Tico Tuesday, July 7th

Today was my church's children's retreat. I was invited to go along as an assistant and I had a BLAST!! It was at a nice little retreat center in the mountains, so the temperature was glorious, and I knew all the other adults that were serving there, so that was good. And it was a great opportunity to get to know more of the kids at church. I am planning on working with them more soon. Educating my church about missions isn't something that is going to be directed solely at the adults-it is for EVERYONE!!

The picture is of the kids doing reciting and doing the motions to a sentence that we taught them "YO SOY UNA CREACION UNICA DE DIOS" -"I AM A UNIQUE CREATION OF GOD" (they had to shout it).
Check out the blog to see how I fulfilled one of my life dreams today... http://smithcj1.blogspot.com/


One thing I have always wanted to do that I thought would be SO great was to go exploring up a river. Well, maybe not a river, more like a brook, creek or stream (and I don't have a clue what the difference is between those things anyway). I especially wanted to go exploring up Pilgrim Creek in the Tetons, but I never did it. Someday I will! But, today I at least got to fulfill that dream of exploring up a stream! We didn't reach its mouth/origin-that would have been too cool! But we still had a blast. Who is we? (L to R) Jorge, Andres, and me. Jorge led the way and did a good job finding where to step. I went next and Andres pulled up the rear.

In the next photo you can see where we headed. I don't know exactly how far we went. I don't even really know how long we explored since we removed all cell phones and watches and cameras and electronics before we set off. We wanted to go farther, but it was good we turned around when we did. We just barely made it back in time for the afternoon round of games we were leading.

Both boys ended up getting pretty wet (ok, I was pretty damp myself, but I had sweet quick-dry North Face pants on). And none of us completely fell into the water. The rocks weren't near as slippery as most rocks I have encountered that have water constantly running over them. That was a very pleasant surprise. Anyway, in the last picture, the boys are pretty much soaked, but they decided to stick their heads in the water, so it is completely their own fault, and they were ok with it. Apparently Andres and his brother Daniel always carry an extra change of clothes with them, so Andres was able to change and and Daniel lent Jorge his spare outfit so he could change too. I dried pretty quickly, and was glad of it since clouds started rolling onto the mountain about a half hour later. What a great day!!