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Kids in grades 3 through 6 are invited to attend a special one-day event at Delaney Creek Park (8215 North Delaney Park Road, Scottsburg, IN 47170) on Wednesday, July 24th.  This event will be held with the cooperation of Delaney Creek Park, The Washington County Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD), Purdue Extension-Washington County, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.  Registration will begin at 9:00 AM and activities will begin at 9:15 AM. Kids will participate in activities and learn about water quality monitoring, Hellbender salamanders, wildlife, trees, and getting involved in 4-H!  The event will wrap up at 2:00 PM.  A sack lunch will be provided to each participant at that time and families will be welcome to stay and enjoy the park after the event.

Kids should dress to spend the day outdoors.  There will be an opportunity to get in the water during activities so please have water-appropriate clothing and footwear.  Sunscreen, bug spray and a water bottle are also encouraged.

Admission to the park will be waived for attendees. 

Pre-registration is required by July 19th.  This can be done online at https://tinyurl.com/Kidsdayatdelaney. Please contact the SWCD at (812) 883-3006 ext. 3 with any questions.  If you need an accommodation to participate in this event, please contact the Soil & Water Conservation District at (812) 883-3006 ext. 3 at least 2 weeks prior to the event.

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As Americans and residents of the United States prepare for some festive Fourth of July celebrations, they can keep these interesting facts related to Independence Day in mind.

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Ivy Harris of Salem will be departing soon for a Christian mission trip to Australia.  She will be a sophmore at Indiana University Southeast this fall and is the daughter of Roy and Gretta Harris of Salem.

Ivy describes below how she came to be involved in this exciting experience:

Personal information about yourself:

I graduated Salem High School in 2023, and I just finished my first year of college at IU Southeast. I’m pursuing a business degree concentrated in accounting. I entered IUS on sophomore standing because I took dual credit and AP classes in high school; I’ll be graduating in three years rather than four.

On campus I'm involved in a Christian organization called Cru. I learned about this organization at the Student Involvement & Resource Fair during my first week of college, and I joined right away. It was important to me to have a community of Christian friends during my time at IUS. It’s common for believers to fall away from faith during their college years, and I didn’t want to be a part of that. This organization is on 8,919 campuses worldwide, and it offers a variety of mission trip opportunities all over the globe.

How did you get involved with the mission trip:

I felt like the Lord was calling me to go on my first mission, and my friend from IUS also felt the same way. We were on the Cru website scrolling through the different options and Australia stood out to both of us. We both applied online and decided to go through this together. After the application was reviewed by the mission leader, she called to give me more details about the trip and so we could ask each other any questions. Then, a week later, I got the email of acceptance to go on the mission trip.

Details about the venue:

The trip is in Sydney, Australia July 11-27. The team will be meeting and spending the night in Las Angeles, CA on July 10 to do some team building, then we will leave in the evening of July 11 to fly to Sydney. The team includes three staff members and there are seven of us students. The team is made up of staff and students in Cru from several different states including Texas, Minnesota, Florida, and North Carolina. In L.A., we’ll be staying at Aloft El Segundo Hotel. In Australia, we will be staying at Quest Macquarie Park, which is an apartment hotel.

Duties and activities expected of you:

My team and I will be partnering with the Cru staff and student leaders at the University of Sydney and Macquarie University (Power To Change is Cru’s official name in Australia). We will be welcoming and reaching out to international students on their campuses. There are 87,000+ international students in New South Wales. Most of those international students are from China, Korea, India, Malaysia, and Vietnam. We will be evangelizing to these students and encouraging them to check out their campus’ Cru organization. On Mondays through Fridays we will be 9-5 working at the campuses, with some additional evening activities. Saturdays are for team outings/development. Sundays are for church and rest.

Info about the sponsoring organization:

Cru’s mission statement is to win, build and send Christ-centered multiplying disciples who launch spiritual movements. Cru was originally founded as Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951, when Bill and Vonette Bright began the ministry on the UCLA campus. God gave Bill a vision of the total fulfillment of the Great Commission throughout the world, starting with college students. Cru helps the body of Christ to do evangelism and discipleship in a variety of creative ways such as campus ministries, Cru’s city ministry, FamilyLife, Athletes in Action, Cru Military, and the “JESUS” film. Cru has more than 16,000 staff members in over 190 countries.

Personal experience with traveling and expectations:

This will be my first time out of the country and also my first time on a plane.
I hope to return with powerful stories of how I saw God moving during this mission trip.I’m excited to go to a new place and to focus solely on God for two and a half weeks. Although, I'm a little nervous about the flight as I've never been on a plane before.

I’m looking forward to building friendships with my team and sharing the gospel with the students in Australia.