Saturday June 23rd, we were able to visit the Seahawks Training Center for a private tour set up by my sister-in-law, Crystal. Prior to driving to Renton, we met for pizza at Uncle Pete's new dine-in location near Safeway in Bothell and had some yummy pizza. Thank God for coupons! Upon our arrival at VMAC 12 Seahawks Way, we were met by an awesome man named Mike Flood who gave us a wonderful tour and sent everyone home with goodies - stickers, a mini-helmet, posters and t-shirts. Below are a few pictures of the tour. You can see additional pictures on Facebook and www.madskates.shutterfly.com.
This past Monday was a bit of a bizarre experience for the MAD Skates & Rec crew as Bev (our 6-11 year old leader) messed up her back and shoulder and could not come. I (Brett - 12+ leader) had a wicked headcold that started Saturday just before our tour of the Seahawks Training Center. I called in Jeremy and Melody to help out as I knew it was going to be a rough night for me. Robb and Jeff both came as well, so in all we had 5 volunteers able to work together to get things set up.
When we arrived, we discovered that there were people staying overnight in the church and they had left a ton of stuff in the gym. I freaked out and called my brother who attends church there and said, "It's way worse than last year! I don't even know how we can make this happen tonight." He was trying to think. His three girls were running around the house making noise, and there were no thoughts that could help at that moment. I took a deep breath, and began moving stuff around waiting for the rest of my team to arrive. We managed to get the skate area up and still have room for some recreational activity. There was nowhere left for us to do our Bible session as it was video night, and we had nothing else planned as backup. None of my skaters showed up, so we just had the younger kids who like to play soccer, basketball, dodgeball, etc.
So..... this is sounding pretty jacked up right.
Funny thing happens. The people staying in the church show up at 7:00! They had 70 kids plus staff! We had just finished dinner and started playing some games at the other end of the church. The lady running the overnight thing apologizes for the mess, and I tell her to let her teens know if anyone skates, feel free to come in and skate. So the next thing I know the skate end of the gym is absolutely packed with people, and we've got kids from Cali skating away having a blast. All around the skate area the rest of the teens are having a laugh and asking about what we're doing, etc. It worked out well for them to have something fun to do while waiting for their dinner after being out on the streets working with the homeless people in Seattle all day. A few teens stayed and helped us pack up the ramps, our younger kids go home at 8:00, so in the end we were all home about 20 minutes sooner than we normally would have been.
God works in mysterious ways...
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