Where Have You Been?

Ok, so we are back home, you know that…but life seems to keep going at full speed. I have tried to sit down and write this blog time and time again and I think I am finally going to get it done.
This morning as I am typing this I am sitting in the church office because I am playing the role of Youth Pastor, Senior Pastor and secretary for a few days. Does anybody want to come to Colby, Kansas to help me out this week?
So, let me tell you a little bit of what has been going on in Colby, yes grandpa this is for you. We enjoyed most of our Missions Trip to LUC Ranch in Lampe, MO. Yes, I did say most. We had long days and short night…and it was rough dealing with a couple of teens on a couple of occasions.
I will stop right here and tell you that if you want to see some pictures they are posted on our church/yg website. Click on this to see them http://www.visitcolby.com/WesleyanChurch/MOB.htm Once you get there scroll down on the left side of the page there are links you can click to see pictures of the trip and also Spring Break retreat. I also will through in a shameless plug to say that if you have never seen the beautiful Rocky Mountains, the winter is the best time to see them with the snow. Call your local Colby Travel agent at the Morehart residency to reserve your spot to see beautiful Colorado and some of Kansas. Don’t wait time slots are filling up quickly. Call Today!!!
Now we interrupt this infomercial to tell you a little bit about the trip. We arrived on Sunday Night just in time for dinner, we met the people and saw the farm and basically went to our cabins and went to bed. We went early Monday Morning to the ranch and were given our list to do, the girls were painting boards, a deck, and working in the kitchen. Mike, Pookie and I were told we could work on the fence or the tractor barn. Ok, so were going to WORK, on the tractor barn, we get up to it and well, what he meant to say was we were going to BUILD a tractor barn!!! If you look at the pictures, there is one of me walking and you see many leaning posts in the background, that’s is what we started with on Monday. By Thursday we had the trusses up and the side walls started, we parked a tractor in it, that picture is there also.
It wasn’t all fun and games though, when we woke up Tuesday Morning, we got a phone call from one of the parents. If you look at the picture of us eating breakfast, the boy in the blue shirt is Kale, we found out his grandpa had passed away early that morning. So our day started out rough, we just sat and cried, and talked, and cried…we also had to figure out how to get him back home, we were still 11 hours away at least. Rich and Judy Epp had a daughter who was in KC for the weekend because her husband was called up to active duty in the ARMY, we were able to get a hold of her and met up with her in KC before they left.
We worked a little, the difference between Western Kansas and MO, or even home is, it is hot here in Colby, but its not humid. So when it was 85-95 degrees out in MO, the Westerners weren’t use to sweating buckets…it made for tired and sometimes whiny days.
As you can see, we also played a lot. We paid $150 for the trip, that included our transportation, whatever we did on Friday fun day, and the meals Friday. We went swimming twice at Table Rock Lake, actually it was more like Bluff jumping, there are pictures of this too. The ranch had tickets to shows in Branson donated so we could go into Branson and see some things. Thursday night, we saw The Chinese Acrobats, this was a weird, strange, some fun, show. This will sound odd but some of those girls could stretch or flex their body that they could kiss their own butts. One of the acts had 17 girls on a bicycle.
Friday we went back into Branson and saw an IMAX movie in the morning, went shopping at an outlet mall, then we then went to a buffet. In the afternoon we went to see the Brashler’s they were better than I expected. That evening we went to Celebration City, a fun little amusement park based on the 50’s and 60’s. They had the best laser and light show that I have ever seen. This is for mom, Rich Epp is kind of crazy and funny like my dad was. Before the show, they had Barney Fife up front leading the crowd in some dances and fun stuff. Rich Epp went up front and helped him energize the crowd. They were two dancing fools running all around, it was better than I can describe because most of people there had to of thought that Rich worked at the park, It was a blast.
Why we were there, Rich and I decided to have fun. We sat down on a bench and would wait for people to walk by, then we would start yelling at each other like we were going to get into a fight…I love making a scene!! Anyways we had people starring one guy almost came over to break us apart when I walked away because I was going to laugh…It was funny! Also, Mike Johnson is the guy at the top of the pictures in blue shirt, Rich is in the yellow. Rich and I walked around the crowd at the show yelling for Mike Johnson, we were walking up to people and asking if they had seen Mike Johnson, it was great. Rich asked this 350 plus dark colored guy if he was Mike Johnson, and the guy had to think about it. Ok, one more thing, I know it’s wrong but you know how I like to entertain…as we were leaving the park that night I walked and acted like I was mental, something I had done all week with Rich to make the group laugh. I was talking loud and calling Rich my daddy. I said, “Daddy, I really liked that place, I think my favorite ride was the one that went around in circles. You remember? And it had the horses with the pretty hair. What did you like daddy? I thinked I just pooped my pants. And I went to Judy, mommy I think I pooped.” She says, “tell your dad.” I said immediately, “I think he pooooooped too.” Then Rich yells, “Johnny, get in the car.” I finished by saying, “Don’t hit me daddy.” Just so you know, there was at least one lady who was folded in half in the parking lot laughing at us. You may not have enjoyed this last part of the blog but it was a great time.
We had a little bit of interaction with the boys at the ranch but most of them were out doing chores or had day jobs that they had to do. It was a learning experience, a bonding experience and we had fun.
Thanks to all of you who prayed for and supported us and the tractor…we didn’t have enough but the guy took about half out it for it so God came through once again!!!