God's Mountain

It's been awhile since I've posted... and I have good reason. Boaz & I went on a 10 day adventure together over spring break!! On March13th, Boaz celebrated his 13th month of life...

On the 14th, we left Cedar Falls for God's Mountain... a camp just south of St. Joseph, Missouri. When I worked at the church doing college ministry, I took several groups of college students here over spring break. The camp is a really special place to me for that reason, and I hadn't been there for several years. This year, it was a spring break mission trip for high school students.

My friend, Kris, is the high school youth director and asked if myself and my friend Jess would be the 'cooks' for the week. We took our kids along and did some serious cooking!! Small groups of students helped us prepare meals and clean up all week. Here is a picture of some guys doing some serious kitchen work. I think they were slicing potatoes up for real mashed potatoes!!This is the group heading through the serving line at one meal. We cooked for about 60 people each meal.. breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Jess & I have partnered on some big projects in the past and we make a great team. I wouldn't have attempted anything like this without her. She is one of the most servant-hearted, kind people I know... it made a task like this fun and a whole lot easier.
The students worked really hard all week. This project was replacing the facia, trim, and gutters on the apartment building on site. The window the ladder is leaning over is Boaz's... and he is attempting to take a nap as I took this picture!! :) We had a few days with not so great naptimes, but we had to keep reminding ourselves that we weren't there for our kids to get good naps, we were there for work to get done!! This building looked really impressive when it was done.
Jess brought her two boys along with her also and we shared an apartment. This is Austin and Boaz together. Austin is 2 months older than Boaz. They were pretty good buddies. Someday I think they'll have some good wrestling matches.

Kris also had her daughter along. This was the best shot that we could get of the three kiddos together. Boaz's main job during the week was to encourage the workers. He did that by giving high fives all day long. He had a blast doing so.
He got to do a lot of swinging and had plenty of attention during the week. He was working on getting his front teeth and was going through a bit of separation anxiety I think, so tended to be a little clingy. Here was a moment that he snuggled up with Sarah... the youngest of the Williams' kids. The Williams family runs God's Mountain and have been an inspiration for what I'd like my family to look like someday. The parents are amazing and have done an incredible job raising their kids.
Ellen is a friend of ours who helped babysit Boaz a lot on the trip. She took care of him before each mealtime so that Jess & I could get things all ready. She was such a blessing to have along!!
Boaz & I had a great spring break together. After the week in Missouri was over, we made the trek to Oklahoma to see my relatives!! I'll save that for the next post! One year old and already going on spring break missions trips... I hope that's a tradition that Boaz continues through his life. I'd love it if he shared my heart for missions... local & overseas.