Nez Perce Tuesday: "Pursued"

Hello again! Today we continued to explore how we are desired by God, and revisited our brokenness from yesterday. We were reminded of the fact that, even through our brokenness, Jesus still places incredible value on each of us. By seeing our worth, He pursues us to have a relationship with Him. Everyone has something to offer and we can pursue others with the same love with which Jesus pursues us. We looked at the story of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7) and examined how amazing it is when we stray away from the herd, God still searches for us, brings us back, and rejoices in our return.

Each crew went back to the same type of mission site, and I asked a student from each crew to write about their experience today. Enjoy!

Kids Club:
Kids Club today was a ton of fun! We started off the morning by going to the Idaho Food Bank and moved almost TEN THOUSAND pounds of food. Some people were moving zucchini, other people bagged tons o cereal, and others sorted canned and packaged foods into separate food groups. After that, we went back to the church and ate lunch. We were at the food bank for about an hour, so that left two or three hours to play with the kids. We started off with some songs like Father Abraham. Then we played games, did crafts, and read the Bible. I feel like everybody is very in touch with God here and are having a blast. Tomorrow is a new day though, so I expect new experiences to occur.
-Ben Thunselle

Work Projects:
Today we went to a man named Vic's house to paint the outside. At first, I had a blast, but after about ten minutes, the heat got to me. Now it was probably in the lower nineties, but we continued working through the heat. We got a lot done, and by lunch we were so hot and sweaty but still continued. When we were done it looked great! We were relieved we had finished and left in hopes that the owner would be happy with it.
-Zach Taylor

Evening Activity:
This evening our team (Maggie, Grace, Anastasia, TJ, Ben, Simon, Zach, Taryn, and Mike) went with the rest of the group to the Wolf Conservation and Research Center in Winchester, Idaho. Despite not seeing any wolves, sightings of deer, turkeys, and a variety of birds were reported.
It was also reported that stinging nettle was on the prowl, perhaps even stalking Simon... More to follow.
We learned that a coyote and a wolf can cross-breed; that they have a predator instinct that will last about 15 minutes during a hunt; and that alphas, omegas, and subordinates are all different kinds of members in the pack.
-Simon Stephens

Note from Taryn:
These kids are amazing. That's all. :)