The Adventure Begins

Yesterday at 6am we departed for an adventure. The Crowell family along with 10 other families left for South Dakota. This is our 2nd mission trip to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation where we serve the Lakota Indians of the Sioux Tribe. When we asked our girls if they would rather go to the beach or to South Dakota this summer, without a second of hesitation they yelled "South Dakota". And so we packed up and headed 900 miles to a magnificent but yet incredibly deprived part of our country to once again spend a wonderful week with the people that we so fell in love with last year.

As I write this, it is approximately 2am and I have just had my first shower since Friday...ewww I know. :) We have already had an incredible experience that I will write about tomorrow...an amazing story of how God works in absolutely incredible ways. We will be challenged this week like no other. The conditions on the reservation are much worse than last year...not sure why but sadly it is the case. But, we are with an incredible group of people that share in this mission and will be with us every step of the way.

Kids can have fun anywhere! This is like one gigantic sleepover....good times!

Tee Pees...does it get more Indian than this?

The beautiful land of South Dakota...breathtaking!

Unpacking the truck...all hands on deck!

These are the banana boxes that we packed for the carnival...we have over 6,000 carnival prizes, a dunking booth, a bounce house, a cotton candy machine and 10 other games. Woo Hoo!

Our luxurious sleeping quarters. This is the woman, young girl and tween room...most crowded room by far. There is a man room and a teen girl room...good times. A week sleeping with Olivia...ugh! She is a violent sleeper.

We are heading to bed now after a VERY long day. Tomorrow the kids arrive and the party begins. We are so grateful for our safe travels and the hard work of our team and can't wait to see what the week will bring. Keep us in your prayers.

Prayer requests:

1. Good weather..more rain is in the forecast. They have had record rainfall amounts in the last few weeks.

2. Kids that show up tomorrow at the Youth Center (rumor has it that the numbers have been low lately due to kids getting beaten up...yikes!

3. We can figure out a way to get the grass mowed (the playground that was fairly nice last year is a complete disaster with grass several feet high...this will be the location of the carnival on Wednesday where we will entertain approximately 600 people! Pray hard for this one!