About Me

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I have a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and I am currently working on my Masters of Arts in Counseling.I have had experience as a youth treatment specialist, child counselor, a great deal of understanding in child development and am a stay-at-home-mom to 3 wonderful, beautiful kids under the age of 9. I have a passion for child psychology and fashion.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Mission Trip Tokio, North Dakota 2014

Youth Mission trip diary. Saturday, June 21st- Friday, June 27th 2014.

Saturday, June 21st

Early morning! Had to be up at 5:30 a.m. Of course, I couldn't sleep last night because I was making sure I had everything packed and everything ready to go. I got to the church at 6:30, where I met up with everyone. We got the truck packed up with all the suit cases, blankets and food. On the road at 7 a.m.

It was supposed to take us 10 hours, but took us 14 hours. We had to take a detour because of road construction. We managed to out run the bad storm.



As we were driving out, we saw a lot of flooding.










I guess this is normal for them. They didn't seem too concerned. They just keep raising the roads. At one of our tours, the resident said that the water was actually 'seeping' under the road to the other side of the street.

Got to our destination at 9 p.m. We met with the pastor of the church and other people that were going to help us along the way. After we met with the pastor and took a little tour, we did our own devotionals for the night ( our time to reflect on the day, the days' work and the people we met through out the day.) One question we have to think about is..."How has someone else helped you in life?" This question is because we do so much to help other people , but who actually helps us? Finally, it's midnight and it's bedtime.

We are at Tokio, ND. On an Indian Reservation. It doesn't look any different, it just looks like a regular small town. We are here to help the pastor and Sunday School director fix up the manse (where the SS director is living). We will be painting some walls, pulling up carpet, putting wood floors down on the stair landing, putting tread on the stairs, cleaning up the yard...mowing, pulling weeds, raking. This week we have something planned every night after our work day. It will be interesting to learn the culture, help this town, take tours and help rebuild the manse.

Sunday, June 22nd

Didn't sleep very good last night. Found out they have really bad ticks (like our flies, they are everywhere, literally!) and mosquitos. I don't do bugs of any kind. I think I finally fell asleep but then kept waking up and just looking around to see if there were any bugs on me. We are actually supposed to be sleeping in bunk trailers, but they were not ready for us (didn't have electricity). So, we are staying in the Church sanctuary. Which, is probably much better! Today, we are attending the church's service and having a cookout; potluck with their congregation. The service was pretty short, they had a guest pastor. No work today.
 
 
This is the church we slept in. Bdecan (B-D-Chun)

This is where we slept every night. In the pews. The grey pillow/blanket is mine. One of the other youth slept on the other side where the pink blanket is.


11:30-2:00
Had lunch with the congregation. They only had about 9 people today. They said they usually have about 20 people who come. Went over to the manse to check out what work needed to be done. Had a little time, so we went to look at the cemetery, right across the street. We are going on a tour of all the towns on the reservation later today about 3 p.m
 
This is the inside of the church. I thought it was pretty cute! 



This is the Manse that we had to fix up on the inside. 


3-5:30
Went on the tour of the reservations. The reservation is made up of about 4 towns, with housing units. Which consists of about 10-20 double wide trailers, FEMA houses or houses that were old and run down. The "White" people had nice farm houses. The "white" people are considered rich there. The most interesting facts to me was that, these houses on the Indian reservation can be rented out only to the tribes for less than $10 a month. They go by your income. Another interesting fact is that the families don't have to work at all. 90% of the houses are single family with only the women and children. The kids are not disciplined. I saw kids everywhere! I was driving down the highway going 55-60 and the tour guy told me to slow down because there might be kids playing in the street. Most of the houses had boards on them because the guys get drunk and knock out the windows. All the headstart schools were boarded up because the kids would knock the windows out.

This is one of the reservations and the housing units. 

This is on one of the headstarts with some of the windows and doors boarded up.

6:00-10:30
Had supper together. We had pulled pork, hot dogs, peaches and chips. After supper, the youth cleaned up and then we sat around the table just talking, playing games, and playing cards. We relaxed until about 10:30 then did our devotions for the day.

Monday, June 23rd
Work day- Slept a little better last night. Didn't feel like I woke up as much. Got up about 7:30 a.m., had our breakfast then headed to do our work. We can walk to the job site so, it's really nice not to get up so early and have to drive far away. We worked until noon, came back to the church and ate lunch. Went back to work after lunch then worked until 3:30. Had to get cleaned up (shower and change) to leave by 5:00 to be in another town for prayer worship.
This prayer worship was a small get together of some of the Indian people who lit sage to keep the bad spirits out.                      This is the circle that they would light the sage.





Tuesday, June 24th
Didn't sleep too well last night. The youth girls and I stayed up until almost 1 o'clock in the morning telling ghost stories. By the end we were all scared, so we put the pews together and all slept together. Slept until 9 a.m. Had our morning coffee and breakfast then headed to work. It was cold and dreary today. The high was 51 degrees and raining. As I mentioned on Monday, we got most of our work done yesterday. Today, we had to clean up the stairs and landing (from pulling up the carpet) to get ready to lay the laminate and tread on the stairs. Swept, vaccumed the stairs and landing, washed them with bleach and water, so we had to let them air dry. We went outside after cleaning the stairs. It stopped raining. We did a lot of yard work today. Mowed, raked up the grass from mowing,  picked up the grass piles, pulled weeds, cut the weeds with sheers- (had 4 weed wackers, but none of them worked.) We had our tour planned for tonight, but already did that on Monday, so tonight we were on our own. We went into the closest town (Devil's lake) took the kids to Dairy Queen then went to Wal mart (our WAM-Walmart At Midnight tradition). We came back to the church. We have a new tradition, thanks to one of the youth- Coffee at midnight! :) I lead devotions then just relaxed. Tonight's devotion question... "How has someone helped you today?)

Wednesday, June 25th
I slept really good last night. I fell asleep and didn't wake up until it was light outside. We don't have much work left to do so, we are pacing ourselves. This morning, we woke up at 8:30, ate breakfast and just hung around the church and played UNO, and yahtzee. We mostly just had yard work left to do and it was raining, so we waited until it stopped raining. We ate lunch then went to work. Got done about 3:30. Tonight they had a program called KICK-Kids in Christ Kingdom. It's a Sunday School service for the kids on Wednesday evenings. The youth hung out outside with the Sunday School kids, had some supper with the Sunday school kids and parents. Everyone left and we were on our own again. The youth sang songs and danced and had a really good night of bonding. We tried to take a shower, but the water heater was not working. So, we don't have showers the rest of the week. BOO!
10:30
Time for devotions. Our nightly coffee hour and devotions. Tonight our question was...."What do you want to be when you grow up?"

Thursday, June 26th
Stayed up pretty late last night with the youth girls. Slept until 11 a.m. Since we ran out of things to do Monday and was pacing ourselves, we were not in a big hurry to get to work. Finished the stairs today (out the tred on the stairs) and cleaned up the Manse's kitchen and did some more yard work. We stopped at 5p.m. and had a cultural dinner and they showed us some of the traditional Indian clothes, drums, knife holders and bow and arrows. We sat around and talked. Haven't taken a shower in 3 days. I'm ready to be home. Got to talk to the kids and hubby today. Makes me miss them more.

Friday, June 27th

Officially done with all the work today. No work today! Today is our fun day. We woke up at 9:30, sat around and talked. Went into Devil's Lake to take a tour of Fort Totten (a Military Camp). We got done about 3:30 then we took the youth to the lake to go swimming. Today, was a little warmer, maybe about 70 degrees. It started raining while the kids were in the water, so we had to be done. We took the kids to the casino and ate at the buffet. Came back to the church and cleaned it up to get ready to leave in the morning. Our devotion question...."How has someone helped you in life?" We have a tradition on the mission trips to light a candle on the last day of the trip and tell everyone how we feel about the trip, about each other and what we learned through the mission.

Saturday, June 28th
Got up about 7:30 a.m. and left Tokio by 9 a.m. A long day of driving. Finally, got home about 9:00 p.m. Got the kids from grandma's and back home at about 9:30p.m.

Even though this is my 3rd mission trip, nothing ever changes. None of them are the same. They just keep getting better and better. I would have to say that my favorite parts of this mission trip were sitting around the table in the mornings-drinking our coffee, talking, chatting and laughing, Sitting in our pews (beds) until midnight or later talking and laughing, and our devotion times usually started around 9:30-10:00. We talked about everything. Getting to know the youth is a big, important part of me because I am the Youth director, I need to be able to bond with the kids and the kids have to be able to trust me and be able to talk to me about anything and everything. One of the youth actually texted her mom saying, "Amber is awesome!" That made my week!

Many more years to come!