By Sunday, the mission trip was already becoming a blur. Sunday morning we enjoyed being part of the service at St. Luke’s, helping lead music and listening to my mother-in-law preach! 
After the service it was time to transform the sanctuary into a jungle complete with waterfall for our VBS theme of weird animals. There were lots of final touches to put on the decorations, and the team also made final preparations for the different stations we were leading. 
When everything was just about ready, we all piled in the rental cars to head to Bayview Baptist Church where we met our friends from Chaleur Generation to watch the World Cup final match! That was lots of fun, and for those who weren’t so interested in the soccer game there was lots of room to play our own games in the basement! Torre had a really fun time with some of the younger boys who were there and also managed to wander mostly safely through some soccer and hockey games that took place between some team members and local friends.
On Monday when the kids and leaders arrived at St. Luke’s, we had a great time reconnecting with returning campers and getting to know newcomers! The sanctuary was filled with music and the kids quickly picked up the actions to many of the songs.
Day camp was really fun, although everybody was amazed how drained we all felt when the kids went home just before lunch. We had a devo time in small groups after eating lunch, then we took time to prepare for the next day and enjoyed some free time before supper. At debrief that night a few people shared how great it was to connect with the kids, but also how challenging it was to handle behaviour problems and bad attitudes. It was great to be able to share the ups AND downs together, to encourage each other and to know how we could support each other better the next day.
Tuesday came before we could blink, and again the morning flew by! I led games with the kids as they arrived, but once the actual program started I floated around different stations and tried to pitch in and help where I could. Tuesday afternoon we had devos and prepped for Wednesday, then most of the team went out on a cultural excursion – deep sea fishing! I stayed back with Torre – we went to a great park in town then had a normal bedtime routine and I got some quiet time in the house to journal. 
The team had a beautiful night out on the ocean, although I heard it was a very bumpy ride back, and not everybody had the emotional stamina to take so much life. Fishing for mackerel can get pretty ridiculous, pulling in fish after fish and jarring them off your hook, and I heard there was a bit of gore.
All in all it was a great outing for the team, and it did my introvert-soul very well to have quiet down time by myself to process and recharge for the rest of the trip, whatever else the week had in store.
Your mother-in-law preaches?! Is there anything that woman doesn’t do? It’s too bad she and I don’t live closer together; I think we would probably be great friends.
She is a pretty amazing woman! Maybe you could both relocate part time to the GTA and we could have visits all together 🙂