Camping, Hiking, Retreats

This past month has been filled with adventure for the Buris.

The girls and I have gone almost weekly to the Bruneau Dunes. It is a great activity to get to know each other, spur each other on and get a good cardiovascular workout.

This shot is to show perspective. I’m not quite at the top.  The two specks on the middle right are two of our gals.

We had to take Korrin to the dunes with us when she visited from Hill AFB, Utah. She was one our girls when we were at Ft. Lewis/McChord, Washington

Korrin is like a daughter to us. I hope she can come up more regularly.

On my birthday weekend, Velocity went camping.

We had mishaps getting there, one of them being the battery of one of our vans died while we stopped in Boise. A nice lady came to our rescue after we prayed and helped with jumper cables.

This is Chris with the nice lady.

This is the view from our camp site. It was the coldest  I’ve ever been camping but worth it.

Ed and I got to attend a National Guard couple’s retreat in Eastern Idaho. It was lovely weather. When the retreat was over, we went the long way home and travelled through the Grande Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Wow! I hope we can go back again.

One of our couples put on a “rice and ramen” evening. We ate simple Asian food and prayed for God’s work in Asia.

We are seeing depth in this group like we haven’t seen before. We expect to see great things from God at Mountain Home AFB. Thanks so much for your prayers.

Dorm Feed and Bubba Country

On August 19, as a ministry of Velocity (the young adult ministry here) we made a meal for the dorm dwellers on the base. I volunteered to do the cooking for this meal (I had wonderful help too). We were told we could have around 120, so that is what I prepared for. We ended up having around 60 which is still a good turnout. The theme was Hawaiian Plate Lunch. The menu was: kalua pig, rice, macaroni salad (Hawaiian style) and fruit. Chaplain Carollo also bought a nice cake to go with it.

The airmen’s center got decorated too.  I think everyone enjoyed the food and had a great time.

It was nice to visit with Krissy in between bites.

A few days later Velocity put on “Bubba Country”.  About 30 of us participated. We dressed up and rode in an Air Force bus (the closest we could get to a school bus) to Boise.

We ate at Donnie Mac’s Trailer Park Cuisine…a very interesting place.

They serve Spaghettios in the can.

Unique flower pots.

Classy….

Interesting food….

Comfortable furniture….

After dinner, we went to Julia Davis Park and played “redneck games” (toilet lid horseshoes, fishing pole casting, lassoeing the critter, etc.) Dee did a great job of putting all of that together.

Great prizes too!

Nancy won the prize for the best costume. We unfortunately had to leave early because a massive wind storm caused huge branches near us to come crashing down. Still, it was a great event. We had folks come who hadn’t come to any of our other chapel programs. What next?  We’re tossing around an Indiana Jones theme. We’ll see.

Vacation Bible School and the Meschke Visit

We are thankful to God for a great Vacation Bible School at the chapel at MHAFB. This year the Catholics were invited to participate. As registrar, it looked like quite a few Catholic kids came but I was aware of only a few Catholic adult volunteers. Because we were low on volunteers, Laura (the VBS director) only advertised in the chapel publications and had a banner hung on the chapel.  With this minimal advertising we had around 70 kids. I am sure we would have had twice that number had we advertised.

The theme was Joseph and his journey in Egypt. The kids LOVED it! The week went very smoothly and I believe God was glorified!  Here are just a few pictures.

On Friday afternoon, a few hours after VBS ended we got a visit from Dave and Betty Meschke. Dave is the former director of our mission, Cadence International. They were in the area visiting a friend. They stayed long enough to participate in our Friday night dinner and study here. Instead of our usual study, we had Dave and Betty share stories of God’s faithfulness to them these past 50+ years of ministry. We were all very blessed to have them here. Many of our folks are going through much pain right now. It was perfect timing.

The above pic shows Betty (left) and Dave (right) sitting with the Andersons on the couch. Thanks Dave and Betty for ministering to us (even in your retirement).

July Travels and Other Experiences

Ed and I have been so busy this summer that we haven’t had much time to enjoy it. Ministry here goes on and we are thrilled to be able to invest in so many lives. In July, we made a quick trip to Roseburg, Oregon. We got to speak for about 10 minutes (in both services) to our dear church, Wellspring Bible Fellowship. We got to see my new niece and nephew (my brother, Jerry’s babies). I think their brother, Kyle is still getting adjusted to not being the center of attention anymore.

Here I am holding Rachel.

Here is the family:(Denise, Ryan, Kyle, Jerry and Rachel)

We also got to visit with my mom and Greg.

After only a very few, short days, we took Ed’s folks with us back to Idaho. We dove into ministry for another few days. Here, Ed’s folks participate in a Friday night study at our house.

We then took them to the Wallowa Valley area of NE Oregon and had a rendezvous with Ed’s brother, Sam and his wife, Sarah. We all stayed in a cabin together in Joseph. It was very beautiful there.

This deer followed me back to the cabin.

The highlight of our trip was taking a tram up Mount Howard and hiking at the top. The view was breath taking.

I love hiking, so I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Suzie, Ed’s mom, Ed, Sam, Ed’s dad, and Sarah.

 

It was beautiful and sunny when we first arrived and a storm quickly came with buckets of rain and hail. We got soaked. But I wasn’t done, so I convinced Ed and Sam to walk with me to one last ridge. We didn’t really get to enjoy it. I was freezing and anxious to go warm up somewhere. But, hey, I have a picture to show I made it to that ridge.

All in all, it was a great (although too quick) trip. We are very blessed.