We left for Washington on Friday after many delays. Despite the late start and threat of inclement weather, we were kept safe the whole trip, up and back.
Saturday was spent at a neighboring camp enjoying their Easter outreach. They presented the gospel twice: one focused on the kids and the other time more for the adults. Even though they had a record turn out they had more than enough donated Easter baskets for all the kids. The leftovers were to be passed out in Spokane to some needy families. I've been apart of assembling baskets in the past, which is a great joy in and of itself, but it was fun to actually see the faces of kids receiving them (even if 3 of them were mine).
Sunday we rose "early" for the Baptist Church 7:30am service in the park. Brrr! We all bundled up and enjoyed worshipping and hearing the gospel message while over looking the Pend Oreille river. After that they served muffins, hot chocolate, and coffee in their mostly finished new recreation facility. Since we had time before the traditional Easter program we walked the streets of Ione. The kids did more climbing than walking, with all the hills created by the snow plows. Josiah was excited to find a screw driver lost in one of them. Then we composed ourselves and joined the service which told the story of Christ's resurrection interspersed with some worship songs. It was nice. Later that night we did the Resurrection Eggs that Family Life has put together. The kids really know the Easter story well so they were able to give share some great details themselves.
Monday was the big day at Bear Paw. We had to request an extension and present some ideas we had as to how to proceed. We offered to manage the camp until we closed on the loan so that they wouldn't have to work on preparing the camp for the season but that option didn't seem desirable to them. The owners and realtors were fairly flexible, and have really worked with us given our unique and complicated situation, but they do want to close this chapter of their lives soon and so left the offer on the table but are free to market the camp in a few days. We left appreciative that we were not just cut off, disappointed that we don't have a move in date still, and with an even hotter fire under our tails to get the sale of our business closed out, which gives us our down payment money on the camp. This is our biggest prayer request right now!
Tuesday we got a message from Gordon with AMF that we were accepted with them as "Approved Candidates on Deputation". We were so excited to get that confirmation and are really looking forward to working with them. Now the work begins! On Tuesday we also had the opportunity to visit the Kalispel Indian reservation and enjoy their new community center. They have a water park-like pool and workout facilities with a medical, vision, and dental clinic coming in the future. The great opportunity here is that they are hiring water aerobics instructors! I was trained and taught water aerobics just before Sierra was born. Although I wanted to teach spin classes and weight lifting, water aerobics was all that was available at the time. Can you believe that a 9 month job I took 3 years ago would be a possible bridge to connecting in our new community?! Praise the Lord!! His plan is perfect.
Any free time we had was spent reading books, playing in the icy snow, and feeding the wild turkeys and deer from the front porch. We had many great pictures so I posted a good portion of them in this slide show. Enjoy!
Easter trip to Bear Paw
So, we'll be packing away and finishing up some sheet rocking and carpeting projects here at home. Andrew will be dealing with all the business sale details and we'll be praying even more fervently for God's will to be done and for him to use us where ever he sees put.
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