Emotional Farewell

With many tears we are leaving the Reservation. Tears for the children we are leaving, tears for the friends we have made, tears for the injustices of this world and tears for a God that was so clearly present this week. We have truly bonded with the kids of Cheyenne River and will miss them dearly. Here are a few last pics of our time on the Reservation:

This is a perfect example of kids raising kids. Everyday at the Youth Center this 9 year old girl would bring her siblings to the playground. They ranged from 6 to 2 months old and there were 6 of them! She would stay for many hours and push her baby brother around in a stroller. This particular evening she took the baby out of the stroller and said "Here, watch him. You look old enough." This would never happen in "our" world.

This picture was taken during the concert on Thursday night. This is Lindsey and she loved my camera and followed me around for most of the week. I taught her how to take pictures and how to videotape so she became my little shadow. She was at my feet as I was taking pictures during the concert and when I looked down this is what I saw...so sweet!

One evening I walked some kids home and came across this tiny little girl standing on top of a car. I stood there for awhile not believing what I was seeing and waited for an adult that never came. These chidren are essentially on their own with no supervision.

This little girl came up to the Youth Center as we were leaving to tell Emma goodbye. It was so painful to watch this little girl cry and cling to someone she has only known a short time. Needless to say, we were all in tears!

And so our time on the Reservation is complete and it is time to pack up and try to acclimate back to our "normal" lives. I will be forever grateful that our family was able to share this amazing experience together. My prayer is that we won't slip back into our lives full of entitlement and greed and that we will keep the faces of these children forever in our hearts. What a life-changing experience!

Keiley's Shoes

Keiley's new shoes....

A few days ago I talked about a little girl that walks to the youth center everyday with no shoes. I also mentioned that we walked her home one night and the path that she takes everyday is covered in glass. Well, we have fallen in love with this little girl named Keiley and her brother Gavin. Yesterday I couldn't take it anymore so I decided to break out my first aid kit and doctor up those feet. I brought her a rice krispie treat to distract her which worked like a charm. Afterwards I gave her a pair of Livi's flip flops...she loved them and was so proud showing everyone her new shoes. A little while later I told Livi that I gave Keiley her shoes because she didn't have any...she then proceeded to kick off the shoes she was wearing and said "she can have these too." She ran inside and started grabbing all of her other shoes and we quickly reminded her that she had to have shoes to go home. What a sweet heart my baby has...

Her poor feet were a mess...blisters and cuts everywhere.

Keiley's new and improved feet.

New buddies...the shoes on Livi's feet were next to go.

There are tons and tons of stories just like this...more to come.

Carnival Day

Our team getting ready for the big day.

Liv was a trooper in the dunking booth...that water was cold!

Rachel and Madi found twins!

This little girl came up to me before the carnival started and asked me where Rachel was. I brought her down to the area where Rachel was and she put her little fingers through the fence to hold her hands...awwwww.

The line went all the way around the building...a very long way.

Look at my cute JJ

Yesterday was carnival day and it was a huge success. The carnival started at 3pm and kids started lining up at 10am! The highlights were the "royal flush" which is a poor man's dunking booth, the bounce house (yes, we brought a bounce house all the way from St. Louis) and the cotton candy. I am exhausted and going to bed but needless to say this was the day that I pretty much lost it....the poverty, neglect, abuse have penetrated my heart in a way that I can't even explain. I saw things today that I can't even believe. But in all of the despair great things are happening...great things in our group, great things with the Lakota children, and great things with my family.

Hat Day...CRAZY!

Another great day...I am a day late blogging but too tired to get caught up. I will update the carnival pics tomorrow...huge success. Over 400 kids... These are pics from yesterday Look at these faces...which one of these kids is different than the other? :)

This little girl has become my favorite...she was very shy at first but I was very persistent with her and now she is attached at my hip! She might be coming home with us :) She made this quilt square today which almost made me cry. It says "Xandria and Jenn...friends forever".

This little girl walks to the youth center everyday with NO shoes. I walked her home today and there was broken glass everywhere. So sad!

Hat making begins...

Yesterday was the most exhausting day by far. I had the crazy idea to have the kids decorate hats. We brought 100 white baseball hats and the kids were going to decorate them with paint, fabric markers, stamps, etc. Well, we quickly decided that would be absolute chaos so I was to help the kids design their hats and I would do the stamping. Much better idea but a ton of work for me especially since I stood in a HOT kitchen (well over 90 degrees) for HOURS! The good news is that they turned out adorable and the kids LOVED them. Well worth the work!

Every night when I get into bed (well, actually my deflating air mattress) I am overcome with thankfulness. I am thankful that I am here and having this experience, I am thankful for the hard work and the poor conditions we are in, I am thankful for the people I am with and for their amazing hearts, I am thankful that my family is able to serve together, I am thankful for these beautiful children that we are able to bond with, I am thankful for my life and quite sickened by how good we have it, I am thankful for my relationship with Christ and that He chose me to do work for Him but most importantly I am thankful that our family listened. He is sooooo good!

First day with the kids...WOW!

The girls and their new buddies

White men can't jump!

Emma and her new friend that stuck to her like glue!

Emma and Xandria

These girls loved when Rachel and Madi put their faces together...they kept saying "again, again"

Rachel and her new friend playing dress up.

Madison with some fancy glasses

Jordan with her new friend "Precious"

Aaron on dish duty

We had an amazing first day with the kids. Exciting but very exhausting! We endured a pretty intense storm with lots of thunder and lightening. Olivia was very concerned that there was no basement. :) We are staying at the Cheyenne River Youth Project where children ages 4 thru teenage can come and hang out. The program originally was developed only for the younger kids ages 4 thru 12 but one summer 17 teenagers committed suicide so they decided that the older kids needed somewhere safe and fun to come as well. The younger children come to the youth center from 1pm until 7pm. They start in the library, we do a craft, and then we feed them dinner. It dawned on me last night that none of these children ever eat dinner with their families. Definitely a cultural difference than we are used to. The children were noticeably hungry and ate quite a bit. At one point I ran over to the other building because we ran out of fruit and on the way back was "mobbed" by a cluster of little girls who quickly grabbed the fruit off of my platter.

We had an unfortunate incident yesterday that was very eye opening. Madison had a mom come in and accuse her of making her daughter cry. Madison had been playing with several of this women's children throughout the day with no problems so this came to her as a complete shock. The mom was very aggressive and mean to say the least. We aren't sure why the little girl lied to her mom but it is very clear that ALL of these kids are starving for attention. Madison was very upset and had a ton of tears but everyone on the team really rallied behind her which made her feel very loved. We are praying for a better day tomorrow.

Another highlight of the day was our guys playing the kids on the reservation in a rousing game of basketball. Needless to say the boys manhandled our men which was quite humorous at times. They all had a blast and it was a great way to interact with the teens.

All of the kids are very reserved at first but then when they feel comfortable they latch on to you...literally! At one point I looked over and Rachel had about 5 kids on her. They kids here are fascinated by Rachel and Madison being twins. I talked with the director here and she doesn't remember ever having identical twins on the reservation. So they have caused quite a spectacle :)

We are all doing well. The team is great. The girls all have friends to play with. We feel like we are making a difference...if only for a week. Life is good.

We have arrived!

WE ARE HERE!!!

Our welcome sign.

Rachel unloading the truck. Busy bees... I took this picture driving 75 miles an hour...how about that? Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam.... This is how a caravan of cars gets gas at the same time

This is our cozy sleeping quarters.

The World Famous Corn Palace...it is corntastic!

How corny

Our team leaving St. Louis...bright and early!

Long story on the hats...Aaron and Chuck are on my craft team (by default!) and they came up with these gorgeous hats to wear...should be an interesting week!

We have made it to South Dakota....whew! 66 people, 15 vehicles, and 1000 miles and we all made it with no problems and only one trip to the ER so far (not a Crowell)....what a relief. Last night we stopped in Mitchell, SD and slept in the basement of a church...comfy. Kidding of course!

We were so lucky to be able to visit the world famous Corn Palace last night. We even got a tour as well as a spectacular video of the making of the Corn Palace...another joke. The twins wanted to go back this morning because they loved it so much. :)

The drive was absolutely beautiful with the craziest looking hills I have ever seen. I think they are called "lousses"...they formed when glaciers were covered with soil or something like that. Or maybe Aaron was just trying to act smart when he told me that :)

We are sleeping in very tight quarters...we can bounce from air mattress to air mattress. We have a women's room, men's room, and tween/teenage girl room and the snorring room. The teenage boys are sleeping in the hall.

We unpacked the truck with a major team effort...every person was carrying a box, even the twins. :) Miracles are happening already. One small issue is that the hot water heater is NOT working in the youth center where we are staying. The good news is that our showers are supposed to be under 5 minutes long which hasn't been a problem since the water is freezing!

We are off to bed and ready for the real adventure to begin tomorrow...stay tuned! :)

Off on an adventure...

Tomorrow morning at 5am the Crowell family along with about 60 others are heading about 1000 miles to South Dakota to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. We will be working with the Lakota Indians who are a part of the Sioux Indian Tribe. We have been preparing for this trip for several months and I can't believe it is finally here. We will basically be having an indoor camping trip with 17 other families while we work at a youth center for the week. We have lots of fun events planned including a carnival with a bounce house, cotton candy machine, dunking booth etc. We also have a band coming to do a concert on Thursday night. Some of the guys are heading a couple hours north for the week to rehab a church that is in desperate need of repairs. I am in charge of crafts for 4 days which has put me on a first name basis with the manager at Hobby Lobby (who am I kidding...we were already friends but now we are best buds!).

Yesterday we packed a 16 foot truck with all of our supplies. Someone had a great idea to pack our things in banana boxes since everything was uniform and they worked perfectly! We have just about every square inch of that truck loaded down from food for the entire week (no grocery stores for hours!), construction supplies, carnival supplies and then even more food. Did I mention that we have 700 hotdogs for the carnival? How crazy is that?

And so with excitement and some apprehension we head out for quite the adventure. Please keep us in your prayers that we will travel safely and that our time there will bring happiness to those in need. I will try to update the blog since I know I will not have cell phone service. Our group also has a blog that will definitely be updated daily if you want to keep tabs on us. The blog is http://www.sdteam2009.blogspot.com/

See you soon!

Baby Blessings

About 6 months ago, after a pretty crazy chain of events, I stumbled into a women's shelter called Our Lady's Inn. This is a home for pregnant women and their children that offers a ton of hope to these struggling women. A vast majority of the women come from very abusive pasts, some from early in childhood all the way until now. I asked them if they needed any help and to my surpise they told me that they lost the grant for their nurse earlier in the year and have been praying for someone to step in without pay. I told them that I would love to help and the rest is history.

I began teaching childbirth classes to them on Tuesday nights. After my very first class a sweet girl named Brandi approached me and told me she had a question for me. After some prompting she finally had the courage to ask me if I would be in the delivery room with her when she had her baby in the summer. She had no one else. I of course told her that I would love to be with her and from that point forward a relationship developed. I would often hang out with Brandi and her other two children after class. The kids are absolutely darling and very funny!

And so the last several weeks we have been counting down until the big day. I have slept for quite some time with the phone by my bed just in case she went into labor during the night. I often worried since in was summer that I would have a hard time finding a place for the girls to go but I just prayed that God would make it all possible. And that He did. Rachel and Madi were away on their mission trip and Jordan and Livi were at the Lake with Grammy and Papa. I was getting a little nervous since I was in bed for days with the flu but just as I was feeling better the phone rang and Brandi was in labor.

I took some time getting there as I packed my bag of goodies. Lotions, things to occupy my time, snacks etc. Brandi was only at 2cm when she called and the baby was very high still. At the hospital Brandi wanted to get into the shower to ease her back pain but after a few minutes said that she felt some pressure. If anyone has worked in ob they know that the word "pressure" causes some alarm. But since not even 30 minutes before she was at 2cm made me think she still had a ways to go but she did have a funny, sort of paniced look on her face. She got back into bed and to everyone's surprise the baby was crowning! After a quick yell down the hall a nurse came running in and literally caught the baby! Crazy!

The baby was perfect and screaming away. She weighed 7lbs7oz and was 20" long. My labor bag never got opened once. :) I am so thankful that I was able to share in this amazing women's birth...she is such an inspiration. I wish her many blessings as she starts rebuilding her life. I know in my heart that Brandi is going to be a success story. She is a great mother, hard worker and very firm in her faith. I hope that they are all a part of our lives for a long time!