The Dickey's: Mission Trip 2008

Last year our church sponsored a family mission trip to Creede, Colorado. It was so well received that our pastoral staff and the missions committee decided to have an annual family mission trip. This year the family mission trip was located in the Texas Hill Country in a town called Kerrville. Fifty-four of us left Saturday, July 26 and came back on Friday, August 1. We partnered up with Southern Oaks Baptist Church in Kerrville to do construction on a mobile home, paint a house, help paint SOBC Children's Building, make appreciation bags for civil servants and conduct VBS for a small church in the Kerrville. We had a lot to accomplish in the 3 1/2 days we had to work but with the Lord's help we got it all done to best of our abilities.

I worked with the children. We made the appreciation bags for the civil servants. The children drew pictures on the bags that we stuff the goodies in. They also made bookmarks to put inside the bags. Inside the bags we put beef jerky, package of peanut butter crackers, chap stick, bookmark, a brochure about SOBC, hand sanitizer, kleenex, and a CD that our church hands out to visitors. We made around 200 bags to hand out to the Kerrville Police and Fire Departments and the Kerr County Sheriff's Office. When we took the bags to each department, they couldn't believe that we had made the bags just for them. The Fire Department actually gave us a grand tour of their fire department.

Sunday night through Wednesday night we held a Vacation Bible School at Western Hills Baptist Church. This church is full of senior adults that desperately wants young family to join their fellowship. We had a high of around 15 one night. The pastor was so thankful for the two or three good contacts that they were able to get out of us holding the VBS. Several members from Western Hills helped us in different areas and they seemed to love every minute. Even though they were senior adults, they didn't mind our youth praise band playing loud!

Kevin helped with both construction projects during the morning and part of the afternoon. In the afternoon, he would get cleaned up for VBS. He played bass guitar in the praise band (he is the geriatric member) and was over the opening and closing assemblies. Kevin knows pretty much nothing about reconstructing a house. But he was able to learn how to sheet rock through the help of others.

We stayed at host families for Souther Oaks. We stayed at a home with 15 others from our group. A total of 23 people were at the house during the week. Our family actually stayed in a pop up camper outside. No we didn't have an air conditioner in the camper but neither did the people that stayed in the house. The lady that we stayed with is allergic to air conditioning. We actually had the better of sleeping arrangements of those at the house, because the lived right on a creek with a water fall (very pretty) so their was pretty much a constant air flow during the night. The Mentch's home at night was filled with laughter, singing, and just all around great fellowship.

On Thursday afternoon, we went to historic Fredricksburg to shop and eat German food. While in Fredricksburg, we got to meet up with Ms. Rachel, our host home from Creede. Rachel lived and worked in Creede last summer. She had just graduated from college and was living in her family's summer home. This past fall, she moved back home with her family in the San Antonio area. Her parents and herself just moved to Fredricksburg earlier that week. So we got a chance to drink cream soda and root beer with Ms. Rachel at an ice cream parlor in downtown Fredricksburg. By the way, I am glad I am not German. The meat was fine but the veggies .. well not much on cabbage and hot potato salad.

We enjoyed our week in Kerrville very much, even without air conditioning! The boys were great. Seth had a horrible night Saturday when we arrived at our house. He screamed for at least an hour and half. After a dose of tylenol, he settled down and fell asleep. He was fine the rest of the week. Although he started fighting getting in his car seat after such a long drive to Kerrville. Eli fell of some playground equipment and busted his chin on Monday. Several of us thought he was going to have to have stitches but Dr. Daddy came and checked him out. Dr. Daddy said that no stitches were needed. Luke also fell while wearing a batman mask. The mask cut into his face under his eye. So we had one with a black eye and one with a busted chin. But through all the falls, screaming babies, and many dirty diapers, I had a wonderful young lady, Meredith Elms, that helped me tremendously. Meredith helped me out even when I didn't ask for help. She just saw what needed to be done and just did them. She was truly a blessing to me.

I will hopefully get a CD of pictures from "Big Luke" (that is what Eli calls him). Big Luke took hundreds and hundreds of pictures of all the work sites. When and if I get the pictures, I will put some of them on the blog. But for know, here are some of the pictures I took at VBS and when we delivered the bags.