Sunday, June 15, 2015

The morning started out a little out of sorts. To begin with, Fr. Tom's truck didn't want to start. After looking under the hood and seeing nothing visibly wrong, he said a short prayer, got back in and, thank you Jesus, it started right up. Arriving at the church, the time before service went just fine; the whole team from Omaha made it for their pre-mission blessing, even loading the trailer went great, but when Fr. Tom went to look for his prayer book, he couldn't find it and after some searching, it was found in his backpack. Despite this little hiccup, the trailer and team were ready to go right on time and at 10:05 am they pulled out of the church parking lot. There was much rejoicing as the craziness seemed to melt away, that was at least until they were about 2 miles from the church when Fr. Tom remembered he left his phone back in the sacristy. You guessed it, back to the church where a dear parishioner met him at the door when he pulled up and we were back on the road.

It was a beautiful day for the drive. Clear skies and light traffic. Arriving in Norfolk, the team took their first break and had lunch at McDonalds. Everyone was glad to stretch their legs a little. Then it was on the road again. After a short stop in O'Neil, it was clear sailing all the way to Valentine arriving 15 minutes ahead of the planned arrival time. They were met by the St. John's Junior Warden, Karl Busch, who had the church open and ready for the team. Shortly afterwards team members from Lincoln and Holdredge arrived and we enjoyed our typical first day dinner, pizza. One sad note, the team learned that the Dollar General, that used to reside about two blocks from the church was no longer there. You could see the disappointment on their faces as they wondered where they would get snacks and drinks they need to survive, and where they would normally spend part of each day. Fortunately, all was not lost. It was discovered that the store had just relocated. However, they now had an extra 5 block walk. Somehow, I don't think that will be an issue. We will see tomorrow.

Following dinner and some get to know one another time, we headed up to the Reservation for training in a Safeguarding God's Children class that focused on the cultural differences our youth might encounter. The local priest offers it to all teams who work on the Rosebud and it contained some really interesting and need to know items to be aware of. While attending meant we had to rearrange our schedule slightly, we did get to meet some other teams on the reservation, as well as their Wopila House intern and a seminarian from Sewanee, Nancee Cekuta. Back at St. John's we finished getting ready for tomorrow's activities and were soon off to bed. A day that started out a just a little bit crazy, ended with our youth leading the team in Compline and some peace and quiet. As first days go; it was a good one, and we are looking forward to what God has in store for us this week.