Shane's memories

Here is one memorble thing of each person:

Josh can attract American girls when he has a fake woggle on and he likes to bob for apples Southern baptist style

Stuart is a chick magnet.  See you "Stuuuuart"

Annie managed to never get paint on herself, very impressive

Jesse can do a mean weld in plus 35 degree weather

Justin wanted to be left behind

Nolan, or should I say, "Nolaaaaaan".  He was caught saying, "tastes great, smells raunchy"

Steven now has trouble sleeping in vans, especially in the back seat

Jordan doesn't like to be touched in the shower

Chris likes to touch others in the shower

Annalisa lol's loudly when you tell her that she has a loud voice

Leanne likes to say the word "Seh"

Dale has a habit of running out of gas

Kent should not use the word "jack" when he means to say "steal"

Rochelle can whip up the best Oklahoma stylle chilli in seconds

Goodbye Carlinville

Our time in the community of Carlinville is on the brink of being complete.  Tomorrow morning we head up to Springfield for a cross cultural worship service and then head across a couple states into South Dakota.  On Monday we will visit Mount Rushmore and then make our way back to our much missed home.  See you all soon! (Shane)

Back seat drivers

Van time

Annie's proffessional painting services

By the sweat of our brow.... and everywhere else.

Hey everyone! Just to give an update on our trip, we have been working for the past four days now. We have been doing lots of painting, which involves climbing on scaffolding and trying not to get paint everywhere. However we are all becoming much better with the paint brushes and rollers then when we first started. Working has been good except for how sweaty and hot it gets, but you get used to the gross feeling and when you go to clean off paint brushes with the hose the water is often a refreashing way to cool off, whether you want to get wet or not, sometimes it's not a choice depending on who is holding the water hose. The gross feeling makes the shower at the end of the day feel that much better, working is also a good time to interact with team members. Some people have been working outside, which brings about sunburns and unfortunetly  too short of shorts (the owner of which will remain unnamed, but it is one of the boys) which everyone has sort of grown used too but were a shock when they first appeared when the boys were playing frisbee one afternoon. Tomorrow we get to go to St. Louis for the day, we are going to something called the "City Museum" which apparently is not an actual museum but some sort of big indoor playground. We went to the Church's youth group last night and when we all walked in some people yelled "Hey, it's Canada." Their youth group is quite a bit bigger then ours but it was neat to see how they ran their youth group.Tonight we got to go to someone's outdoor pool, most people went swimming and they all had a fun time. It's neat to see all the people who really appreciate what we have been doing, some people come to visit us or help us at the church and it's cool to know that we are doing something worthwhile for the people here. Tim, the pastor of the church that we are at, has told us alot about how much this church has already grown, and is continuing to grow so the new church is a space that is definitely being looked forward to and will be getting alot of use. God is doing some amazing things in this town and within the Church. Tim was also telling us that before the Church grew, there were people that were wary of having non Church people start attending the Church. It's awesome that this Church has been growing so much, they are raising up alot of youth who believe in God as there is a great number of youth that attend this Church. I love being apart of something like this, seeing a Church like this one is a great experience, especially because you can realize that God doesn't just work in countries over seas or third world countries. God does amazing things close to home as well. Well, thats all for now, I hope everyone back home is having a wonderful summer. 
- Annie 

day 8

It's still so hot!! Not as hot as Tuesday though. Only 93 F at suppertime, but we are getting lots of painting done. Dale and Jesse have been welding out in the heat, and Josh got quite a burn yesterday. Especially since he was wearing embarrassingly short shorts.
The kids got to join the youth group here last night, which has about 40 youth. They love it when they catch us saying "eh". But we think their accent is funny so we're even.
Also Dale and Jordan got to go fishing for bass today- which will probably be the highlight of their trip.

Hot tomali

Today was 35 degrees Celsius but felt like plus 48.  On another note, I just ate my first hot tomali.
Shane

captain Canada (recently out of retirement)

The Wolff

Hey everybody it's Jesse Wolff. I'm not from the efree church but i have been a part of the youth group for a couple a years now and im happy i have been. To be on this trip has been amazing! It was a long trip down here but it was alot of fun and good fellowship with the people who are this trip with me. we havent done a whole lot of work yet but i know that will change. I can't wait to do Gods work down here. well im not one for a whole lot of words so i think ill go. im sure you will be hearing from me later on so peace out! :)

Girl's View

Sarah and Annie here, coming to you from Carlinsville Southern Baptist Church. Being the only girls on the trip, we thought we should give you some intellectual insight on the trip so far.

Hmmm where to start... We stuck very close to each other and rode in Dale's van (which thankfully now has air conditioning). Very early on in the trip we realized that this van was no ordinary van. With the ability to survive Dale's swift and NASCAR like stunts, ie last minute turns and weaving in and out of traffic, we decided it was  worthy of a name. Now came the next problem, finding a name that would encompass all aspects of the Van's awesomeness. After much debate the inhabitants of the van conjured up the name JB (which means Jumping Boy in french, or along those lines...). The name stuck and JB became as much apart of the team as each member.
During the night (in the mood for naming things and in sleep deprivation) we decided Shane's goatee was also in need of a name. We don't feel like explaining much of the back story (ask us in person, it's worth it) Steven came up with "The Woggle". In the morning, much to our disappointment, we discovered that Shane had shaved.

Friday consisted of running out of gas on the interstate, borrowing some (gas) from a woman who had no idea where or what Saskatchewan was, jamming out to Dale's ipod and finally buying bulk wedges, wings and potato salad from walmart and eating it in a baseball field at an overturned rain barrel. The salad allowed us to bond as we put it in the middle of the barrel and each took forkfulls with our forks. We then proceeded to lock a poor soul in the porta potty by parking JB infront of the door.

Well thats all for now, folks - enjoy your non-humid weather and showers with pressure.

Blog Day One

The entire trip so far is awesome!  First, we spent about a solid twelve hours driving from Meadow until the border, laughing, talking, wrestling, reading, and looking for places to sleep in a semi-crowded van.
 
It's amazing how hilly the landscape gets the farther south you go. We saw an amazing valley along the way enclosing a large grassy clearing, and a lot of different scenery until we arrived at the border where it started to get interesting. People began whispered jokingly about things not to say around the border police, and some grew visibily agitated about the scrutiny we were about to endure.

I was travelling with Shane in the rental van while the others were in Dale's green van. As we drove to talk to the first border guard the first question was relatively innocent. "Okay sir, what is your name?" The border guard asked and Shane replied calmly, "Shane Schiele." to which the border guard suspiciously began to size him up. "We know some Schieles around here."

The next few moments were somewhat awkward from then on as we were told to go park ahead and wait for further instructions. We pulled ahead and several minutes later we were told to exit the van, bring all the money we had with us and go inside. So we all went inside as Shane was left waiting with the van to be asked more questions while the van was searched.

People began to get frustrated by me by this point because they realized I was legitamately relaxed and cheerful among the stern faced and menacing border guards. I would ask questions to the guards as one by one, the others were detained and asked a variety of questions one on one to make sure everybody's stories matched up. Being one of the last ones chosen to be grilled, I was not at all nervous.

I was brought through a seemingly pointless doorway to a room where there was a grey haired interrogator and a man sitting directly behind, I assume, to analyze my responses, and I assume to make sure I wasn't doing anything suspicious by way of my body language. I was asked what my name was, where we were travelling to, how long we planned on staying, if there were any firearms I knew of inside the van, and if we were planning any side trips. After everything was said and done and I said goodbye to my interrogator, I met up with the rest of the group to watch them giggle nervously, and wait until we were released to continue the rest of the drive to Carlinville.


TO BE CONTINUED ....

Road Trip!

We left Meadow Lake at 10 am with a nice send off breakfast from some moms and soon found out first construction zone on the Glaslyn highway.  Once on the road, we settled in for the long haul.  One of the vans was slightly interrogated at the border but other than that the trip went smoothly with the occasional gas fill or coffee break.  We stopped in Hutinson MN to for a warm breakfast and a much need stretch at Shane's former pastor's church.  After 2700kms of road and a day and half of driving, we have finally arrived to Carlinville to a warm welcome and a nice shower!   We didn't know what kind of landscape to expect but soon found out that they like to grow corn and soy bean crops and love to own their own firearms (with many road signs to prove it).  The guys so badly want to run through a corn field so we'll see if their dream comes true....

The Great Departure!

Morning folks! It's bright and early Thursday morning, August fith, and the team is eady to rip! After a bite of breakfast and prayer at the church, we are of to Illonois! Twenty six hours in the hot, loud, crazy awesome van; we are excited! Keep us in your prayers as we cross the border and make the long night drive. And as my father would say, "We're of like a herd of turtles." Thanks for reading amigos! see you on the other side.... of the BORDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Prologue

Hey everybody! The time is almost here and we are pumped! the team leaves thursday at 10:00 AM with a long haul drive of about 26 hours to Carlinville, Illinois, and it's going to be rowdy, hot and fun! Fundraising this year was a HUGE success and the team has for once come out with more cash than we need, so we hope to put it to good use in Carlinville. We appreciate all the support we've gotten from the church and community and we are so excited for the mission. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers and make sure to follow our posts as we travel and do God's work in the states. See you on the other side!

                          -the team