Wednesday, April 13, 2011

The End of the War of Special Forces Spring 2011 Team in Yonkers, NY...

 Here's where the Vans and us girls stayed this week! :)
Actually, it also housed more people and they
had school rooms on the main floor.
Can you tell that they used every nook and crannie available?! :)
 It was a really neat, old house!  Fun to explore! :)
Dr. Jim and Mrs. Van stayed in this room..
the "neat" thing was that a NY Supreme Court Justice
died in this very room!!!  Mrs. Van offered for me to
stay in it one night.. I was okay with just a pic, though! ;)
 Here's where my "little munchkins" stayed :)
(I've been calling them this recently.. not exactly sure why?!)
 The kitchen.. and the room where we did homeschooling.
We also used the hallway for homeschooling..
We use a variety of places.. keeps it fun and exciting! :)
 Our room for the week.. we even had an awesome fireplace,
although we didn't use it! :)  Actually, almost every room had
a fireplace.. I guess that's one of the signs of an older house..
I think it was built in the late 1800's!
 This was our view from the front of the church..
It was SO hilly!  I guess Yonkers is one of the hilliest
cities in the United States.. and you could tell! :)
I wish I'd gotten a picture of the streets.. but this one
kind of gives you an idea.  You can see there's a river in
front of the church a little ways off.. it's kinda hard to tell
from the pic, but it was a steep incline!
 Amanda & Nicole were SO excited about
the storm that finally came!  They had been
waiting for a hard downpour of a storm,
with lightening and thunder, of course,
for a LONG time!  They were SO excited
when it finally came!!! :)
 Well, Nicole wanted me to cut her hair..
so I did! :)  I had fun styling it, too! :)

 There was a pastor's get-together at the church on Tuesday
morning.. well, actually, it lasted until after lunch! :)
I guess the different pastors from the NY area get together every so
often to pray.. this time Dr. Jim preached and the girls played, too! :)
 Splash Ball
This week, since it was a smaller school of only about
twenty students in the jr. and sr. high, we only had two teams...
the Seals and Recon, the best team took an intermission :)

 Nicole gave her testimony in Wednesday chapel and
all three of us sang "Nothing Between".
 On Wednesday night, the first night of the War, it ended
up being cold and rainy.. we still had a decent crowd, but
not a lot of kids from the outside showed up..
still, I was able to deal with a girl from the school about
assurance of her salvation, and I think others responded as well.
This is how Amanda decided to try and stay dry.. 
I thought she looked pretty cute! ;)
 Tube Tug on the hill.. I guess Alex thought this was
the best Tube Tug of the whole semester! :)
 Does this picture remind you of anyone, Steve?? :)
On Thursday, us girls did a session with the girls from
the school.  We gave our personal testimonies.. it was
a really special time.  There were a couple of girls I
talked with afterward.. one approached me and thanked me
for my testimony.  It was really sweet and meant a lot to me.
Then, another girl, who'd been crying as I spoke, I went and
talked with afterward.  We had a really encouraging talk, and
she sweetly thanked me for our team coming.. said that the Lord
was really using us in her life.. it's such a special, amazing thing to
be used of Him in the lives of others!  I hope that never grows old..

 Super Heroes that never made it..
 Camille, Stephanie, and Amanda
 We had lots of creative ways to do competitions this week! :)
Behind buildings, in parking lots, on hills.. :)
Thursday night there ended up being about ten to fifteen
new guys who came, and then a lot of them came back
again Friday night and a few new ones showed up too..
Praise the Lord for bringing in the people and for the beautiful
weather as a direct answer to prayer on Thursday night! :)

 Friday night's crowd
 Me and my buddies.. :)
We've had such a great time together!
Lots of laughs, fun memories, and even tears..
I love these girls and am gonna miss them a lot!

 Carl, who traveled with us in the Fall semester, lives
in Elmont, NY, so it worked to see him some while
we were there.. it was so great to see him again!
We got together with him for dinner on Saturday night,
went to his church to minister on Sunday night (and
it was special to be able to sing "New Life" there :)),
he came with his pastor on Tuesday for the pastor's
meeting, and then he and his pastor brought a group of teens 
from his church on Friday night to the War.. so, we got to see
him quite a bit!  I was glad! :)  I've missed this guy! :)
 
The Spring 2011 Captains & Co-captains!
We shared lots of special and stressful times..
Alex, Amanda, and I (along with Joe), will be traveling
more with the Vans doing Revival meetings and Fizz
Feud (kinda like the War) in Canada.. but this was the
last week for this team to travel together..
Although it's "the end", hopefully it's really just the
beginning and continuation of all the Lord wants to
do in and through our lives.. 
to HIM be the glory.. Great things HE has done!

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