They're about fellowship and fun with other youth (and yeah, OK, sometimes the adults aren't all that bad either).
They're about serving those who can use our help -- in a variety of ways.
And, maybe most importantly, they're about learning life skills.
At this midpoint of our trip to South Dakota, there have been countless examples of all of the above. Maybe I was just focused on the latter more today for some reason, or probably it was because it was our first full day of work, but it seemed to be filled more with examples of learning life skills.
Some examples follow in the summary of our day in photos.
Zach, Robert and I started the work day by loading old wood removed from the sun shade/picnic tables and a lot of brush into the back of Jimbo's truck and making a "dump run" (life skill learned: the small amount of debris left in the bed of the truck will blow out if you leave the tailgate down and drive 55 mph down the highway on the way back):
Back at the the church/center, crews were working on both of the sun shades, including Lindy and Sydney, who were busy painting the one with the boards we salvaged and scraped.
At the same time, Jimbo was leading a crew in putting the other one back together with new lumber.
Behind the multi-purpose center, another one of those life-skills moments was taking place, as Clark taught Erin and Conner how to use the power drill to push deck screws in and attach new boards to replace those that had come loose or warped. It's a skill he'll use all his life.
Sydney thought she was pretty funny when she took this photo of me mowing the property this afternoon. She said to post that "even in South Dakota, Dad can't get away from mowing the lawn."
Guess what, Sydney: Neither can you! ;>}
Another life skill learned, though I believe she intentionally missed some spots so she could tell me how bad she is at it and possibly avoid doing it back home! Conner and Robert got some painting time in on one of the sun shades (though Conner voluntarily spent much of the afternoon helping Christine do some housecleaning in the center like cleaning the bathrooms, sweeping the fellowship hall and hanging out laundry, among other necessary tasks -- guess who will be doing more household chores when he gets home!).
And they both turned out very nice:
After a full day of work, which ended for the youth around 5:15 and the adults around 6:15, Tresita and Asa treated us to a wonderful dinner of Indian tacos and a native blueberry pudding that goes GREAT with the homemade Indian frybread.
Asa went down the buffet line to show everyone how to assemble their tacos after telling us that the tradition got started when an Indian carrying frybread and a Mexican carrying a taco bumped into each other on a road, all of the food flew up into the air, and what came down is what we enjoyed tonight. RIGHT! Sounds suspiciously like the origins of the Reese's peanut butter cup!
Here he is describing the blueberry pudding:
Here's my completed Indian taco, complete with Jimbo's homemade guacamole (both hot and mild, plus tortilla chips) on the side:
And, to no one's surprise, Jimbo really got into eating his:
Most of us came away from dinner feeling overstuffed, but grateful for such a wonderful treat! (Sydney was right. She said last year that I would love Tresita's Indian tacos. They definitely are fantastic!)
It was a great day, capped by some fantastic food, plus Tresita and Asa invited some Native American artisans over from Red Shirt to display, talk about and sell their wares, so we had a nice time with them here too.
Yet, for me at least, the neatest part of the day still is seeing my son get into learning a new skill (even if it wasn't from his dad -- which isn't surprising, since anyone who knows me knows that I'm limited when it comes to those types of skills) and other youth in our group learning other skills like safely operating a SkillSaw or marking and cutting 1x4 slats for a picket fence.
Tomorrow we head to Madeline's house to make more memories ... and maybe learn some more life skills along the way.
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