Tour De Scandia

no we did not take our bikes and go through the town of Scandia, but we DID take our 12 passenger van and rock the borders of Scandia! 

Vanessa our intern and I took 7 girls to my home town of Scandia this past weekend and we had a BLAST! We got to my parents house and my mom had the pizza stuff ready for us to make our own pizzas right away! After we chowed down on the pizza's we all got on our swim suits and headed down to Big Marine Lake for a dip.  Yes we did wait 30 minutes before we got into the water! The night was so beautiful, I could not have asked for a better sunset.  The girls did some head stands, chicken fights and drawing in the sand. 

Then we headed back to my parents house for a fire, some smores and a night hike.  For the night hike we decided to blindfold everyone (except me) and the girls had to hold the hand of the girl in front of them as well as behind them and learn to trust AND to lead.  I had a flash light of course, but at any rate, I took them through my very hilly and interesting yard.  There were a couple of giggles and a couple of falls.  Once we had made it the perimeter of our yard I took them to the way front of the yard and lay them down to look up at the stars.  Many of these girls have never really star gazed in their life because they have spent most of their time in the city.  Once they were all laying down I told them they could take off their blind folds, and all was silent.  Maybe a minute later one of the girls just said, "wow." 

Then we talked about what it was like to have to trust the person in front of you to warn you of a hole or root by squeezing your hand.  And what it was like to know that the person behind you is depending on you for that squeeze!  We talked about how the Lord leads each of us through our lives and sometimes we feel like we are blind folded.  We don't know the outcome of our lives, but God does.  Also along the way in life we may trip and fall, and God does not necessarily stop that from happening, but He is always there.  Right next to you.  

We read some scripture about how God placed each star in the sky and knows each one by name.  I asked the girls to count as many stars as they could, and of course they just made up a number.  We talked about how all of those stars are millions of miles away and that even though the universe is HUGE, it still has a limit somewhere out there.  But the second part of the scripture that we read said something about how the knowledge of the Lord is LIMITLESS.  So as far as you can see is no where near the amount of knowledge and love and compassion that God has for each and every one of these girls.  

Many of them had not thought of God in that way and had some great things to say.  Basically we had a wonderful time star gazing.  

Then we all stood up and picked out our favorite star, put our arms straight out and kept our eyes on that one star as we spun and spun until we all fell over.  My favorite game, star spinning.  I only did it once myself, but some of the girls did it 3 times. uck. I would have barfed. 

Anyways, the next day we sent out on Tour De Scandia where we visited each and every  one of the life sized dolla horses in Scandia as well as visited my Pastor Jillene.  While we were visiting with PrJ one of my girls said, Hey, would you baptize me? 

This did not surprise me because the last time I worked at TreeHouse we had planned on getting her baptized but never had the chance to, and so 7.31 was the perfect date for her! My pastor was a bit stunned, but was so gracious and excited to do it.  SO she robed up and we headed up to the sanctuary where she preformed a beautiful baptism and all of the rest of the girls watched.  I was her sponsor and it was so amazing to look at where she has come from in her life, to the past two years that I have known her up until that day.  I was so proud because this is truly a girl who is running after the heart of God and I am just so blessed to know her. I can see her becoming one of our treehouse leaders in this next year.  

Anyways, here are some pictures of our adventures.  Enjoy!