Crossroads students visits the famous heads

After a great church service at BFC, our group headed out with a few other BFC students to visit Mt. Rushmore. As you may be able to see from the picture, it was pretty cloudy and ended up raining for most of the afternoon. After touring Rushmore and learning a little bit about the history of the Black Hills, we headed to a small tourist town called Keystone for some souvenir shopping. By this time, the rain came a little bit harder and we did not end up spending much time outside for the rest of the day. When we returned back to BFC, their high school ministry joined us for a BBQ, games, worship, and some teaching. It has been a great time of connection between the two groups and we look forward to the days of service we had ahead of us!

Day 1- Rapid City Trip: Let's get to work!

After a late first night that consisted of delayed plane rides and a sack of 30 hamburgers from a Hardee's drive-thru, we were able to get a good night's sleep and start some work here at Bible Fellowship Church. After sleeping in for a little bit, we got up and had a service day around the church as a thank you for hosting us. A few of the guys mowed lawn, some helped move some large rocks from the front of the church, and helped set up chairs in the worship center for their church service. Our girls did some work preparing food and getting snacks organized for food and lunches in the days to come.After working for a few hours in the morning, we took a little break and played a rousing game of football! We spent the afternoon getting acquainted with Rapid City. To the left is a picture of our team sitting on a "Stegosaurus" at Dinosaur Park, a popular local landmark up on top of a hill. We got to see many of the president's in downtown Rapid City (statues on each street corner). Finally we stopped for a pizza dinner to cap our time out on the town. We have been spending the last few hours hanging out at the church with some of the JH students that call Bible Fellowship Church their home. We will probably make one more run out for Ice Cream before the night is over. So far I have been very encouraged by how the team has has connected with one another and how well they have listened and worked! I am super proud of them. I know that they will do great in the days to come and I look forward to see how God will continue to grow them as the week moves along. We'll be back on tomorrow to let you know about our experience at another church, another youth group, and an excursion to Mt. Rushmore. The hard work starts Monday!

We're here, but its been quite an adventure so far!

For those of you following us back home, we wanted to let you all know that we are here safe and sound here in Rapid City, South Dakota. Here's a picture of hail that had accumulated in Denver as part of a storm that hindered our arrival last night. We were diverted in route to Denver to Colorado Springs where we had to wait an additional 3 hours because of continuous severe weather in Denver. Eventually, we were able to take off from Colorado Springs and arrive in Denver around 10:30. When we finally got there we were sure we had missed our connecting flight to Rapid City but later found out that they were holding a flight for us. So of course, our gate was all the way on the opposite side of Denver's massive terminal, which required our team to sprint across the airport to catch our flight. We received many cheers from others in the airport along the way. We eventually landed in Rapid City and arrived at Bible Fellowship Church at about 1 a.m!! Thank you for your prayers for safety along the way, we are thankful for God's provision and excited to be here at our destination! We will post some pictures of our first day in Rapid City and some interesting things we have seen here.

Signing off for now,
Elise Almer as dictated from Daniel Riems

We're leavin' on a Jet Plane!

The day has finally arrived. Our team will assemble at GEBC this afternoon at 12:00 and we will be on our way. We will have a layover in Denver and will be on to Rapid City by 8:30 tonight. Please pray for our safety as we travel together as a team, team unity as we get to know each other and will spend many hours together in the next week, and for health. We have a few students who have never traveled via plane before so this should be an exciting first experience, but also pray that they would not be nervous! Thank you again for all of your support and we look forward to the opportunity in the days to come to share our experiences with you via this blog. Next time you hear from us we will be in the big SD!

The Final Countdown...

After being commissioned before GEBC on Sunday, May 23rd- our team is less than 2 1/2 weeks away from being in Rapid City for our missions trip. We have one final team meeting with both the students and parents of those attending the trip set for Tuesday June 8th at 7pm in the Student Ministries room at GEBC. We will have a time for the parents to hear about "how to help debrief your student at home", last minute Q & A about the trip, and time dedicated to prayer for our group. We hope to see you all there!

One Month...

In one month we will be half way through our journey in South Dakota. Time is flying by and I can't wait to see how God is going to use this trip in the lives of the people we encounter, our group, and those of you following us back home! Our teaching theme for the week is "Be A Hero". The challenge will be for us all to live out our faith in ways like many of the Heroes of Faith did (Hebrews 11). Here are a few ways in which you can pray for our team as we prepare, travel to, and experience South Dakota:

-Safety in our travels and service projects
-Team bonding and unity throughout the trip
-Good connection with middle school students from Bible Fellowship Church
-Opportunities to share our faith (in word and action)
-That we would learn a lot from God's word throughout the week
-That God would open our eyes to a hurting world
-That we would come back changed!
-For the people of Pine Ridge Native American Reservation, that they would encounter Jesus and that their hope would no longer be in vain!

stay tuned for future postings...

South Dakota Missions Training

Group training begins this Sunday, April 18th at 4:00pm in the Student Ministries Room here at GEBC. We will have a little pizza together, get to know one another better, and begin to prepare mentally and spiritually for our adventure to South Dakota in June. Its only another 58 days until we board that plane! It is going to be a great trip and I look forward to what God is going to teach all of us through this experience...