Whew… I’m back and I have just about caught up.

Sunday, July 10th, after church, the middle school kids from our church loaded up in three buses an SUV and a pick-up. If I remember right we had 42 seventh and eighth graders and 22 sponsors (many of whom where high schoolers). We headed out for San Antonio, Texas. Six hours later we were settling in to our digs for the week, a church gymnasium with some temporary classrooms on one side (divided by those slidy wall/curtain things). The smart few (including myself) brought air mattresses as we spent the week sleeping on the hardwood floors.

We split up into three VBS groups and one work crew. All but a couple of the seventh graders were on the work crew and spent the week cleaning, scraping and painting a small church building. The VBS groups did small Vacation Bible Schools at various inner-city housing projects. We were working with kids from three to twelve years old teaching them songs (from “Herman the Worm” to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”), doing crafts, teaching Bible lessons, and (most importantly) playing with and loving on the kids in the hood.

Click to see my pictures from the mission trip.

It was a great experience. Yes, it was brutally hot. Yes, we were all pretty far from our comfort zones. Yes, we spent several days washing out hair with dog shampoo (after learning that some of the children had head lice). But ultimately I will carry the lessons I learned with me for life. God is so big. Watching God use broken vessels like us to pour out his love on kids who don’t get much love anywhere else was an honestly life-changing experience. Do me a favor and pray for the summer missionaries who spend months down in the trenches, sharing the love of Christ all over the country with kids in need.

On Friday, Tammy came down and picked me up to go to a family reunion at my folk’s ranch in La Grange. We were there a day and a half and had a blast getting to know distant family members we’d never met before and catching up with those that we don’t get to see often.

Click to see my pictures from the reunion. (The directory called “Big” is just for Uncle Robert. It’s the high-res versions.)

We left La Grange Saturday around noon and made it back to Arlington in time to catch the “One Voice” concert at Six Flags. Super Chick, Thousand Foot Krutch, and Third Day were all phenomenal! The Third Day set alone was worth the cost of the tickets. I am just now getting my voice back.

So (*pant pant*) there you have it. My week of vacation in 500 words or less.