“One Last Lifest”

I promise this is the last time I bring up the five day Christian music festival, Lifest. At some point in the planning process, it was suggested to us that we volunteer at the Life Missions booth at Lifest, which was going to be just three weeks before leaving on our missions trip. It would be a great chance to bond more with others going on the trip as well as raise more money for the program. The bonus would be free admittance to the event.

It was only Val and me that year. We didn’t even bother with the camper, just got a single camping site and pitched our tent on it. I thought it would be just as stressful with the two of us, but we were still able to go our separate ways enough of the time. We volunteered together in the Schwan’s trailer selling ice cream novelties, but had other volunteer positions apart.

Val spent a lot of her time at the Life Missions booth. They were selling items that had been picked up on previous trips. (Note the picture of the pile of bracelets from Kenya.) Not only had Life Missions been to Kenya in the past, but they had also been to India and Mexico. Nate, Jen and Dave’s son, was also at the booth most of the time, so it was good for Val to get to know him better, as he was going with to Kenya also.

One night, they needed two volunteers to work music sales following an acoustic group that I had never heard of. They loaded me and another woman, a total stranger, onto a golf cart and whisked us off to the other end of the grounds. It was such a fun experience, getting to know this woman as well as hearing this band.

On Saturday morning, Val and I headed over to Appleton for our last team meeting before the trip. We mostly went through all the supplies, as well as getting us an extra bag which needed to be returned to the woman we would be working with in Africa. We packed up kids’ t-shirts, soccer balls; I can’t remember all what else. I just remember that the basement of the Life Promotions office was a mess of donated materials.