Tuesday 18 August 2015

A few photos












Monday ... on the road again!

We said sad farewells yesterday to Dennis and Peewee as we packed up the cars and headed out of Gallup.  I feel I leave a bit of my heart here every time we leave and head out on the I-40.  We also left the team teapot for safe keeping rather than bring it home again ... it has travelled back and forth every time we've been on mission and I reckon it may be the best travelled teapot of all time!  However we realised it might be a good idea to keep it in Gallup for the next mission - God willing.

We headed straight down to Sun Valley, Arizona where we were welcomed by the Native American Christian Academy formerly known as Sun Valley Indian School.  We did drama and testimony and led the kids in some songs - it was a fun time and we were able to leave gifts of books, craft items and some money towards this fantastic Christian school.  They hosted us for lunch and we sat with the children whilst we ate. We were just sad that we couldn't have spent longer there but the distance from Gallup meant that our only chance was to visit en route.

On the road again we headed up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon - we couldn't miss the opportunity as it is only one hour from the I-40.  We managed to get to the best spot by sunset.  It was awesome. 

We stopped for a Wendy's meal on our way back to our overnight stop (please keep us in your prayers as one member of the team was sick on the journey and several others have sore throats, bad headaches, sinus issues etc).  We have had an incredibly busy schedule, most days the temperature is up around 100 degrees and we have had to handle high altitude.

Our overnight stop has been Williams, Arizona and today we drive on over the Las Vegas preparing to fly back tomorrow - we will be back in the UK on Thursday morning.  We are all tired but very, very satisfied that the mission has been a success in many, many ways beyond we could have all dreamed and doors are opening so wide here.  The Journey magazine in Gallup want to run an article on us when we are in town again and we hit the Gallup Sun newspaper on Sunday!

Thank you for your interest and your support, comments on the blog and Facebook - we are always encouraged when we here from home and could not do this without you.  I will post some photos up on a separate blog.

Monday 17 August 2015

Final days in Gallup

Hi everyone
Well it doesn't seem possible but yesterday was our last full day of mission.
We started off at St Paul,s Baptist Church which is Calvin's church and had a great time dramas and songs went well. We then went to sizzlers for lunch and all ate too much - endless salad does go on forever.
Joshua Generation showed us their skit which was really good, then we went on to the Navajo chuch at Iyanbit. Really good service those ladies singing in Navajo was great, and the way "Pastor CJ" preached was something else (really good) do I have an amen. Prayertime was good and words were brought. Rounded the evening off at Sonic and managed to remove the rattle snake from the bonnet!!!!!
All packed and will be leaving at 9am and heading for Sun Valley Indian School

That's all for now folks
God bless
Marg x

Saturday 15 August 2015

Saturday

Up early for breakfast and team devotions.  Some of the team stayed back in JGFJ, whilst the others went to do tea and a chat at the flea market.

The guys at the church shopped and set up for the kids party which was a great success.  They played games, soccer, did craft, ate lunch and learnt about the prodigal son.  It was so good to have the kids come from Manuelito with us too.

The flea market was extremely hot today, over 100 degrees!  So it wasn't easy giving away hot tea however we still had a lot of very good conversations and prayed with some people.

back at the church the whole team cleared up from the party and rehearsed drama for tomorrow.  This evening we shared a meal with Dennis and Peewee and Nate and Rosandra who are celebrating their wedding anniversary today.

We are all very tired, please pray for stamina so that we can finish as well as we started.  Tomorrow we are taking two services, one at Calvin's church here in town and then one on the Rez at Iyanbito.

We will head off from Gallup on Monday to start the long trip home.  We will be visiting a Navajo School and Children's home on our way at Sun Valley in Arizona.

Signing off now to try and get some sleep. Thanks for keeping up with the blog.

Some photos from Thursday and Friday


























Quick update

I'm sorry for the 'radio silence' .. We've have an incredible couple of days which will take us all a long time to fully process.  On Thursday morning we went back to see the mayor as we realised that our schedule is so busy that it was the only chance we had to give him any feedback.  It was a fantastic meeting and he really wants us to return whilst he is still in office.

After that we went to the cultural centre and some downtown shops before going back to pack overnight bags.  We had our lunch in the El Rancho Hotel which is an iconic Route 66 hotel patronised by every old black and white movie star you can think of.

We then dropped off the flip flops at the detox centre and headed out to Grants.  We met the prison chaplain at the entrance of the women's facility where we went through heavy security and then taken to the gym.  It was a huge room and the acoustics were terrible.  We had to work hard with our little speaker to get the sound right!  Over 180 women came.  Josh and Colette led worship, Josh sang a song, Julie sang 'I look to you' and their hearts melted, Helen and Colette shared testimony and Alice preached.  We also did our 'labels' drama and 'changed'.  The women raised their hands, stood, wept, shouted, clapped, etc. it was very powerful.  At the end we prayed with them.  It was amazing and exhausting.

We stopped at McD's for supper and got to the motel quite late.

Friday morning we had to be in the breakfast room by 6.30am packed and ready to go!  We shared half our devotions before heading out to the men's facility.  We always know we are on the right road when we see the 'don't pick up hitchhikers' sign.  Again we were in the gym but with a projector and sound system.  We saw two groups with quite a gap in between so we finished our devotions and also had our lunch in the prison canteen - that was interesting.

I should add that Dave and Mark shared testimony at both men's programmes and Richard and CJ preached, Julie and Josh sang.

We left Gramts at about 2.30 to drive into Albuquerque to meet up with Eleanor McKinney an old friend of Alice's that she met in Amman, Jordan at a women's conference, Ellie is 92 and still driving and working!  And an awesome woman of God.  The team had a couple of hours free time and then we met Calvin Robinson for our evening meal, driving back the two hours arriving back in Gallup very, very late.

So today is Saturday.  It's 6.45am and we are due to meet up for breakfast at 7.00am, flea market outreach and kids party planned for today and maybe ceremonial dancing outreach tonight!  Crazy busy but very fruitful.  Photos to follow.