Well i guess i am starting a blog. But not for the reasons most people set up a blog. My blog is so that friends and family can find out what i am doing with out me sending it by e-mail to everyone since that can be kind of a pain. And it won't end up being sent to people who don't want to read them anyway. But if people do they can just have my blogs sent to their e-mail. Oh and just a disclaimer... I am not a writer so you may find this not the most easy read you have ever had :P And it will be written more like a letter then a blog...

    Well anyway now that I got that done I will swich to what I have been up to.. Last year me and Olivia Litterell went on the WATER Program to York PA and while we were there we spent a week helping with the Tidings Of Peace Vacation Bible School. So this year we both flew out to help with the VBS. We flew from Kalispell on Thursday and were planning to arrive at Harrisburg PA that evening but our flight from Kalispell was 2 hours late so we missed our next flight from Chicago by a matter of minutes! So we had to spend the night there. Thankfully they gave us motel and food vouchers. So we flew out the next morning and arrived in Harrisburg that morning as well. As we walked out we were hit by a blast of HOT air! Tanya dropped us of at 336 across from the school which is were we have been staying this whole time. We have had our own room with air conditioning which is So nice to just get away from the heat and Some of the humidity. since VBS didn't start till Sunday night we did different things like go to a surprise birthday party for a girl here, riding the transit bus and then getting the wrong bus on the way back and having a half hour walk home after walking the wrong way for 15 min. we also watched fire works which were really good i though. one thing that happened that was interesting was after fire works a group of us walked Jaymarie home and Trevor suggested asking people that we would meet if they would like us to pray for them so we did and one family out on there steps said they would love to have us pray for them, so we ended up holding hands in a circle on the sidewalk and praying and singing and more praying. I felt so encouraged as i left seeing the ladies face so joyful con paired to the gloom that had prevailed when we arrived.

     People started ariving Sunday for VBS and we got to see a lot of old friends and meet a lot of new ones as well. That afternoon we went around through the community and invited children and adults to VBS. We then had a progressive meal so that was kind of interesting to find the different places and interact with different people and meet our directer for the week. That evening we had prayer and then VBS started.Things were a little crazy but for the most part went well. Monday we had devotions and brunch at the Shanks and then work projects which i helped that day with water evangelism were we went up to the square and handed out cold water bottles and CD's and asked people if they had any prayer request. It was a lot of fun and We had the privilege of praying with several people right there. Many of the request for prayer involved getting a job, parents, kids, and for sick, and to be a good father. The next 5 days were a lot the same my work projects varied from cleaning a yard taking of to get some Grenada things taken care of and stuff. We also did a lot of things in the afternoons and evening like go out for ice cream, coffee, dumpster diving (which is LOTS of fun) taking a group of girls on the rabbit transit bus, volley ball, go get more ice cream, and McDonald, and multiple runs to Walmart for different things, hanging out on top of a roof late at night singing and lots of other different things. def. made some memories!!!

    Earlier this week Monday through Wednesday i attended Woman Of Virtue. it is put on by Mary Lois Shenk and lot of the woman here from the church.This is its first year so that was kinda neat to be apart of that. We would be served fruit in the morning to hold us over and then we would have group games which Diana would get together. One of some of them that she did was did was called magic slipper were we had to get ever one over a "river" to the other side with only the person with the slipper touching the ground and everyone could hold the slipper only once. Another one is were strings we tied to a key ring and everyone had to hold one of the strings taunt and balance a tennis ball on the key ring with out dropping it at if it did one of your teem mates would have to lose an arm, leg, eye sight or go dumb! The goal of the game was to ring a glass root beer jar with the ring and balance the ball on top. We would then have devotions at one of the home's of ladies for the church. Then would come back for brunch. Work projects would follow then activities like exploring the water system under the city which was really cool! When we sang it reminded me a little of what it might have been like for the early Christians in Rome when they would have church down in the tombs so they would not get caught. The rest of the day would involve supper and then a wide range of different things like one night we went to the park and invited children over to a picnic table and had a story, snack, and craft with them. or we would go clean ect. one of the devotions on the last day i could be there really stood out to me and i want to maybe put that on a different blog here. It was by Naomi Shenk and she brought out a lot of things that i had never though of. Anyway this one has gotten really long so i guess I'll go.
 God Bless! ~Crystal