Mission: Idaho

I haven't posted in a while either. So here is my excuse. I just returned from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. We flew out on June 28 and got back last night (July 5). I got to spend eight days with three youth leaders and six youth from my church as we served a new church plant called Lake Pointe Church. The pastor, Mike Terry, had us going through the neighborhoods taking surveys and sharing the gospel. While we were there, we also taught at a local day care and invited people to a kid's club we had on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

We all had such a great time. Pastor Mike just ran the Coeur d'Alene Ironman last week, and he was trying to gain back about ten pounds, so we had some good food to eat. Northern Idaho has a very special culture. For one thing, the weather was crazy. Three weeks ago they had 36 inches of snow, and the week we were there saw daily temperatures in the upper 90s. As a result, air conditioning is few and far between. They have real winters, and they last from October to May (or in some cases, June). So in the summer people are outdoors all the time. Every night we got to go to Honeysuckle Beach, where a different family from the church each night brought us dinner. Here is what the beach looked like.

I believe this was the night we had steak, barbeque chicken, baked potatoes and an awesome fruit salad. (I told you we ate good!)


God provided for us last week in some special ways. We met a man named Tim on our first day in Idaho during the Sunday morning worship service. He is from Memphis, Tennessee. He is a pilot for FedEx who had a weekend layover Spokane, Washington. The reason he was at Lake Pointe was because he attends a church in Memphis that supports the church plant in Idaho. Also, the car he was supposed to rent for the weekend wasn't there, so they gave him a minivan instead. At the same time, the church that was supposed to lend our mission team a van had to use it, so without Tim, we would have had to make two trips everywhere we went on Sunday and Monday. It was wonderful to see God work as a like-minded believer was put in our path to meet one of our needs and offer us encouragement. After Tim had to return to work, a member of the church named Jody let us borrow his minivan for the entire rest of the week.

Of course, Pastor Mike would not let us come to Idaho without going hiking. Sunday evening we went for a short walk around a lake, but Friday we went to a 4th of July parade then headed to Montana. We did a six mile hike up a mountain, about 8300 feet above sea level, to an alpine lake. As soon as I get some pics, I'll show you that it was literally uphill both ways in the snow. Anyway, a member of the church named Lee went with us. The Lord saved Lee after our team was in Idaho last year, and he wanted to get baptized when we returned this year. So three miles into our hike up a mountain, 8300 feet about sea level, in a 38 degree snow-runoff lake, Pastor Mike baptized Lee. It was such a sweet experience. I'll post a picture of this soon as well.

And here are somp pics of the beautiful mountains. These are looking back at the mountains in Idaho from the mountain we were on in Montana. It was 9:30 PM local time.











While we were there everyone was exhausted and a few people got overheated, but no one was seriously sick and everyone returned safely. God was truly gracious to us. We each had the opportunity to throw the Word. It was really good to be back in my own bed last night, but I really enjoyed Idaho and I already look forward to going back next year if the Lord permits.