Family Church - Water Day...

This week for church we talked about the woman at the well.(John 4: 4-26) It was a really fun topic to discus with the kids. First we explained what a well was, why we need water, how important it is to us.. etc .etc .etc and we read the story. We talked about how Jesus was really thirsty and that's when he asked this woman for a drink... and then their conversation began. We talked about what it was like to be really thirsty, and finally about this woman and how it was her job to get water for her family every day. The girls did not really know that in certain places in the world it is still the young girl's and woman's job to gather water for their families. In many cases the young girls have to carry water that weighs approximately 40 lbs from a water source to home. By doing this, they are often late for school and are behind in their studies. The water that they get is also not always clean so families can get very sick but it is the only water that they have access to. The girls were really interested in this... especially when I had them take turns trying to lift Haley ( our 40 pounder) to get an idea of what other kids their age were doing. Then we talked about project play pump.
I had found out about project play pump and was really excited to talk with the kids about it. It is basically a way for children in rural areas of Africa to pump clean water by the use of a merry-go-round type of pump. Here's the link to check it out http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/rough/2005/10/south_africa_th.html We are going to support this project this month and the girls are earning money by doing their jobs around the house to send to the project.
We ended up our talking time emphasizing verse 13 " Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." The girls seemed to get it but just to make sure... we had a field trip.... who are we kidding.. we live for field trips! So off to see some pretty cool water-

We headed out of Portland and went to the Columbia River Gorge. Scott's family hiked here a ton while he was growing up and it holds a lot of fun memories for us back in the days of dating.... Our first stop was a really cool look out - Crown Point. It was totally windy- as the Gorge usually is- and really fun to see all of the wind surfers on the river. Especially from our eagle eye vantage point!

Our second stop was at Lateral falls. In the Gorge there are tons and tons of waterfalls but we just stopped at a few of Scott's favorites. We could have stayed all weekend long exploring! It was the girls first time here and they loved it! They couldn't believe all the cool water! I heard one of the girls saying that " this could be our new Northwest Trek when we live down here and we could come all the time"... pretty funny because we do hit Northwest Trek a lot... but they always love it!

I just love this picture! We hiked down to the bottom of the falls and took this one. It was an easy, paved trail... not bad at all! We didn't even get too thirsty on this one.....

But we did on this one! Our next stop was Multnoma Falls.... the grand-daddy or the Gorge. The girls were blown away just looking at it from the bottom. There is a bridge about 1/4 of the way up and we asked them if they wanted to go to it. Of course they did, so we were off ( the top corner pictures)... then we asked if they wanted to go to the top... and of course they did.. with smiles and giggles and "no way!" we were off.... for our 1 mile hike... pretty much straight up! The girls took a few rests and got VERY THIRSTY on this one ( right side picture). Here they are sitting under a tree wondering "how much farther?" Scott did what he always does and answered.. " we're almost there" which is a big fat lie most of the time but it works! We had a lot of opportunities to remind them of our story and of project play pump. We made it to the top of the falls ( bottom left) and was even able to look over the top! Yes grandparents, there was a very sturdy steele- enforced platform with a fence all around it no need to panic! ( bottom right)

We had another great day of family church. We are excited to see what this weekend will be like back at home. Our hope is to teach the kids that church is not a place, or a building, but an action or a way of life. If any of you are interested in coming along sometime let us know. We'd love to share it with ya!