Six Flags

At the end of the mission trip we did Six Flags!!  I did the math and realized that I hadn’t been to this particular Six Flags (in Arlington TX) for 28 years!!!  Wow!

All the kids were so excited about this trip as a whole, but talked a LOT about the Six Flags part all the time  :)

 

Poor little Clara looks pathetic!  We had just done her first big roller coaster and are in line for the Superman.  She had pulled a muscle in her neck that morning as we were cleaning up the mission apartment and packing/loading up.  The rollercoaster just aggravated her neck issue.  She so wanted to enjoy the rides and was afraid she was not going to be able to ride.  She did fine for the ride, but afterwards we did find her some Ibuprophren and that took care of her  :)  She was good to go for the rest of the day, thank God!

That there is a great group of kids!!

I was too busy running around riding rides to take a lot of pictures.  We had so much fun!!  For me personally it was a great joy to stand in lines and not fear fitting on the rides.  To be able to ride anything and everything!  To have the energy and stamina to move, move, move!  I was thrilled to find that rollercoasters still thrill me and do not make me sick  :)  There were a couple the girls were not going to try this trip, and it was nice being with a group because we had divided into groups that would go to different things and meet up after each one.  It really worked out great, so I got to go on all the thrill rides and the girls could pick and choose the ones they were ready for.

It was hot, but not overly hot thank God!!  Also, not terrible lines.  For instance, for the Shockwave, we went on and got to ride immediately again because there was room on the next ride.  They didn’t even make us go through the line again.  The longest we waited for anything was about 20 minutes!!  Now that’s the way to do Six Flags!!

One of our people had gotten preferred parking and had a picnic in their car.  It worked out great to go to eat in the parking lot under this great tree!!  It is crazy expensive of course to eat in the park, so this was way better  :)  We ate WELL too!!  Left overs that we didn’t get to the rest of the week got cut up and eaten—like a fresh pineapple and watermelon!!  What better to eat on a hot day then that?!!

The blessing of this trip!  I have to make note of this because I was so overwhelmed with God’s love!!  For a couple of weeks, every day I would look at the clock at 10:16 both in the morning and night—every night.  Now, I do that very often and God told me years ago that it is His way of telling me He loves me (along with many other ways), but it was a personal God wink for me.  I had been talking to Him a lot about His love after noticing this every day for several days (and it continued for a many more days!)  That alone overwhelmed me (in a good way). 

Then we got a call from someone in our church/house group that said the church was going to pay for Lucy to go to camp for a week.  I had asked about the camp before, but knew we couldn’t afford it this year, and we were fine with it  :)  I was overwhelmed that someone submitted on our behalf and that it was going to be paid for!!  We could not accept as it was the same week as our mission trip, but WOW—God’s love and provision once again in such a wonderful blessing! 

The next day after that I got a call from the woman organizing the mission trip.  They had asked for a head count to go to Six Flags after the mission was over and I didn’t respond as I knew we couldn’t afford it.  She called to tell me that a “donation” had come in and that our trip to Six Flags was paid for!!  Wow!!  Amazing!!  I was able to share with them all during the course of the trip how before losing weight my number one goal was to “ride rollercoasters with my girls”.  How we had gotten engaged on a rollercoaster and how this was such a blessing—not just for us to have a day of fun at Six Flags, but also  a celebration of what all I have gone through this past year and a half!  We all cried and laughed and got to share in the blessings of God—both in the receiving, but also in the giving.

Mission complete!!  Quite literally too!  Clara crashed in the car on the way home!  We were riding with a friend and her family, and it wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought it may be to stay awake for the drive home.  We did fill up with gas and coffee  :)

What a fabulous experience!  I am trying to write these posts backwards so it goes in order when coming to blog---I am sure I will talk more about how wonderful the mission was and what a great experience for all of us---but we are already looking forward to doing this again!!

We have also found out that there is a similar (much smaller right now) mission beginning here in our area and we are so excited to get hooked up with.  We have been serving in the soup kitchen locally and love that we are in a church that does SO much locally for people in and out of the church that are in all kinds of needs in our area!