Back at the end of June we embarked on a little missionary journey out to Southwest South Dakota to serve alongside the Dyer Family and their ministry called Oyate Concern. Oyate Concern is a local outreach ministry that exists to meet the spiritual needs of the Lakota Indians located on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Our team was comprised of some incredible families: The Arpon's, Becklund's, Kirkwold's, Krummen's, Magalis's, Schmidt's, Sebastian's, and Staloch's. Each family played an intricate and important role (teaching, cleaning, cooking, drama, games, music...etc) during our stay with the Dyers thus providing a sense of ownership to this trip!
The picture above is from the children's outreach night where we had 75 kids running around outside and we as a team provided some really cool crafts. One of the crafts we provided were balloon animals (and various other objects). A favorite request of the night was for swords...and as you can imagine everybody wanted one (including myself) so that they could have fencing duels with each other. There's something exhilirating about arming children with make believe weapons and then watching them role play battle scenes! Ha! However, the most exciting part of the evening was the spiritual battle that was one by Jesus as he delivered two young children out of darkness and into his marvelous light (Haley Schmidt showed the evangelism cube and Rita Arpon prayed with them to recieve Christ..team effort). Praise the Lord, Angels in Heaven rejoice over the repentance of one sinner (Luke 15:7) Thanks to every family who went on this trip and to all who labored in prayer for us....Your prayers were answered!!!
The picture above is from the children's outreach night where we had 75 kids running around outside and we as a team provided some really cool crafts. One of the crafts we provided were balloon animals (and various other objects). A favorite request of the night was for swords...and as you can imagine everybody wanted one (including myself) so that they could have fencing duels with each other. There's something exhilirating about arming children with make believe weapons and then watching them role play battle scenes! Ha! However, the most exciting part of the evening was the spiritual battle that was one by Jesus as he delivered two young children out of darkness and into his marvelous light (Haley Schmidt showed the evangelism cube and Rita Arpon prayed with them to recieve Christ..team effort). Praise the Lord, Angels in Heaven rejoice over the repentance of one sinner (Luke 15:7) Thanks to every family who went on this trip and to all who labored in prayer for us....Your prayers were answered!!!
After the trip, a few of us on the team (Arpon's and Schmidt's) made a little trek through Custer State Park. At the park we found a trail called Sunday Gulch Trail. What we thought was going to be a short 1 hour stroll turned into a rigorous 3 hour hike full of challenging obstacles and ever changing terrain. At the end of our three hour hike we found ourselves climbing a sequence of switchbacks. What made this part of the trail particulary interesting was the numerous waterfalls we encountered with some of them free flowing over the areas where we were walking! We must have taken our shoes off 3-4 times over the course of about an hour. This is the kind of excitment I live for: the unexpected and exciting twists and turns that life throws at you!! We did eventually finish the hike and that night we treated ourselves with a steak dinner at the Outback Steak House in Rapid City...Can you say "Bloomin Onion".
Praise the Lord for a wonderful and amazing Mission Trip
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