On Friday, we had the most students of any other day-a huge 6! Breakfast was French toast casserole, and the Skills Clubs were Building Catapults (no casualties) and Cupcake Decorating. In a direct quote from Dave: “Cupcake Decorating went well, but Cupcake Eating was even better!” We also had small group discussion times. That night, we had a community cookout. Most of us fell in love with an adorable little girl named Savannah, who made us all laugh. Most memorable? Luke was wearing Phineas’ (Craig’s Irish alter-ego) bright green glasses. When anyone else would put them on, Savannah would burst out laughing. When Luke gets his glasses back…..poker face.

On Saturday, we went on a hike to the same gold mine as the one that we went to a few days before, only this time, we went up the other side. There was a twisting path that eventually led up to a sort of valley with two beautiful lakes. We all sat in a circle on a small hill to eat lunch and have a few people share life stories. After that, most of our team climbed the rest of the way up the mountain. But unlike the part before in which one only had to walk up a trail, this section required using hands as well as feet to climb the slope. The team encouraged each other all the way up the mountain and eventually every member made it. Dave went at the bottom, promising to catch us if we fell! There was also a mini snowball fight at the top with around a small patch of remaining snow. There was also a particularly excellent shot from Max, straight into Dave’s face as Anne was taking his picture.

Later that night we moved into a church (where we are posting this blog post from) for sleeping in order to make room for a new group at Eaglecrest. After Kelsey shared her life story, Dave volunteered to pray for her, as someone does after each story. He warned us that he wouldn’t get all the way through it, so Kendra volunteered to finish when he couldn’t do it anymore. We all closed our eyes and waited. The only words that came out of his mouth were “That’s all I can do”.

This is a just one example of how close this team has grown over the past 8 days.

-Tessa and Kendra