Good Evening Prayer Warriors
Once again, we sit down to give you our update for the day - the last full day of our time as the Week 1 team here in Meadow Lake!
We had another beautiful day of sun here throughout the day and very warm temperatures like they have been for the entire week!
After a quick breakfast we started our day together again with a devotion focused on 1 Corinthians 15:58 - a charge to stand firm and be steadfast in our work for the kingdom! We know that our efforts to serve and labour are never without purpose and that we can trust that God will have an impact through seeds we have planted and the friendships that have been nurtured! It's been such an integral time for our team to start the day together in the Word to ensure we are being sensitive to God's leading for the day:
As we approached our last day here we wanted to make sure to start off the day being mindful to consider the lessons that we are taking home with us, things we have learned from our time here and how we might continue to support and pray for the ministries here when we return home tomorrow.
We headed off to the youth center to start the day there with some cleaning and maintenance tasks - we want to make sure that the space that the youth center has been blessed with is well kept and a comfortable, clean place for the youth to come to. We cleaned some windows and doors, mopped floors and Bill was on point once again as the Vacuum Man!
Of course we also had some amazing work being done in the kitchen preparing for our meal together for the day Noodles and Chicken Wings with a Blueberry Sour Cream Coffee Cake for dessert!
A couple of us took Desmond (our martial arts enthusiast from yesterday's update) out for lunch today to continue connecting with him. It was Desi's choice as to where we would eat and of course.... Chinese Food was his selection - an all you can eat buffet!!! We had such great conversation over lunch - Desi was honest about his feelings about how Indigenous people are characterized in media and society - that a lot of people just assume bad things about people from a First Nations background. He really feels it's important that we seek to get to know one another and see behind what might be just an exterior and see through preconceived ideas about a people group as a whole - to see that we are all individuals and seek that connection. What a great guy - we will continue to pray for him - his dream is to attend a Martial Arts school in Calgary.
Jenny and Alice lead the devotion and teaching time today - starting with a great ice breaker game called the bridge game. The students were presented with a challenge of a gap they had to cross on the floor between 2 pieces of tape that were gradually getting further apart.
The object lesson was to show Jesus as our bridge so that we could be reconciled with God and have eternal life. That even when we are scared and worried at times - we can trust in God and he will help and take good care of us! The kids also enjoyed some time singing together - especially the songs with actions!
Alice shared a gospel message with the youth as well to explain that God's love is amazing and He has a plan for their life here on earth and eternally. We had the teens in smaller groups ask any questions they might have about anything that we shared this week or other questions about faith they might have and our team prayed for the kids - with one of the girls accepting Jesus. We understand she is early in her faith and is attending youth group in the area and the local Bible camp so we will continue to support her in her faith journey over the next week and we are grateful that she has strong community around her here in Meadow Lake.
We prepared and shared a meal with the youth as a wrap up to week one's time here and Lise, Alice and Jackie snuck back outside to play in the dirt some more and plant 3 more planters for the front of the building.
We shared some great conversation and food with the executive director for the center Belinda and her husband Matt and reflected on a great week of ministry!
Once back at Tim and Judy's the team took time to fully debrief the week we've had together and the highlights and times of challenge/struggle where we saw God at work throughout. There was a very common theme in our individual reflections of wanting to ensure that we do not quickly move past our experience this week and settle back into our day to day lives back in Calgary but instead really ensure that we are living with intentionality in our lives and the way that we serve. We committed to pursuing additional education around first nations culture, seek opportunities to serve and support both Meadow Lake and potentially local organizations in Calgary and remain in prayer for Turning Point, Bethel Gospel Camp, Door of Hope and the people that we have met and furthered relationship with here in Meadow Lake.
We all shared one word to summarize the week - they were:
Encouragement
Grace
Unity
Intentional
Flexible
Relationship
We feel so blessed to have had this experience and that God brought us together to serve and work through us and pour into our lives at the same time. We truly have felt His presence throughout and are praying the same over our drive home (for some of us tomorrow) and for our Team 2 brothers and sisters heading up here to Meadow Lake tomorrow. Please pray for traveling mercies and for God to begin another great week of ministry with fresh faces (and freshly laundered clothes too )
We did a final photo shoot for Week 1 with our amazing host family - Tim, Judy, Maurice (not in the pic), Lewis the dog and Kitty the Cat. We also stood united with a very important tool in the battle this week - the mighty mosquito zapper - that and the calamine lotion/Afterbite became essentials!
Thank you so much for your prayers and support.
Week 1 - Meadow Lake Team - Signing Off
Stay tuned for Week 2 updates!
