Check it out! Another blog entry and it's still Wednesday!!

This afternoon we returned to the Shiprock UMC to finish up the work on the Fellowship Hall.  The cracks on the ceiling got their final coat of mud and texture.  We painted all the parts of the ceiling that we could and started cleaning up our mess and packing up our supplies.  We should be able to finish with just a couple more hours of work tomorrow.

A very nice additional joy was the visit of Pastors J.C. and Mary Tyler Brown.  They are currently living in Albuquerque.  Before retiring from active ministry Mary was pastor at Wayne and J.C. was assigned to Laurel/Concord and before that to West Point.  Mary gave Pastor Doyle at Wayne the idea that we should take our Elkhorn Valley District Mission Trip to the Four Corners area and do our VIM through the Four Corners Native American Ministry.  Mary and J.C. arrived from Albuquerque midafternoon and checked out our progress at the Thrift Store and the church.  They shared supper with us and stayed for our evening program.

Tonight Frank H. invited some special guests to join us, Larry and Anne Mae, who are members of the Ojo Amarillo UMC.  They brought a beautiful selection of jewelry at very reasonable prices.  In addition to making jewelry, Larry is a lay preacher and Anna Mae plays the piano at the church.

Frank H. shared a power point presentation about the history of the Navajo people and the ministry of the United Methodist Church on the reservation.

We concluded our evening with a very moving worship led by Nancy focusing on rocks as symbols of courage.  Each of us received a small rock to remind us of God's faithfulness and our own resiliance.  This VIM trip is one way that we each have claimed our courage in order to serve our neighbors--reaching out to people we did not know in new places.  We recognize that our courage comes from God symbolized in the strength of the stone.

Tomorrow we are planning to work in the morning and go out to eat for lunch.  Then it's time for a ROAD TRIP!  We'll let you know more details as they develop.