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Monday/Tuesday

Last night was interesting. Not in a mentally stimulating sort of way, but more in a "strange" sort of way. I was tired after three hours of kids and the morning walking around in the hot sun, so I retired for the night. Somewhere around midnight (I don't really know, I don't have a clock) an alarm started beeping. I sat up. It was coming from inside the couch next to me! It was a sleeper sofa and some kind of alarm had been put inside. I couldn't get to it without waking up Clay but it went off soon enough. I laid back down and tried to get to sleep again. After dozing off, another alarm went off. This time it was one inside the window between the screen and glass. I took the screen out (in the dark) and grabbed it and it went off. I knew of course by now that this was a prank played upon the mission team. I thought it was rather humourous but at the same time the thought was going through my head that I needed some sleep! After dozing off again, another alarm went off. I don't know if they were set at two or one hour intervals, this time Clay got up and turned it off after finding it with his flashlight. Thankfully, no more came until dawn. I was apparently the only one who heard all three (and very well I might add) because David slept right through all of them and Clay heard the last two. It was funny but I certainly don't want anything like that to happen tonight. I'm feeling rather weary :)

After reading my Bible I went outside and tried to figure out how to get more line on the weed-eater but had to wait until Bill came back (it just needed pliers and I thought I was doing it wrong). Then I trimmed around the house, finishing up what we had started yesterday, blew off the sidewalks and the front driveway (which had about a half inch layer of dirt and chipped cement in one part) and shoveled all of the dirt up and took it to various holes and spots that Jeanne wanted filled in with the dirt. Then quickly showered and ate and we soon headed out for the evangelism in the morning.

I asked Ruth if she wanted to be my partner for the day and we broke off to go do a house right nearby and then followed with Beth and Evelyn with several streets, leap-frogging. Today was actually an encouraging day as we got about four people who gave answers that sounded good, meaning that their hope of salvation lay only in their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, and not in going to church or being a good person. One older gentleman, the type of guy who is probably a perfect grandfather, when Ruth asked him whether he would go to heaven or hell, said "purgatory. Oh wait! I mean heaven." He winked at me and said he was playing around. I couldn't tell if he was just teasing Ruth, or as Evelyn said, merely joking around about religion in general.

The last house we stopped at we were greeted by an elderly man wearing a jumper suit, he said he had just been working at the church and he was glad to help us with our survey we were doing. He was a Nazarene minister and talked to us for about a half hour. He had some beliefs that were strange, as in speaking of salvation not necessariliy being a single point (what we would call justification) but that after we are sanctified to a point, the Holy Spirit takes away our sin nature, in that we are "being saved." He also mentioned some other things and talked about tongues (which he said he had studied a lot) etc. It was somewhat unprofitable because we weren't able to go to other houses during that time and it was mainly him that talked, almost as if he were preaching a sermon to us. After that, we headed back and went to the cars. I'd lost track of Beth and Evelyn but I spotted them at the corner and suggested we go pick them up on the way out.

I was riding in Brad's car and he was a wild driver. Man. I think he went up near 80 in a 55 zone and was at 50 in a 35. He and Missy were racing through the end of town, over the bridge and to the W's house. Missy burned rubber on a couple of starts after the stoplights.

At the W's house, I got a cup and went to have a glass of lemonade but I could tell instantly that there was salt in it, and I recalled David having said something about salt the previous night. That was a bad cup of lemonade, but funny at the same time.

I had a few minutes to work on a skit that I was supposed to be in during the afternoon and then we headed on over to the YMCA for the Vacation Bible School. The afternoon went fairly well, we broke the kids up into two groups and it seemed like there was a lot more of them today. We play a version of dodge ball called "sprout ball" which was pretty fun, and had the story time and everything else that we normally do. When it came time to do the skit, I came out of the closet as a reporter, accidentally lost all my papers and finally made it to the chair. I had asked David to be my second reporter to ask questions and get things pointed in the right direction because I was also controlling Charlie Horse. He seemed to be a hit with the kids, at least he held their attention. Nathaniel wasn't around when he was supposed to come in but with David's help we covered it nicely and then he came in, with the brilliant excuse of traffic being bad and it being a long trip from Sudan (the country we are speaking about). David was great and helped keep things moving, I really appreciated it because I honestly didn't have much.

We came home, spent some time hanging around and then went on over to the bowling alley at the air force base, that is, Missy, Christi, Jeanne, David, Clay, Ruth, Nathaniel and myself. My very first ball hit the gutter and I felt I was in for a poor evening, but things picked up later on and of my last three throws, two were strikes. I had three strikes and three spares. David and I were seeing how fast we could throw it because it also measured your speed in miles per hour. I got over 19 mph first, then David threw a 19.60, I got a 19.59 (which is just plain wrong!) and finally topped it with a 20.09, which was also a strike. The first round I was surprised but I had the highest score by a few points. Christi was amazing and had such great form and a lot of consistency. Our team beat Clay, David, Ruth, and Jeanne by well over 100 points (the boys at least were competing). Nathaniel had an odd way of throwing but was very consistent as well, and certainly scored higher than me in the second game. I had a couple of strikes I think and maybe a spare. Overall, everyone did better the second game (I did worse). Poor Ruth had a bad ball with a flat spot that apparently ruined a lot of her first game and we didn't find out until the second. She did much better after that.

It was a lot of fun and I'm glad we did it. When we got back, most everyone went in to watch "Mask of Zorro" and I tried to finish my post here. Then Christi offered to cut my hair (she had been doing the other boys the previous night and I had asked if she would be willing to do mine too). Which she did but left it too long. I asked for it to be shorter and she obliged. I think it looks great but I personally wouldn't even mind a buzz. My mother usually cuts my hair but I forgot to ask her to do it before I left and these last couple of weeks it's been really bugging me, especially out in the sun and it gets pretty wild.

Well, that's about it for tonight, I'm going to try to head off to bed as soon as the movie is over, I'm feeling ready for it :)