so much fun working together in VBS.

Some of the little boys that we pick up on the vans.

This is Braden, very excited to play the next game.  There was MUCH energy flowing from all of the kids that week.

This was my favorite poster made on "Crazy Poster Day".  She won first place.

We are now back in China, where bandits held up a bus that Betty Stam was riding on.

This is "Dress-up Day".  The kids could either dress up as if they were in the army, or in China.

This little soldier was all set to go, thumb and all.

Back in China, where the Chinese army captured John, Betty, and their baby Priscilla, and are taking them on a trip through the mountains.

At the end of the week, John and Betty gave their lives as martyrs for the cause of Christ.  At the end of the story, I think every lady worker in the auditorium was crying.

This sign was put out on our church lawn a couple of days before VBS and stayed up the entire week.

One of our teen boys, acting like the blind evangelist that led John Stam to the Lord. (sorry my pictures are a little out of order for the story line)

Bro. Tom and one of our guys doing a "secret handshake".

Auditorium full of kids

Each day during break time, we had different races.  The 5 yr. old girls were the most fun to watch.

This is Bro. Tom's son, who the kids called Mr. Nate.  He is telling part of the story of "David & Goliath".

Family Visit

Vacation Bible School is now finished, and I finally had time to take some pictures from our camera, and put them onto our computer!  Being the non-camera people that Tyler and I are, we kept on forgetting to take our camera with us while my family was here for vacation.  We remembered on the last day, and so any and all pictures that I post from my family's visit are all on the same day...I know-not very interesting!  I am sorry, but maybe you can find a couple that you do like.  Since it was the only day we had a camera, we ended up taking 87 pictures that day.  I will not put them all on, but did have such a hard time deciding which ones to use.  No one in our family is a professional photographer, or even striving to be one, so you will be able to tell that when you look at the pictures.  We did see some beautiful things, both in the Badlands and in Spearfish Canyon at the amazing waterfalls.  I miss my family very much, but am so thankful for the pictures that I have to look back at!

This is a snapshot of a very small portion of the beautiful Badlands.  It is so neat to see something that was carved out in this way by the Flood.

Of course I have to have a picture of my wonderful husband and I!!

This is the whole group: Lorelynn, Lorena, Mary, Tyler, Dad, Mom, and Grandma.

While we were hiking around a little (as much as we were allowed to) we saw a couple of different places where there were mountain goats.

You really have to look to see these mountain goats-they blend in with the scenery.

Lorelynn was able to receive a call from David, who is in Afghanistan, even in the middle of the Badlands!

When I see Lorena, I still cannot believe that she is 18 years old and only has a year of high school left.  Sometimes I think she should still be my little 5 year old sister that we all had so much fun playing with!  It was great to have her out here, and several people in my church said they want her to move out here!!!!

After being in the VERY hot Badlands, we drove to Spearfish Canyon, which was a complete opposite of the desert place we had just been in.  There were beautiful waterfalls, and everything was so alive and green!

This is called "Bridal Veil Fall".  I have only ever seen it from the road, but this time we decided to hike a little and get closer to eat.  We had to wade through some VERY cold water and do a little climbing, but is was worth the work when we got there.

Another picture of Tyler and I.  This is quite an accomplishment, since we are not picture people!!

Dad and Lorena

We had to make our way through this creek to get to the waterfall. 

When we got done with all of our fun, and had gotten back to the main road, we saw this sign a little ways down from where we had started our little excursion!  

This is a picture of the BEST mother in the world!  She is standing in front of another waterfall that we went to, called "Roughlock Fall".  

Grandma and three of her granddaughters

This is where we took our engagement pictures, so it was fun to go back and take pictures after we were married.  I am not sure if the sun was shining weird on my hair, or if it really was that frizzy by the end of the day!

A picture of Roughlock Fall

Teenagers & Family: Our last two weeks

It has been about two weeks since we last posted, and those two weeks have left us tired, but happy.  At about 8:00 a.m. on June 27th, we left the parking lot of Liberty Baptist Tabernacle in two vans loaded with 18 teenagers and juniors (4th-6th grade) and all of their luggage, which for some was hardly anything and for others was far more than desired!!  We drove about 6 hours and ended in Aberdeen, SD at Richmond Lake Bible Camp where we spent the next week.  We had a great and wonderful time, although I felt very tired by Tuesday afternoon!  I would love to post some pictures, but being the bright people that we are, Tyler and I left our camera at camp!  We will hopefully be receiving it shortly.  We had the normal bug bites, sunburns, headaches, and accidents.  I got a very painful sunburn on Wednesday, which I had to keep on covering in soothing aloe vera.  We had one teenage girl with 104 mosquito bites by the time we left for home.  One young lady got knocked pretty badly in the face while we were playing with a big ball.  Her biggest concern was that she could not feel half of her face for the rest of the day!  Another of my girls had back spasms...and the list could go on and on.  The preaching, which was the whole purpose we took the kids to camp, was great.  We heard from Bro. Torrey Jaspers and his father Dr. Glenn Jaspers.  The main theme of the week was that "Direction Determines Destination".  We were all challenged with the fact that decisions we make now will affect our future. Several of our young people made good decisions that we pray will stick with them through the rest of their lives.  I was delighted when Dr. Glenn Jaspers asked me if I knew the LaBates!  Of course I know them...they are from the church I grew up in!  He told me that Mrs. LaBate grew up under his ministry!!  There is so much more I could tell of our week at camp, but I will save it for the time when I can hopefully show some pictures.

We arrived home on Saturday, July 2nd, which was the same day that my family arrived from Indiana.  I was so thankful that my dear husband had taken the time to make our apartment as spotless as possible before we left for camp!  The week spent with my family was delightful!!  On July 4th they attended the "God & Country Rally" that our church holds every year.  They enjoyed immensely the music that was performed.  The rest of the day we spent with people whom Tyler and I call "Grandpa & Grandma Wells".  They are not really either of our grandparents, but we love them very much.  We did the normal things you do on the Fourth-eat and play games outside!  In the evening we watched fireworks in town--they were beautiful.  The night ended with Jennifer and Sabrina Damron, as well as my sister and sister-in-law spending the night at our house.  I was surprised that both a full and queen size mattress fit on our living room floor!!  Tuesday we went up to Hill City, where we rode an old train, called the 1880 train, through the Black Hills.  I was reminded again of what a beautiful place we live in!  Once we got of the train, we spent the rest of the afternoon walking through Keystone and looking at all of the little shops.  We finished the day by having supper with another set of grandparents that I have acquired at the church, the Maullers.  I ate buffalo meat, and it was delicious!  Wednesday was our day for Mt. Rushmore.  It was very, very busy when we got there, but we were thankful that the weather had cleared up from the rain that had been around in the morning.  Our last day together was Thursday, and I think it was the best day we had.  We spent our morning in the Badlands, which were amazing.  We could not stop taking pictures!  The afternoon was spent in Spearfish Canyon, where we hiked a little and saw two beautiful waterfalls.( I promise to post pictures of this later when I have more time)  We ended the day by having dinner at Pastor and Mrs. Furse's log home way up high on a hill.  While we were eating we saw turkeys, deer and a coyote out the big window. We had to say our goodbyes on Friday morning as we ate breakfast together...we miss them all already, and hope they will be out again soon!!

This morning started Vacation Bible School here at Liberty Baptist Tabernacle.  I am the 2nd grade teacher, and Tyler is the 6th grade teacher.  We will also be helping with "Teen Time" in the evenings.  I thought I would let everyone know, so that you will not expect any more updates during the week (not that we post that much anyway!)  We will try to also have some pictures of that to show everyone at the end of the week!  We may just have to have a post of all pictures!!!!!!  GOODBYE FOR NOW!!

Family

While Tyler and I were in Indiana for graduation, we enjoyed so much the time we spent with family.  I thought I would share a couple pictures of our time together.  My sister and her kids (pictured with us above) came from Wisconsin, and we had some crazy times together.  David, who is five years old is getting to be fun to talk to.  On the night of graduation, as we were all getting frantically ready, he saw Tyler and then came to find me.  He said, "Mary, Tyler looks very handsome!"  I thought that was just so funny--he really liked Tyler's suit.  I had to agree with him that my husband looked handsome!!  Tyler took the two boys to the park in the afternoon, and because of that I think they will forever love him!

On Friday, after Stephanie and the kids went home, the rest of us went along with my dad on a few of his appraisals for work, went to see the Tippecanoe battlefield, and ate at Olive Garden!  I went online and found the history and details of the battle, and began to read it to my family when we got to the battlefield, thoroughly enjoying all that I was learning.  They did not appreciate my love of history too much, and soon let me know that they had learned everything they wanted to about the battle for one afternoon!!  We enjoyed walking around the battlefield, as well as a pretty little river that ran along side.

Lorena, Mary, and Lorelynn near the river.

Mom and Dad

Tyler and I enjoying the river

In front of the battlefield

My little sister and I (who is not so little anymore)

We are standing in front of a monument erected to the men who fought.

These two pictures are proof of what being in a car all day, traveling through farm country, will do to you!!

Graduation, Program, Etc.

          Well, it has been a crazy, busy four weeks.  I know I always say that everything has been busy for us, but it is the truth!!  Part of our craziness was the trip that we took from Rapid City, SD to Chesterton, IN for  my (Mary's) college graduation.  The trip is about a 1,000 mile trip.  When I was younger, I loved trips that long, because it meant a fun time in the car with brother and sisters.  With just two people, it got to be a little long.  We left on Monday, May 16.  We had to work in the morning, so we split up the trip into two 8 hour days, which was not very bad at all.  About 62 miles from Chesterton (as the GPS told us) we got into some terrible traffic.  We moved 3 miles in 45 minutes!!  Tyler could not take it, so we got off as soon as we could and got re-routed and arrived about 2 1/2 hours later than we thought we would.  

           Our time in Chesterton and back at Fairhaven was great!  We enjoyed so much being with my family and seeing all of our friends.  I got through graduation with no mishaps.  One minor thing was that I forgot to allow Preacher to turn my tassel.  He made sure to call me back so that he could!  Here are a few pictures from dress rehearsal and graduation.   

I am not sure if I will ever grow up, but I do keep Tyler entertained!!

                                       

                                                  

    

  Giving my testimony was a very nerve-wracking thing.

Tyler laughs at me every time he sees this picture because of the fact that I am looking into the diploma cover to see if anything is there.

                       

The 2011 Fairhaven Baptist College Graduating Class

                                                            Josh-Jared-Michael-Mary-Christy
                                          We all graduatedd from high school together in 2007.

            Christy is one of my dearest high school friends.  I cannot believe that we are both graduated from college, married, and living 1,000 miles apart!!

                                                               My wonderful husband and I.

My sister-in-law, Lorelynn. I really miss her, because we spent a lot of time together up until I left after my wedding!

The Best Mother in the World!!

My sweet sister, Lorena.

   

         While I was gone, actually the same night that I graduated, my elementary class performed the program we had been working on so hard for 3 months.  When I returned, several people told me what a great job they had done and I was so proud of them with all the reports I heard.  About a week after we returned, I was able to watch the program, and I have to agree with everyone else that they did a fantastic job.  Even my little shy girl that is in kindergarten did a great job.  She did not get "embawassed" like she kept doing during rehearsal.  It was a program about America, and some different time periods in its history.  One girl recited about a poem about the flag and how American soldiers are so proud of it, which was one of my favorites.  There were several military men in attendance, and at the end of the program, they not only clapped, but they stood up!!  I was so excited for my students!  Jonah also did a wonderful job.  He read his part, and read it very clearly so that almost every word he said was understood. 

         Tyler and I are rejoicing now in our summer break!!  We are still working very much, but we have a break from school!  There is so much that needs to be done over our summer break, and it seems like we will not have enough time to get it done before school starts.  Next week we will be leaving for a week of camp with our young people.  There is a possibility that we will be needing to take two vans, which means that I will have to drive one of them.  Yikes!!  I am not sure if I am ready to drive a van full of giggling teenage girls!  I remember being one of them not too long ago, though, and I am sure that we will have a good time. The week after July 4th is our week of VBS, which will also be busy.  We have the younger kids in the morning,and then the teens are in the evening.n In August we will have to go to a week of ACE supervisor training.  We will have to sit in a classroom and work on PACEs just like a student would and will accumulate demerits, etc.!  We had better behave!!  We have several friends coming out to see us over the summer as well.  The Braters were just out here a few days ago, Joe & Holly are coming next week, my family and the Damrons will be here for July 4th, the Olsons will be here at the end of July, and the Whitecars will be here in August.  We cannot wait to see everyone and spend some time with them. I promise that we will try our best to keep our blog updated during the rest of the summer.  

Our Life in the Past Two weeks

            Well, you have not heard from us in more than two weeks, and believe me they have been two very busy weeks!  Life seems to just be going faster and faster for us here in Rapid City.  We wake up at 5:30 in the morning, and before we know it it is time for bed.  Although we are running like crazy, I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still alive.  You see, part of the problem is that we do not have Internet at home, so any updating we do to our blog has to be at the church where we do have internet.  Most days, by the time we are done with work, we do not really feel like staying until 6:00 p.m. just so we can update the world on our lives!!  If we did that, supper would not be ready until 7:00 or 7:30!


            We are thoroughly enjoying all of our busyness. Since the last time we posted, we had our first "real" company over!  I say real, because we have had the teenage girls over a couple of times and Tyler's parents over for desserts and games, but this time it was the full thing.  We had a sweet, older couple in the church over named the Mondts.  Mr. Mondt coached college football for about 30 years in Texas, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and I think a few more places.  He looks exactly how you would think a college football coach would!  I am sorry we did not get a picture of them to show you all. We rushed home from work, and I started to put the last details on the food together ( I had prepared some of it the night before), and Tyler very graciously finished up some of the cleaning for me. I was sort of a nervous wreck for a little bit, because I wanted everything to be perfect, but once they came in the house, I was calmed very quickly because they enjoyed everything and we had so much fun talking!  I made lasagna (just like my mom's), spinach salad, garlic bread, sweet tea, and Peanut Butter pie.
     

This was the lasagna.  Tyler said it looked weird, but that is how it always looked at home!  Once he ate it, he thought it was the best lasagna he had ever eaten:)!

This was of course the Peanut Butter pie.  It was very yummy.  The bad thing was that we then had it sitting around for several days because there was so much of it.  It did not help our diet any!!!

         


            Another thing we have done since our last blog was take the youth group to a teen rally at Pastor Matt Furse's church in Custer, South Dakota.  That was great fun!  We went with Mr. and Mrs. Betz, the couple in our church that takes care of the teen activities, etc.  I rode with Mrs. Betz in the girls' van, and Tyler rode with Mr. Betz in the boys' van.  It was nice enough outside to have games.  It was hilarious to see them try some of the games out-they were pretty creative.  We had pizza and pop (of course), inside games, skits, songs, and preaching.  Two of the Betz boys did "Who's on First" and did a great job.  Even though I have heard that so many times I could hardly stop laughing.  The guest speaker was Evangelist Bill Smith.  He had a great message that spoke to my heart, and I think many of the hearts of the teenagers.
         

            To change the subject a little:  Tyler has learned how to master grilling out!  His brother gave us an old grill of his, and his parents got him a propane tank for his birthday.  He was so excited and could hardly wait for the first nice day to grill out.  The first thing he tried was steaks, which have been in our freezer since someone in the church gave them to us right after we got married.  They turned out really great, especially since I put them in a marinade the night before and let them sit in the refrigerator all night and all day.  The thing that did NOT turn out was the corn on the cob we tried to grill.  We did not turn it and one side got burnt beyond recognition as a piece of corn!  Since then we have tried, hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken.  They have all been wonderful.  We did try corn again, and the second time it was perfect!  If you have never tried it, you have to!


            Along with the fun things we have been doing, we have also been doing our normal work at the church and school.  School will be finished one week from tomorrow.  We are going to take the Elementary kids to one last field trip at a petting farm near here.  We have also been working very hard on the program for the closing night.  I did not realize how hard it was to make up a program!  There were some parts that I had to keep on going back to and editing because words were too big, or it was too long, etc.  The kids are doing really well for the most part, and I am proud of them.  The little k-5 girl will get "embawassed" sometimes and just won't read, so hopefully we can get her where she needs to be.  I am a little sad that I will not get to be at the program, because the same night I will be in Indiana at my graduation.  We are going to try to get it recorded so that I can watch it later.  I am not sure if I am more nervous about their program or about my own graduation!!  I feel as I have accomplished one more thing in my life, because I taught Jonah how to borrow when he is doing subtraction.  It took a lot of explaining in a very animated form as well as examples with a classmate of me borrowing rulers and pens, but he finally mastered it and was able to do about 12 whole problems all by himself!!

     
           There has been much more going on in our past two weeks, but I am sure by now most people are tired of reading my ramblings.  All of our other adventures will have to wait for another day and another post!