Youth Mission Trip 2009
links to information and forms are at the bottom of this page If you have any questions, please contact Kevin McGill at 214.552.6042
Sunday, July 26 -- Travel Day, 1st night in Oklahoma
	Day begins at BUMC at 9:40am Go to Sunday school, then church, then eat lunch, then be back at church by 2pm to load your suitcase. It is only 200 miles to Broken Bow, OK, so be ready for a quick car trip this year. Yea!!! Actual departure time: 3:00pm Pictures: Mission Group Arrival time: 6:30pm Dinner: Fajitas, black beans, and lemonade Rev. Brad Drowningbear met us as we parked in front of the parsonage. We got unpacked and situated, then David and I headed back to town for a few supplies that were needed, including tortillas and guacamole for the fajitas. By the way, if anyone needs tortillas or guacamole, you’ll find plenty in the fridge in the youth cave. After a delicious meal cooked on Lee and Sunshine Nolen’s portable gas grill, the kids got ready for bed, played a few card games and finally were in bed by 11pm. A huge “Thank You” goes out to Gary Hutchings for the use of his aircard. That means I don’t have to drive all over southeast Oklahoma looking for a wi-fi spot to upload the web page.
Monday, July 27
	By the way, when living in an area with a huge ant population, be sure to fully close and double bag all edibles that are not refrigerated. I hate ants! Breakfast: Pancakes, eggs, Tampico punch, milk, and coffee Lunch: Sandwiches – PB & J, turkey, or ham – chips, chocolate chip cookies, lemonade Dinner: Pizza, salad, rice crispy treats, iced tea Well… Rain all day off and (mostly) on. Really never less than a drizzle, but most of the day it was a heavy soaking rain. We did manage to work in the small cemetery to clean it up. Mowing, weed eating, raking. One of the graves in the cemetery is one of the World War I Choctaw Code Talkers, Private Joseph Oklahombi. Read more about this fascinating man at http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/j_oklah.htm Work pictures: Before After Work1 Work2 Work3 Work4
Tuesday, July 28
	We got all the windows in the parsonage measured for mini-blinds yesterday, and we got the mini-blinds ordered. They will be in on Thursday. Our roofing order did not arrive yesterday (we couldn’t have worked even if it had been here). We are hopeful that it will get here early this morning, because it’s not raining right now (6:30am). Forecast is 80% chance of rain today, but then it drops to 50% for the next 3 days. Right now, we are planning on getting back to Garland late Saturday night. Breakfast: French toast, sausage, OJ, milk, coffee Lunch: Sandwiches – PB & J, turkey, or ham – chips, Oreo cookies, iced tea Dinner: Smoked brisket, baked beans, potato salad, iced tea Pictures: House1 House2 House3 Roof1 Roof2 Roof3 Roof4 Roof5 Yippee! Jessica made us all grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch today! While waiting for the delivery truck to arrive, we managed to pull out all the old carpet and padding and begin removing the tack strips around the edges of the 2 rooms. The kids then swept and cleaned to get the rooms ready to lay down some vinyl floor covering. Doug kept busy replacing door knobs and fixing the light fixture in the living room ceiling fan. Martin had all to could handle trying to show 9 youth how to get a room ready for new flooring. David finally got to do some work. It was really killing him to sit all day yesterday waiting for the supplies to be delivered. Tracy and Ashley made sure we didn’t dehydrate as they went out to get supplies that I had neglected again. Ashley is fighting through not feeling very good right now, but still manages to be patient with the kids and keep all of us on track. We got a couple of drops of rain around 10:30 this morning, the delivery truck with our shingles arrived at 11am. We placed the bundles of shingles on the roof, then we went in to eat lunch. After lunch, we worked on the roof until 4pm, ate dinner at 5, and went back to the roof around 5:45, finishing for the day around 7. It was a fantastic day. All the youth got up on the roof at one point or another and were trained roofers by the time they got down. Tracy even convinced Rachel to nail down some shingles! We get to gather with the Yasho congregation tomorrow evening to learn some Choctaw culture and maybe even a hymn or two. Pastor Drowningbear said he would teach us some Cherokee if his congregation wasn’t up to singing for us. One of the members of the church is a long-time member. His father was the pastor of the church when he was growing up. We look forward to learning about the culture of the Choctaw nation as well as getting some history lessons from the local people. They have invited us to dinner on Friday night, so we’ll get another chance to mix and mingle with them. Our plan is to finish the roof tomorrow, then complete the interior work on Thursday (hanging mini-blinds and laying vinyl). Play some on Friday at Beaver’s Bend State Park, then head home Saturday. I’ll be sure we let you know our estimated time of arrival a little later in the week.
Wednesday, July 29
	Breakfast time encounter with a copperhead didn’t work out so well for the snake. He ended up in 3 pieces without getting a shot in on us. Melissa originally discovered the snake, but we weren’t very concerned because she didn’t scream as it slithered across her foot. On the other hand, when I had to do my anti-snake dance to avoid it, I was a believer. Well the 50% chance of rain is not working out as well as the 80% chance yesterday. We got everyone on the roof this morning after breakfast and got a little work done, until the rain came. First, a nice cooling sprinkle, then the rain picked up and the lightning came, and we were all off the roof in record time. We sat around in the parsonage and waited out the rain. When it stopped, we decided it was too wet and slippery for the kids to be on the roof, so David, Martin, and I played roofers until lunch time (and another downpour). We have the 20’ x 30’ addition still to roof, as well as about a 20’ x 15’ section of the main roof to finish. Our mini-blinds are coming tomorrow, so we’ll have plenty of work if it rains tomorrow. David Granville is leaving today. Work calls. There shouldn’t be any problem finishing the roof, if we can get some clear weather. There hasn’t been enough good weather to even consider heading to Beaver’s Bend yet. Hopefully, we’ll still get the chance on Friday. Breakfast: Pancakes, bacon, OJ, milk, coffee Lunch: Jessica Q’s grilled cheese sandwiches, Oreos, salad Dinner: Hamburgers/hotdogs, Ranch-style beans, pudding Tonight the active members of the Yasho UMC congregation came to meet and greet us. They gave us some history about the church (established here in 1912, the church building is actually the third sanctuary they have had, logging is an important industry in this area). They also sang some Choctaw hymns. After talking with the faithful folks, I’m afraid we are losing the Native American culture Pictures: Dead Snake Too much community? Roofing1 Roofing2 Roofing3 How we sleep in church Our plan is now to leave Saturday morning, eat breakfast at McDonald’s in Broken Bow, then be home by noon. Trivia Question: What is the mascot for the Broken Bow High School?
Thursday, July 30
	Martin and I got up at the crack of dawn (literally) to try to get some more done on the roof before the rains came. Doug’s weather forecast predicted rain at 7am. It held off until about 7:30, so we had another hour on the roof while the kids slept and then ate breakfast. Doug and Martin are installing the vinyl flooring in two rooms while it is raining this morning. The Lambert’s delivery truck is supposed to arrive at the lumber yard around 11am with our mini-blinds, so the kids will have something to do this afternoon. Breakfast: Sausage and biscuits, eggs, Tampico, milk, coffee Lunch: Leftovers, chips, lemonade Dinner: Spaghetti, French bread, salad, lemonade, ding-dongs/twinkies/cupcakes Lambert’s freight truck broke down, the blinds will be in tomorrow. We did get to do some more roofing in the late afternoon, and we are now within about an hour of finishing it all up, EXCEPT we are short a few shingles. Trying to make a late run tonight to get the rest that we need. Not sure how we messed up, we did not waste many shingles, so our original measurement must have been wrong (measure twice, cut once). We did pull the carpet out of the hallway and the living room. Pastor Brad will try staining the concrete instead of using another floor covering. Kiernan got a piece of shingle grit in her eye. She may have to visit an Idabel doctor tomorrow if the eye doesn’t look or feel any better. Pictures: Roofing1 Roofing2 Roofing3 Roofing4 Roofing5
Friday, July 31
	Doug and I made an early morning visit to Lambert’s to get the last supplies to complete the roofing project. We were 3 bundles short of completing the roof. When we returned, I found Kiernan’s eye looked worse and called a physician in Idabel, OK who referred us to an optometrist in Idabel who could see her at 9:30. After one missed turn and another call to the office, we managed to arrive. Kiernan’s cornea was scratched in several places. After the doctor cleaned it out, gave her a contact to act as a bandage, and a prescription for antibiotic/steroid combination eye drops, we were off to a small town pharmacy which managed to take my insurance information, run down the street to get the medicine that they didn’t have on hand, and then tender me out in under 10 minutes. Cost: $8. Breakfast: Cereal, pop tarts, Tampico, milk, coffee Lunch: Sandwiches, chips, Oreos, lemonade Dinner: Indian Tacos We spent the afternoon at Beaver’s Bend National Park. The river was too high for us to canoe in, and we have several kids who didn’t want to ride horses, so we told them to be prepared to swim, and headed out to the park to see what interested the kids. They chose to swim. Doug chose to go back to Yasho UMC to retrieve the epi-pens that were left behind. The water was very muddy and very cold, but it didn’t stop them. We also took out the paddle boats for a little trip around the area. Martin hiked to a cliff overlooking the swimming area, I soon followed, and I was followed by Justin and Ryan. We had a nice little look around and a little bit of hiking before we headed back to the church to clean up for dinner. I ran to Lambert’s to find out if I could prepay for the mini-blinds that were now stuck in Arkansas on a broken down truck. Pastor Drowningbear will pick them up next week and install them himself. He’s also decided he wants to stain the concrete in his living room and hallway. The brochures make the idea very appealing. Dinner was incredible: Indian Tacos. Fried bread, taco meat and all the fixings made a complete meal. After dinner the kids went out to play and the adults stayed inside sharing. We gathered everyone back inside for a final hymn sing. The Yasho members would like to come to Buckingham to share their music and their story with us; so John, let us know when it’s a good week! Pictures: Playtime1 Playtime2 Playtime3 Playtime4 Playtime5 Yasho Kids Yasho UMC We will be stopping in Idabel to pick up a different contact lens for Kiernan’s injured eye. Dr. Butler called around 4:30 to say that he was satisfied with the contact that he had given her and wanted to give her a different one that would protect her eye better. He’s leaving the contact at the pharmacy for us to pick up. You’ve go to love a small town! Our departure target time is 7:30. All of the adults laughed at that, but I am hopeful. We are cleaning up so we have very little to do in the morning. I’ll let parents know when to expect us.
Saturday, August 1
	We set a target time to leave of 7:30am. We were driving out of the Yasho parking lot at 7:56am, but I was told it would have been earlier, but the adults were standing and talking with Roosevelt and Vicki. We had rain for about 190 miles out of the 200 mile trip home. Along I30, the rain was heavy enough that we slowed down to 20-25 mph so that we could see the road. We got back to BUMC at 12:30, only 30 minutes later that we had intended, but that included a stop in Idabel to pick up a different contact lens for Kiernan’s eye. Dr. Butler wasn’t happy with the one his assistant fitted her with and was quite concerned about her getting the right one. We pulled up in front of the Rexall drug store at 8:56, they opened at 9am, so everything went as smoothly as possible in getting back on the road to Garland. Breakfast: McDonald’s Lunch: at your own house! Pictures: Imagine a lot of rain

Packing List Medical Release Form (adult) Medical Release Form (minor) Mission Trip Roster