6/18/10

My my a lot off things have happened since the last update, and the ace reporter has been in the thick of it all, just for my endeering readers. When we last left off the herd was just awakening from our last esapade. We piled onto the bus and did the usual until we had arrived at The Good Shepard church, where the boys were welcomed by the youth room complete with table games and a band stage. The girls were justly welcomed by a basment. :) The unloading process took equally as long  as at the other church but were not met in vain as the saturday night worship had a great welcoming turnout. I myself was content the rest of that night parrticularly because the best prayer partner got 
me a blue ball that I've used almost every day. Further on we went to a local icecream shop a block away which amazed me on how many kids couldn't actually walk on the sidewalk as street racing cars sped by. The day was soon over and the next day had began. A great way to start this day off was to prove that if you kick a blue ball intended for kids hard enough it will break glass... Ahem furthermore the next worship service was more than expected too (but you can only improve from four people) Next we piled on the bus and headed for browning montana (that's spanish for mountain). Now the ace reporter doesn't often take things too seriously but he would like to convey the stark I that amazed everyone as we rolled up on Browning. It was quite obvious how the ways many were used to modern life for them was quite different from ours. Churches, boarded up houses all built to quite iffy building codes are surounded by free grown grass or barely running cars here. This place puts into perspective WHY we are here. Continuing on we ended up at a Blackfeet Indian boarding School, and were greeted by Team Effort, most of which come from down south giving us a good reminder of the accents we were with last year. The girls again got a room much like the basement with no doors while the boys recieved rooms and doors (which are quite soundproof as some boys have taken advantage of). The next day was spent meeting our new leaders and traveling to the work site. The work site was... as to put it nicely very strange. A lone house sits boarded up sourounded by garbage and axles and a lot of interesting items such as doll heads, plastic cows that were shot by guns and a creepy ghost. Needless to say the next day most of these items were tossed lovingly into the bonfire. To skip foward a bit, assuming you know the ultimate fate of our challenge and the epic ultimate frisbee game and that my awesome prayer partner gave me a box of fruit loops ( that's 1700 calories in two days), we end up on wenesday. That fine morning me and my awesome prayer group led jumpstart, which suprizingly went very well even with Christian. On the sad reality that our job site got rained out we were split up to different sites. The one at the boarding school got to paint and clean the place. Mrs. Selzer may I say your daughter is a slave driver when it comes to cleaning.... And most of you proud parents wonder what happened to the painters, would it suprise you to find out that most of them painted themselves more than the wall? That's pretty retorical. As for the remainder of the day we spent in down town browning buying overpriced moccasins and such trinkets likewise. Of course a bunch of boys insisted on buying plastic guns and arrows and reenacted the defense of Canada with thier Canadian flags and daniel Boone hats ( which I try not to laugh about to much when I type this). The night ended with salutary goodnights and the team effort worship. And finally we get to the day I remember the best. Thursday, today. One day before toy story 3 and two days before the most important one. The morning began with another jump start and another day for the girls to arive early and preparred, neat and clean. The boys on the other hand rolled out of bed wading through their rooms with little care on how thier hair stuck up or little on how they stumbled in two minutes before it began (in my case, schuster prounced in telling me and Chaz we had ten minutes to get ready for the morning while we just woke up). Then the ritual of getting breakfast ( Chaz has suprised us with the announcement of a diet). We then walked down to the chapel to once again find out that we were rained out again. So we then returned to what we did the best again..... painting fortunautley this time we got less on the face or at least some of us. Luckily we got the opportunity to do some random tasks around the community. Singing to a nursing home, flood prevention, and painting an indoor skatepark. Ah the skatepark.... Besides the fun of seeing three artists paint anything they wanted it turned out you could grab some major air if you were immature enough to run as fast as you could off the ramp :). We got some free time afterwards in which case most of us bought some awesome work shirts from team effort. The work shirts all have random names and random companiesx so the search is on for a good name. I found the endeering shirt that said Rick on it while othr classics such as Glenn flew off the shelf. Rick ( the adult) ran to grab the one that said old school as his final attempt at capturing some youthfullness. The day was finished off by going to the chiefs nephew, tytus (I hope that's how you spell it) and doing our gig one last time. The church was a far cry from what building codes we are used to, but the soul and passion and welcome we were given by the congregation there was by far the best we recieved out of all of them. It's in places like this where you understand the church is us, and I'm very thankful we had the opportunity to do so. Following the worship the Canadian trailer loaders Rick Randall Rod and Barney (me Andrew Chaz and Kenny respectivley) finished loading the trailer for hopefully the last time. And now I'm all caught up so I don't want to hear anymore where are you ace reporter, mom. Honestly every year of tour seems to get better and better and this year is no exception. Tommorow we go up to glacier national park, and hope Cory doesn't find a way to light it on fire. Well there's no more reporting to do for now unless you want to know about you snore loudest in my room (Chaz)...

Connor Mong
Ace Reporter