So the pictures don't want to upload!!! Today was astounding -- they keep getting better it seems. These kids worked like wild people today; we stained 2 decks, 4 chairs, 18 benches at the Mountainview Outdoor Chapel; painted 4 more benches and a picnic table, and blessed everyone around them with crazy exuberance and joy. We went into the park tonight, driving up Fall River Road to the Alluvial Fan -- a place that in 1982 was washed out by a high mountain lake breaking a dam; it send house sized boulders, trees, and flooded the entire valley; Estes Park ended up with 6 feet of water through the downtown. The remains are a beautiful waterfall, and a path of rubble that is mind blowing. We saw more huge bull elk, and bighorn sheep high on a hillside that a few of our boys got 'familiar' with. We watched the sun set in the Endo Valley, and were blessed by Jesus' presence so powerfully it was almost touchable. These kids are praying out loud together, offering up tremendous prayers of faith; they are leading morning devotions, sharing their hearts. They are loving each other, encouraging each other, and doing so by the power of the Spirit. I cannot express the growth and maturity, the joy and insanity, the blessing they have been to me and Patrick on this adventure. They are getting sad that we just passed the halfway point, and that tomorrow is our last 'work' day! What an honor, and I thank God for this every morning, to be a part of their lives, their growth in faith, and to see them becoming who God desires them to be.
Here are my two favorite pictures from today; Patrick has a TON at his Facebook and Flickr account -- find that here: http://www.flickr.com/pathawks/
