Sunday, September 5, 2010

Fishing With Friends Day

Last Sunday, we had the blessing of volunteering at a Fishing With Friends Day in East Tennessee. Our good friends, Doug and Leanne Goddard, are the co-founders of this ministry, which offers fishing and outdoor recreational activities to individuals and families who are effected by disabilities. This event was held on Douglas Lake, in Dandridge, Tennessee, which is a few miles east of Knoxville and the Sevierville area.

This was the first time that Daniel and I had the opportunity to volunteer with an event like this and it was awesome to see God work to provide a fun day for the people who came. There were over 400 people who came out, either as participants or volunteers. Doug and Leanne were in their element, using the gifts that God has given them and working together as a couple to lead the efforts. Daniel and I helped set up for the event, which started at 3:00 that afternoon, and then we mostly worked in the photography area, getting the SD cards back and forth from the cameras at the dock, and printing over 200 photos for participants to take home with them. Just seeing the smiles on the faces in the photos and hearing the excitement of people as they passed by the photo tent, gave me a huge blessing and I was so glad to be able to help out.

Like I said, it was a joint effort of many people: Church Youth groups, Boy Scouts, TVRA, professional fishermen and their families, and other non-profits, as well as our friends, the Goddards and the Umbargers. Below are some pictures of "the kids" (Rachel Umbarger, Rebekah Umbarger and Daniel) and if I can somehow figure out how to get a PDF photo collage of the day into this post, I will (otherwise, if you click on this link, you can see photos from other events which will give you an idea of what it is like).



2 comments:

Leanne said...

Thanks for sharing! It was an extra special blessing to serve the Lord alongside you last weekend. Thanks for keeping those pics rolling off the printer...the families loved being able to take a picture home with them!

Unknown said...

I posted the collage on our home page at www.fishingwithfriends.org as well as some individual pictures in our photo gallery.

I was a blessed time......thanks to all who came out!