Day 6 Impact Minnesota

Day 6

During morning Chapel on Friday, Cheryl got to dress up as one of the characters in the skit. It had to be her favorite thing of the day, along with the hayride at the end. And then it was time to say goodbye to all our new friends! It was impossible not to become close to our guests and fellow caregivers throughout the week. Many were in tears when it came time to leave.





Even though this week was about our guests, it was amazing to see God work in the lives of the caregivers and CIT's as well! We came expecting God to use us to impact others, and we left just as impacted by them. We got to see the true meaning of freedom in Christ and the true meaning of a servants heart in action. It was an inspiring week! Lexi says she was super blessed to be a CIT at Special Touch. God showed her that we can praise God just as he created us to be. One of the most amazing things she witnessed was the love the guests had towards each other. You can find better hugs than those at the Getaway!






We both can't wait for next year :)
Love from Katie and Lexi Lou

Day 5 Impact Minnesota

Day 5:
Our last full day at the Getaway! Many of the guests and caregivers were starting to wear down, so today was full of napping opportunities! My guest, Cheryl, and I went tubing. One thing I love about the Getaway is that no matter what the disability, they will find a way for all the guests to have a chance to do all the activities that they want. So the fact that Cheryl is in a wheelchair didn't even phase them. They made a way for her to ride the tube.


After tubing, we played a treasure hunting game where the guests had to find pieces of "treasure" in the field while avoiding getting sprayed with silly string by the "robbers". Then the guests got to buy prizes with their treasure. Cheryl bought a ring and a pair of flip flops. She said it was her first pair in years! Hard to believe when half the shoes in my closet are flip flops.


The service was amazing. If was a great time of one on one prayer for the caregivers, CITs and their guests. After service, the guests got to watch "UP" (awesome movie!) while the caregivers & CITs met together. This was our second meeting this the week. During these meetings, the caregivers get a chance to share their ups and downs from the week, give encouragement, and tell their funny stories as well. One caregiver told the story of how he was praying for a guest then the man tooted in his face, and then immediately after that the worship team began to play, "This is the air I breathe". Loved getting to hear all of the other stories!


Love from Katie and Lexi Lou :)

Day 4 Impact Minnesota

Day 4: In chapel today, our illustrated sermon was about how we should put all our sins on Jesus. It was acted out in a Bible story & then everyone got a sticker that said "All My Sin". One at a time, each person walked up to a guy dressed up as Jesus & got to put their stickers on Jesus. Then each of the caregivers took their guests aside for communion and prayer. It was just an amazing thing to watch & be apart of! Lexi had a blast teaching one of her guests to sing "Jesus Loves Me."


The most fun event of the day had to be our safari! Everyone got an animal print visor & we walked around the grounds in our safari groups looking for blow up animals. Our objective was to find all the animals and take a pic of each one. If we found all the animals we got a prize. Our group had a blast! You couldn't get them to stop talking about how we found lions, tigers & monkeys everywhere!



Everyone in our room sang in the talent show after evening service. Our guests picked the songs, "Who Let the Dogs Out" & "You Aint Nothin' But a Hound Dog". I think they just had fun howling ha! Lexi & I's favorite performance was by a girl named Kaylle singing, "Healing Rain". you could only understand every other word & she giggled loudly through the whole thing. I bet that was the most beautiful music to God's ears!


Definitely made some lasting memories today! Love from Katie & Lexi Lou!

Impact Minnesota Day 3 (6/01/10)

Day 3- My guest Cheryl proudly sported her new Special Touch t-shirt that she bought today! The first place she wore it was to chapel.


There are 3 separate daily schedules for the guests: Yellow Schedule for physical disabilities and a Green Schedule for mental disabilities (which is divided up between High & Low cognitive abilities). Each schedule has different activities and chapels specifically designed for each of them. We our on the low green schedule and had our first morning chapel today with Larry & Carolyn Campbell (who also gave us a ride on Sunday!). Everyone participates in chapel! During worship, all the guest either get a puppet or a musical instrument like bells, maracas, or spoons. They get to dress up and act up Bible stories. They also get to take turns praying and giving testimonies. The guests all want to get involved in the services, they love it! We even had one guest play the piano and sing for us and he was AWESOME!



Lexi took her guest to craft and taught them how to do knuckles. She had 3 guest in her care today. It was a long day for her, but I love how she steps up to the challenges that our presented to her and gives it her all! She is doing an amazing job and loves hanging out with her guest.


We also took a tour of the lake on a pontoon. Our guest loved it, it was very beautiful! Later on in the afternoon we went to a luau. The guests all got leis and other small prizes. Then we had a giant marshmallow gun war, which was pretty intense. Some of the guests have amazing aim!

It was a very long and fun day. Love from Katie and Lexi Lou!

(Katie VonAllmen)

Impact Minnesota Day 2 (5/31/10)

After orientation this morning, we waited in our rooms with our other caregivers to finally meet our guests face to face. Lexi, being a caregiver in training (CIT), was assigned a caregiver to serve under for the week. She was so excited to get to meet her guests as well for the first time! You could feel the excitement in the guests when they first arrived. Several went from room to room greeting people with hugs and smiles, just like we were old friends (which for those who have been coming for many years here was the case indeed!!). My guests name is Cheryl! Some of our shared interests are reading, singing, and coffee!! I love this girl already!! :)

Lexi says that her guests are so sweet and LOTS OF FUN!! She also says that the other caregivers & CIT's are amazing, always smiling and making sure their guests are given the best care. I was also made aware today that I apparently have a fair bit of a SOUTHERN MISSOURI accent!! I was made fun of at least 4 times by not only my fellow caregivers, but by my own guest as well!! Feelin' the love!!!

Lexi's highlight of the day was when a guest name Rosie gave her a homemade necklace as a gift, and another guest named Tammy said that she was a, "sweetheart and a good person!". I am so proud of Lexi, I have been watching her tackle a lot of responsibility, such as learning to transfer guests. She has fondly been given the title of "MVP" from her team leader for all of her hard work just on the first day!!

The night service was AMAZING as they always are!! One guest I hadn't met yet came up to me during worship & grabbed ahold of my hand & put her head on my shoulder. She would raise her hand and sing when I did.

What an incredible first full day at Special Touch Camp (Minnesota)!

(Katie VonAllmen)

Impact Minnesota Day 1 (5/30/10)

Day 1 of our journey to the Special Touch Getaway in Minnesota. The majority of our day was traveling and waiting. We hustled to the airport (STL), waited, hopped on our flight, and then waited some more. This was Lexi's first flight! After we landed in Minneapolis, MN we waited in the airport for a few hours for our ride and enjoyed sipping on some iced coffee!

We got picked up from the airport from a couple named Larry & Carolyn Campbell who gave us a ride to the campgrounds. They have been involved with Special Touch Ministry from day one and are also serving as one of the morning speakers this week at camp. Our ride presented an amazing opportunity for us to fellowship with them, learn more about what inspired them, and to hear some of their stories.

When we arrived and settled in, we took a walking tour of the grounds at Lake Geneva Christian Center (pictured)where the getaway is being held this week. Our first though was that it was big and BEAUTIFUL!! We met a big group from Teen Challenge Ministry Institute (TCMI) in Minneapolis. We got to fellowship with them and then joined in prayer as a group over our week here at Special Touch Getaway.

We are all excited for what God has planned for us this week and for the lives that will be changed!

(Katie VonAllmen)

Hope for Haiti day 5

Day 5 (final day) on the ground in Haiti. I didn’t believe that it was possible for our team to fit anymore into a day than we already had earlier in the week, HOWEVER today our team was ROCKIN and trying to fit as much as they possible could in our last full day in Haiti. We started off this morning with a Kids Crusade where we had over 250 children packed into a hot church with no electricity…it was a BLAST!! We sang songs, did magic tricks, played games, had a lesson on the armor of god (notice team member Caleb Smith and his make-shift armor), played with bubbles, silly string, gave a ways tons of balloon animals, candy, and every type of sports ball you can imagine! Everyone had an incredible time, and every child left with a huge smile. Just to try and put into perspective how much it means to these children to receive the smallest toy, whether it be a match box car, jump rope, or sport ball, notice the picture of the make shift toy that you see this young boy playing with. You see this all over Haiti, so can you imagine the joy that comes across their face when you give them something like a soccer ball?
After lunch our team took the work to a whole new level, completing the tin roof on the school house, painting the school house and retaining wall, and building a fence a little over 400 ft long! It was more intense than the afternoon heat was the intensity that our team tackled these final projects.



Right before dinner we experienced the most incredible thing ever, it was what our trip was all about. A young man named Difference (seriously that’s his name) had a slight confrontation in the morning service over wanting to receive a basketball that he did not get. After talking with him we told him that if he would return in the afternoon and help out with building the fence we would talk about it. I don’t think anyone expected him to show up, but he did and worked hard the entire time helping complete the entire fence. So as we took him down to give him his basketball our team leader Joe Skiles wanted to talk with him first. Using a translator Joe began to witness and talk to this young man about Jesus Christ and the power of God that is able to change his life. Difference (pictured here) told us that he believed in Christ and that he new he needed him in his life, however he just didn’t feel like he could follow him. After sharing for a few minutes, Difference decided that he wanted to give his life to Christ. So some of our team gathered around and with his own mouth Difference prayed to God and dedicated his life to Jesus Christ!




After our afternoon projects our team had dinner and honored 4 special guest who have served our team all week. Bossmichelle (groundskeeper), Zet (cook),Maneecia (cook), and Pastor Walter Stecker (PCG field rep for Haiti). It was an honor this week meeting this incredible servants.


What an incredible week of bringing Hope to Haiti. We want to invite you to join us in our efforts to rebuild Haiti and to bring them Hope. Impact Missions Adventures will take at-least two more trips this year August 14-21, and October 16-23, and at-least 3 more trips in 2011 and we invite you to GO!! Find out more info today at www.impactym.com or call our offices at 417.624.7050 ext 352. If you can’t GO than consider giving to HOPE-THRU-HOOPS (all funds used to provide the sports balls that we distributed this week), or just a general offering to help in the rebuilding of Haiti.


Haiti needs us right now and it is going to take everyone doing something!!