Annual Christmas Party

We enjoyed our annual Christmas party here at our home. the theme was "JOY TO THE WORLD" The traveling gift was changed into a beautiful JOY with a wood cut out J and Y and Nativity for in the center. This had been a Ellephant for the last years White Elephant party. You can search the 2010 Christmas if you want to see it. It was a great evening with lots of good friends, food, wine and gifts. A blessed Christmas to all filled with the Joy to the world, the Christ child born for you and for me.

Memorial Wreath Day at the Black Hills National Cemetery

Saturday we drove to the Black Hills National Cemetery to watch the presentation of wreaths in honor of each military branch and all those who have fallen while protecting our country. It was a beautiful day and the program only lasted about 20 minutes or so.
The Veterans were dressed very nice with their feather hats, shinny swords and satin lined capes. If anyone knows what these hats are called, please let me know. We thought maybe "cocked hat".
It was a different group of presenters for each military branch. I also don't know if things are always presented in the order they were here or why? Maybe each branch according to the age.
Here you can really see the Ostrich Plumb and also some who had very special wreaths for important graves. One was a beautiful cross shaped wreath of fresh greens.


This 4th wreath was in honor of all the US Air Force.

These are all the people who were there taking fresh donated green wreaths to either graves of a loved one or someone else per tag on some of the many wreaths.
This is a pile of the fresh wreaths that were there for the taking to be placed on someones grave.
I thought this was beautiful with the glistening white snow. Some areas had a good foot of snow to trudge through.

Some wreaths were layed under the cremation Niche, they are a newer addition to the Black hills National Cemetery.
Always lots of flags!
The USAF memorial wreath.
I took one to place on my cousin's mother's grave. Irene "Behm" was my mothers first cousin. Her birthday would have been today and she past away on Christmas day 2009.


Her grave is now adorned with a beautiful green live wreath, reminding us of the Life eternal we will have after God takes us home.

John 3: 36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him.
Christ came down from Heaven as a infant baby boy that first Christmas day. It was His very blood that cleanses us from all our sin that we might have life eternal in Heaven with Him.

Merry Christmas and take time to Prepare the way of the Lord. Prepare our hearts for Jesus.

Porcupine Fall Christian Carnival

The end of October our Mission service at Porcupine was a very interesting event. The first hour or so was taken with our Vicar Sutton, also a Electrician, fixing the lights by the light of the sun through the door. Our electricity comes from a generator also brought by Vicar Sutton. At least we have a building that we can use.

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Helper Jim and Rev Utecht watch and add support as Vicar Sutton works high on a ladder to fix the lights.

Lights are fixed and everyone is ready for the Church service to begin. Led by Pastor Utecht and Vicar Sutton.
After the Worship Service, Larry had a very interesting Magic trick to explain REFORMATION. The disappearing skunk was to let everyone know that paying and buying our way to heaven "STINKS"

GOLIATH and PUMPKINS and TICKETS - -- - - -OH MY

The Sunday school hour was very different this Sunday. Everyone was given 6 tickets to use for the Christian Carnival. The first ticket was used to get their bag to hold all the goodies.

There were 5 fun booths set up with a prize at each booth, win or loose. Each booth or game had a Christian theme as you will see. Everyone not only got a prize but a copy of the Bible lesson from each booth.

Here Sarah reviews the lesson 3 Men in the fiery furnace with 2 of our regular boys.

Sarah making sure that each person gets a copy of the Bible lesson to take home to review or share with others. You can see the "Fiery Furnace" with the paper flames at the bottom right.

This is the long line waiting to get their bag with their first ticket. They also got a name tag on their bag. No getting these bags mixed up!

Donna Utecht was at the Color booth where each got a small pkg of crayons and a fold up Bible lesson of either Jesus calms the storm or Jesus and the children.

As you can see from this booth, it's David and Goliath. Each got a copy of the Bible lesson and an opportunity to shoot Goliath in the head with a Nerf gun. They also got a fall pencil for their bag.

This little guy was a very good aim!

Sorry if some of these pictures are on here twice, the Blog has changed and I have not yet figured out how to move or delete a picture.
This is the 3 men in the fiery furnace and the children got 3 soft cloth balls to toss in the bucket with paper flames. They got a small candy bar and copy of the Bible lesson for their bag.

The next booth was the pumpkin toss, using glow in the dark bracelets to toss over the stem of one of the pumpkins. Each got a copy of the Pumpkin Prayer that could be used as they carved their Halloween pumpkin and they also got to keep the glowing bracelet or another small toy.

Good toss. This was not as easy as it looks.

A ticket for the popular Fishing Booth.

The lesson here was Fishers of Men from Matthew 4.

You can see that even these teen boys were enjoying the fishing booth. Each got a copy of the Bible lesson and got to keep the stuffed toy pulled from the fish booth.
Many stuffed animals had been donated or given to our mission so this was such a fun way to give these out and not be partial or have a hard time to choose who got what. They were all surprised and pleased with their stuffed toy and not a single one was left behind.

It was a great turn out with approximately 60 in attendance. This was a good way to get the word of God into their homes.

This little guy had to check out his bag!

After the fun, there was a hot meal prepared by Doris Belitz for all. Cold juice and another candy treat was enjoyed by all.

The day went well, we enjoyed seeing all the big smiles and hearing all the cheers, giggles and laughs. God loves these people on the Reservation and has sent us to let them know about His great love through Jesus His Son.

Matthew 28:13 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

John 3: 16. God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.