Isn't she beautiful? Aaron and I were blessed with this new air conditioner this week! Praise the Lord! We've had central air but the thing was so old it wasn't really working. It ran all the time but it didn't really cool anything down. So I guess it was a good thing we were hardly ever home in July! We told our landlords and they took care of it right away. They are such wonderful people! Needless to say, it has been nice and cool in our apartment since Monday. We are excited to see if our bill is a little less since the AC is new and efficient. Now, if only we could get a new fridge... :)

Last week Aaron and I were in Clay City, IN at Family Camp. Last year when we went we had just moved so we really didn't know anyone. This year was more fun because we knew more people and were more involved. Aaron was the youth speaker for the week. He spoke to them every morning along with worship and games. There were about 40-50 teens there each day. I wanted to share a little story about what happened to us when we went with the youth to a family fun park in Terre Haute. On the way back we were on the interstate and the camp bus broke down. There was some major smoke! We pulled off to the side of the road. We all got off the bus and started to walk down to the exit, which wasn't far away. We got halfway there and a school bus pulled over. The cool thing about it was that it was a brand new bus and it was being transported to Ohio so there were no passengers on it and we could all fit! We asked them to take us to the exit so we could get someone to come get us, but the driver wanted to drive us back to the camp. What a blessing! God truly provided for us!

Saturday we were at the annual softball tournament. This year our team from home drove up to play in it. I wish I could say it was worth them to do that but it wasn't. Since there were so many teams and it was double elimination they only played 5 inning games. Once we got into the loser's bracket they made the games three innings long to make things go quicker. We ended up losing that game 1-0 and our team was not very happy. It was a little ridiculous.

Since Aaron was the speaker we got to stay for free and our meals were free. That was a blessing because Family Camp is expensive if you don't have your own cabin. We had a very relaxing week and we got to play games and read. It was wonderful! However, I'm glad to finally be home for awhile!

Last week we took another trip. This time it was to northern Indiana to see my family. It was so wonderful. When we got there Tuesday night all my siblings and their families came over for dessert and time together outdoors. Wednesday afternoon Aaron and I went with my sister Natalie and her husband Greg to go boating with my brother Lee and his wife Becca. They have a boat and a wave runner. We enjoyed that time very much. I think it was the first time we've spent time together just the 6 of us. We rode on the tubes and Aaron had his first ride on a wave runner. We had lots of fun but were extremely sore for a few days! Afterwards my parents met up with us at Lee and Becca's and we had a cookout and had a cornhole tournament. The Zehrs were in the championship round but were defeated by the Sniders. Someday we'll have a rematch I'm sure. :) The other two couples went home but Aaron and I stayed to play a game. We taught Lee and Becca how to play Carcassonne.



Thursday we spent time with my mom and Natalie and her boys, Jarrett and Brayden, at my uncle's cottage. On the way there we stopped to see my Grandpa and Grandma Snider. My uncle Brian's family had already gone home toFlorida but he was still there. It was nice to be back at the cottage. It is one of my favorite places to be.



Friday Aaron and I washed and waxed our car with the help of Grandpa Juday and then spent some time at Natalie's. That afternoon we went with her and the boys to the fair. My parents met us there later on. I enjoyed walking around with my nephews looking at the animals and watching Jett ride on some of the rides.


Saturday morning we left around 10:00 and stopped at Lee and Becca's to play 9 holes of golf. Becca and I considered playing with the guys but since there was a chance of rain we decided to just ride along in another cart...with a roof. We made the right decision! It started to rain shortly after the guys started playing, however they said it was only sprinkling. When it began to downpour they finally admitted that yes, it was raining. On one hole Lee even accidently threw his club while teeing off because it was so wet. We had quite the time and I'm sure we'll always remember our first golf outing with Lee and Becca. We stopped by their house so the guys could change and then we went out for lunch. From their house we were already a 1/2 hour into our trip back home so we only had to drive 4 1/2 hours instead of the usual 5! One more trip to go.. Aaron and I will be at Family Camp this week in Clay City, IN. He is going to be the camp youth pastor. We are looking forward to our week there.

Last week Aaron and I had the privilege of going with our Bible Quiz team to Nationals in Spring Arbor, Michigan. We stayed on the campus of Spring Arbor University which is a Free Methodist college. It was pretty much a paid vacation for us! We left Monday morning. The van ride was interesting as all 4 of the guys were studying so they were all quoting scripture as fast as they could at the same time! Tuesday and Wednesday's quizzing was round robin to determine the seeding for the tournament. At the end of those two days Vincennes was the #1 seed.

I should probably explain a little bit about the quizzing. They quizzed over Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Phileman. Everyone on our team had all 5 books memorized and they could quote it all the way through without stopping. It's pretty amazing to hear, although they are talking so fast you can hardly understand what they're saying! In the quizzes they are asked questions regarding the text. Here are some sample questions: Who should see to it that what happens? Paul pleads with whom to do what? What depends on what, rather than what? They must answer by quoting the scripture where the answer is found. They are allowed to prejump, which means jumping before the whole question is read. They must finish the question and then answer. Some of those questions may seem really vague but they study "unique words" which are words that can only be found in certain verses. So when the quiz master says, "Paul pleads" they jump up because they know where the word plead is located and can finish the question and then quote the verses. It is just amazing how well they know the scripture!

Thursday was the double elimination tournament. Our team quizzed well all day. We hadn't lost when we reached the final round. We competed against a team from Iowa. We lost to them in that final round but since it was double elimination we had to play them again, which they called the Super Final. I'm not kidding you, that last quiz was the most exciting championship I have ever experienced! For those of you who aren't quite sure that Bible Quiz could be exciting...that's ridiculous! I'll try to explain it in detail so you can feel the excitement too! The lead kept going back and forth between the teams and then on the 14th question (there are 15 in a quiz) one of our quizzers prejumped and had to finish the question. The quiz masters talked for a really long time to determine whether or not the completion was correct. They finally said that he could continue and answer the question. He rattled off something really fast that we couldn't understand and then they discussed for awhile again about whether his answer was correct. We had to get the last two questions correct to win so it was extremely tense waiting for them to do decide. Finally, they said that he answered correctly. That quizzer answered his fifth question so he quizzed out and we brought the sub in. One more question to go... On the last question the other team prejumped but the boy completed the question wrong so we got a chance to answer it. Our sub answered the question and he got it right!! We just went wild! I was so tense and nervous but they pulled it out and we were so excited! The last time Vincennes won the National Championship was 2002. We are so proud of them.

In the individual competition we had a quizzer from our team get first in the Young Teen division and in the Senior Teen division one got 2nd and one got 4th. 5 out of the 6 quizzers that made it to the Individual Finals were from our conference so that was neat. Our guys were quizzing against people they knew. Friday before we left there was a banquet to pass out the awards. They saved ours for last because it's the highest level award at Nationals. When they called our team, the 4 guys walked up the aisle together to get the award and they were given a standing ovation. I just had goosebumps! The trophy they won is it's own unique design. It is called the Alpha and Omega. It is a traveling trophy but it has an insert shaped like a Bible that we get to keep.

Here are some pictures from Nationals! This is everyone that came to Nationals-quizzers, coaches, quiz masters, and fans!

Our team after winning the championship! (L to R)Joel Greenwood, Jacob McDonald, Justin McGiffen, Tanner Bouchie

Our team with their coaches Bob & Katherine Swank
The Alpha and Omega trophy!

Joel Greenwood got first place in the Young Teen Rookie Division!

Jacob McDonald (4th) & Tanner Bouchie(2nd) in Senior Teen Veteran Division

I know, many of you are thinking, "Didn't they already celebrate their 1 year anniversary?" You are correct! However, a year ago today we moved to Vincennes and began our ministry! I can hardly believe it. Sometimes it seems like we just got here and other times it seems that we've been here for a long time. We have really enjoyed our first year here and are really looking forward to the coming years. It's nice to finally have a year under our belts and build off of what we did last year. I'm looking forward to furthering relationships with those in the church and doing great things with the youth. Feel free to explore our church website. Aaron is pretty much in charge of it and has done a fabulous job! If you forgot what happened a year ago, feel free to go back in the archives of our blog to July 2007 and read about it!

Last week Aaron and I went to St. Louis on vacation. Honestly, where else would we go? Our vacation started Wednesday night when we went golfing in town. Well, Aaron golfed and I just drove the cart. I love golfing! :) After that we got ice cream. Thursday morning we slept in and then left around 12:30 for St. Louis. We ate supper at Steak 'n' Shake and then went to the Cardinals game. Our hotel was in Illinois and we took the Metro into the city. The game was a little delayed due to rain. It poured and poured! The game did not go very well. Cards lost 11-1. We left after the 6th inning when they took Pujols out. There wasn't much point in staying after that. Friday morning we woke up at 4:30 to go stand in line at the stadium to get First Pitch tickets. They are tickets that are returned from players or season ticket holders that the stadium resells for $11(for 2 tickets). We got there at about 5:45 and waited until 9:00. We met a couple in line and played a little Skip-Bo to pass the time. At 9:00 we paid for the tickets and they gave us a voucher. 15 minutes before the game they give you the tickets and you don't know where they will be. We spent the rest of the morning at the zoo. We ran into Aaron's Uncle Bruce and Aunt Dianne and their family. We walked around and ate lunch with them. What a nice surprise! After we left the zoo we went to the Science Center and then to Union Station. We got some new Cardinals shirts and ate supper there. We headed back to the stadium for the game. That night they played the Cubs. Our tickets ended up being standing room. I was pretty disappointed about that because we got up at 4:30 in the morning to get them, but we ended up finding some open seats. That game didn't go very well either. They lost again. However, Pujols hit is 300th homerun and that made it all worth it! The next morning we slept in and left at check out. We stopped at Goodwill and then at Qdoba for lunch! What a treat! Monday we are leaving to go to Michigan with our Bible quiz team for Quiz Nationals. We just don't know how to stay at home! Holy cow!

Aaron and I returned Saturday with our group of 18 students and 2 other adult leaders from our mission trip to Martin, South Dakota. I'll give you the rundown of what happened each day and you can see a slideshow of pictures from those days. Make sure you have plenty of time to read it because it's pretty long!


Saturday, June 21/Sunday, June 22
Everyone met at the church by 6:00 AM that morning. We loaded up the vans and trailer and prayed before we took off. As soon as we crossed the river we entered Central Time. That was the longest driving day of the whole trip. We finally reached Sioux Falls, SD around 11:00 where we spent the night at Linwood Wesleyan Church. It just so happened that Aaron played in the jazz band with their music pastor at IWU. Sunday morning we got ready and packed all our things before church started. We split up and went to two different Sunday School classes. We didn't join their youth because they were having a potential youth pastor and we didn't want to interfere. We left right after the church service. The drive through South Dakota wasn't too exciting. There were lots of hills and cows! We finally reached Martin at 6:00. We thought we were going to be an hour late but we found out that they are on Mountain Time so we got there at the right time! We stayed in the Jr. High school all week. We unpacked and had supper right away. While the students had orientation the leaders had a meeting. There were 3 other churches there from Oklahoma, Kansas, and North Dakota. Every night we had something called Club which was just a time of worship and one of the Youthworks staff would share a little message. We also did Yeehaws, which were good things that we saw eachother doing, for example "Yeehaw to the youth for showing leadership and working hard at the work site today." Another thing we did was Yea Gods, which was just praising God for the ways He worked each day. After Club we would break off into our church groups and discuss.

Monday, June 23
During the day each church group was divided up so we would be working with people from our own church as well as people from other churches. In our group, Aaron and I had 7 students from our church and a pastor from North Dakota and two boys from his church. After breakfast everyday we had our own quite time for devotions and prayer and then we were sent off to our work sites. Our group drove to an elderly woman's house who lived about 30 minutes away. Her name was Loreena and she needed her house painted. Her husband died in December and she couldn't do the work herself. We started by scraping off the original paint that was peeling. When we stopped to eat our lunch Loreena brought us lemonade and cookies. Before we got back to work she gave us a tour of her farm. She has about 1400 acres with 28 cows. The students did a great job of asking her questions and connecting with her. At the end of the day we had everything stripped, all of it primed, and had the first coat of paint on 2 sides of the house. We were all really looking forward to going back the next day. Everyday while the students had free time the leaders had a meeting. I really enjoyed that time because we got to hear what all the other groups did that day. Our evening activity after supper was a scavenger hunt. We had to answer questions by finding things on Main Street. After that we went to a place called Bingo's to get milkshakes. In our church group time, some of our students that were in other groups told us about a homeless drunk man that asked them to pray for him. They talked with him for awhile and he shared with them about his life and how he used to be a painter. We talked in our church group about why it is so different to do that kind of thing when we are at home. Why don't we talk to random people and seek out opportunities to visit with someone and share with them about God? We talked about being too busy and not making time to stop and talk. Aaron really challenged us to include God in everything we do rather than dropping everything to make room for witnessing. He asked us how our community would look if we included God in everything we did.


Tuesday, June 24
We continued working on Loreena's house. This time she brought us watermelon and brownies. The students just loved her! We got everything done except the trim along the roof and the concrete wall along the bottom. Loreena was very appreciative of the work we did and she really enjoyed having us there. After supper we went swimming for our evening activity at the public pool. That was a really fun time. There were many kids there from the community and the teens did a great job of playing with them. There were kids jumping off the diving board and all the guys started judging how well they did and giving them scores. It was hilarious and the kids loved it! I spent most of my time with a 4 year old boy who told me he was a cowboy. He was so sweet! Club was about responding to people in need and our church group talked about the needs in Vincennes and how many of them are similar to those in Martin. Aaron really challenged the students to think about what we could do when we got home.


Wednesday, June 25
Our group combined today with another group to do Kids Club, which is just a VBS style program for the kids in the community. After breakfast and devos we had an orientation to assign activities to the students and give them time to plan. They planned songs, games, and crafts. After lunch we walked to the park where it was held. The male adult leaders took some teens with them to pick up the kids. They mainly picked them up in two housing areas. One thing about the Native American culture is that if they don't know where their kids are, they just assume that someone is taking care of them and they are fine. So when they went to pick up kids many of them just came running from their homes and into the vans. Many of them didn't ask their parents, they just came. That afternoon was very physically tiring . I've never done so many underdogs in my life! The youth did an amazing job of playing with the kids. The guys gave many piggy back rides. For our evening activity they had a group of people from the Lakota tribe to do some cultural dancing and singing for us. One of the staff asked some of our students if they would lead worship for Club that night so that was really special to see them doing that. Our church group time that night was my favorite part of the whole trip. Aaron asked everyone to share what God's been teaching them this week. I loved to hear the students open up and share how God was working.
The pictures below are from Wednesday and Thursday.


Thursday, June 26
In the morning our group went to the nursing home to serve. They had different jobs for us to do. Some did maintenance work and others spent time with the residents. It was interesting to see which students wanted to just clean something and the ones that wanted to talk with the residents. We were there until 11:00 and then we ate at the park. Kids Club felt so much longer than the day before. We had some problems with older kids getting into fights and swearing. Kids Club is only for kids ages 3-12 but if they are older they don't want to turn them away. I drove some kids home with Aaron so I could see where they live. Their homes are technically on a reservation so the government is supposed to be in charge of the up-keep of the houses but they definitely don't do anything. There homes are very small and there was graffiti everywhere and most of the windows were broken. Our supper and evening activity was a community cook-out. We went to the park and invited those in the community to join us for supper. During Club tonight we had a foot washing. It was a special time for me to wash the girls' feet and pray for them and to see Aaron doing the same with the guys. We talked in our church group afterwards about making a decision to follow God's leading, concerning the trip, when we got home and the sacrifices we may have to make.

Friday, June 27/Saturday, June 28
We woke up at 6:30 and started loading the vans. We had building clean up and they gave us a grab'n'go breakfast to eat in the van. The staff prayed for us and then we hit the road. For a fun activity on the way home we stopped in Sioux Falls, SD at a place called Thunder Road Family Park. We got 3 tickets for $10 to do 3 activities. They had go-carts, mini golf, a rock wall, and some other things. Our group only did go-carts and mini golf. We also did human foosball but that was free. That was so much fun! That night we stopped at a Free Methodist church in Iowa to sleep. Iowa had major flooding about 2 weeks ago so their basement smelled really musty and damp. We felt bad because Aaron told the pastor we would probably get there around 9 or 10 that night and we didn't get there until 12:30. The next morning we packed up and left by 10:00 after we stopped for a big breakfast. We finally made it back home safely around 9:00 Saturday night. Praise the Lord we had no problems driving!

Some friends from church had some yard work done and right now it is just a big mud pit. They asked Aaron and I and some youth to come over and play in the mud after the softball game last night. Aaron and I chose not to participate but we went anyway to watch and laugh and take pictures. I must say I have never experienced mud wrestling prior to last night! We ended up going to a pond so they could wash off.
(A blog about the mission trip is coming soon!)