Day 2 Pictures

Skagit Valley College Pictures







more pictures from the day

Amazing gRace Day 2

Today was another great day.  We started the morning thinking that we were going to be doing a car wash to raise money for Heartprints Food Bank in Mount Vernon, WA.  The weather was pretty cold though and when we showed up we were relieved to find out that we would be doing something different.  The lady who runs the Food Bank is named Sue.  Sue put the kids to work right away.  Cleaning out Storage units and organizing donated items for a thrift store.  The youth worked very hard and at lunch had some time to chat with Sue.  They began to talk to her about the Food Bank and found out that many people come there throughout the week and each family receives about 45 lbs of food.  The youth also found out that Sue does not get paid to run the food bank and instead volunteers all of her time to help.  Right now Heartprints is just a food bank but Sue hopes to open up a Thrift store in the back that will help fund more food for the food bank.

Here are some pictures of the youth helping out










After serving at the food bank the youth headed out to the campus of Skagit Valley College where they were instructed to find somewhere on campus and take a silly picture.  These pictures I will post later.

Once they completed the picture Challenge they headed to what they thought was the final checkpoint.  Padilla Bay Shore Trail.  The Neon Yellow Flying Monkeys came in first followed by the Holy Crosses and then Genesis.  The Padilla Bay Shore Trail is a trail along the shoreline of the puget sound.  Team Genesis saw a bald eagle and a bunch of the youth played in the mud since the tide was out.  As we left around 4:00pm the tide was beginning to come in.

Here is a picture of them playing in the mud


The final pit stop was at a bowling alley in Lynnwood, WA.  There they met up with Ken Arneson, aka Pastor Ken, and each team bowled a game.  The team with the best average score received a time advantage of 2 minutes.   Team Holy Crosses earned the special time advantage.

Here is a picture of all the adults.  How often is it that the adults get to lay out in the sun and read a book on a youth trip.  Well today we got to and it was truly incredible.  The youth were getting dirty in the mud and we were relaxing


Today was another great day full of God's grace.

Day 1 Pictures

The Amazing gRACE- Day 1

Today was the official start to The Amazing Grace.  Eight youth and four adults headed out this morning not knowing where they would end up this evening.  The started out from St. Mark's in Spokane.  The first challenge was to head to Grand Coulee Dam and get a National Parks Passport Stamp on their clue card.  From there the teams headed to Winthrop, WA where they took a picture in front of Three Fingered Jack.  The oldest legal saloon in the state of Washington.  They also took some silly pictures and headed back out going west.  This time they stopped at North Cascades National Park and picked up another National Park Passport Stamp.  The Pit Stop and end of the race today was Salem Lutheran Church in Mount Vernon, WA.  Overall they were in the car more than six hours.

Here is an introduction to the teams

Neon Yellow Flying Monkeys

The team is made up of Katelynn, Jacob and Naomi. The are extremely awesome and ready to work hard.

Genesis

Genesis is made up of Spencer, Connor and Joey.  They are outgoing, caring and up for any surprise.

The Holy Crosses



The Holy Crosses is made up of Alix and Madison.  They are fun and outgoing but dorks at the same time.

Welcome!!

Welcome to the St. Mark's Youth Blog!  The Junior High and High School youth grow in faith and have a lot of fun throughout the year.  This blog is a way to share all of their adventures with you.  We hope you enjoy.