Wednesday - This one is long!

I’m writing this during free time, before I have to go to dinner duty, but I won’t be posting it till I run out to the Starbucks Thursday Morning. Keep this in mind as you read this.

This morning after devotionals the Green Monkeys went back to Goodwill for their last day there. I know they weren’t necessarily looking forward to another day of sorting shoes and tagging items, but again, I didn’t hear any complaints. When we met back up at the showers, they looked a little more tired than usual. I think they were amazed that there would ever be that much sorting and tagging and it seemed never ending. They are definitely looking forward to doing something new tomorrow.

The Silver Snakes washed windows all morning at Village Gardens. Some of us were outside and some of us stayed inside. This was a little tricky as we had to maneuver around beds, dressers, chairs and other furniture. Each room had 4 panes of glass to wash on the inside and 4 on the outside. Steven and Billy worked together as a team, with Billy spraying and Steven using the squeegee. I wiped the bottoms of the windows. Madelyn and Lauren washed the outsides with Allison, one of the Youthworks staff who came to join us for the day. They did a swift job of it.

After lunch, Billy and I put up the big calendar for July in the hallway while Steven, Lauren and Madelyn did some paperwork for the recreation staff. Then it was Karaoke time! The kids helped the residents sing along to old standards they had never heard of. The tried very hard to sing songs like “In the Good Old Summertime,” Bicycle Built For Two,” and “Toot Toot Tootsie Goodbye.” They They even learned “Yes, We Have No Bananas.” Steven did an awesome job on the microphone singing Johnny Cash songs which made one resident really smile. The kids also all got together and sang “Awesome God.” We finished the day at the nursing home enjoying Root Beer floats during their social hour.

On Monday when we came the kids all held back and were afraid to talk to the residents. Now they are going right up to some of them and smiling and saying hello, calling them by name. As much as I tried to tell them they’d get used to it, they weren’t sure. I think they’ve come so far in these three short days.

Both groups of 2 kids are working so well together, jumping right in where needed and supporting each other all the time. Each free time they are playing with kids from other churches and hanging out and making new friends. One of their favorite things to do is play ball tag on the play structure at the church. I think this trip is going to be one they remember always. They are thinking about their other Geneva Mid-High friends back home who weren’t able to come on the trip and wishing they were here too.

Tonight, we go to an amusement park after dinner. The kids are really looking forward to hanging out and just having fun.

The kids want to help me blog this week. They’ve taken some of their free time to write.

Here are some thoughts from Madelyn…
Hello everyone, Madelyn here!
I just wanted you all to know, A DEER ATE OUT OF MY HAND!!!! Which is my favorite animal EVER! Also today at the seniors center, we did karaoke and as much as I was looking forward to it, Lauren was not at all! But I got her to sing about 4 songs with me, and Steven sang “Ring of fire”!
Chortle-Chortle!!!!!
So that’s really all I wanted to say, See you Friday!!!!!!


This is Beth…
Hey guys! I’m like really tired right now, but whatever. On Monday my crew and I went to Goodwill. I was really looking forward to it because the last time I came to Green Bay on mission trip, I got to work in a thrift store sorting donations. Goodwill was nothing like I had expected it to be! Everyone was really nice and helped us understand what we were doing, to make sure that it would turn out the way that they wanted it to, in size then color order. On Monday, they asked us where we wanted to work, Marilyn and I got stuck with shoes, because it was the last job open for us. It was truly the most fun of all the jobs!!! It was probably unwise of them to stick us in aisles of shoes, that by the way were very cute, for almost three hours straight. We enjoyed showing each other the really cute and the odd/ugly shoes!
On Tuesday we went through rack after rack after rack after rack of shirts and pants in both men and women’s clothes…. Soooo tedious, and we were on our feet all day except our hour and a half total break. After a while we almost collapsed on the floor out of exhaustion, joking that if we had gotten ten more minutes of sleep, we would have the energy to finish the rack we were on… :D
Today we spent the vast majority of our time putting clothes on hangers, then sizing the clothes. Soooo obnoxious!!!!! We had to figure out whether they were women’s, men’s, or children’s clothes, then hang them, then size them correctly for pants/shirts, on the correctly priced hanger… when we finally got a break I literally collapsed onto the floor, and almost fell asleep, but Marilyn and Amanda were playing with my head and screaming discoveries of freckles on my scalp… :D Tonight we’re going to an amusement park since it doesn’t look like it’ll rain in the coming hours… see you all Friday!!!


And…
Peace out, everyone! Bet you can already guess who this is…hahahaha….IT’S AMANDAAAAA!!! =^.^= Today is day tres!!! Unfortunately, Beth pretty much said everything I wanted to say, but I will do my best!!
ANYWAYYYY, this is MY view of the past half-week…
First, we rode 7 and one half hours in a CAR!! And passed a time zone!! Gaining a whole HOUR!!! OH MY GOSHHHHH!! We ate at Subway…and…stuff…And listened to the best band ever, They Might Be Giants in Nancy’s car, where Beth, Steven, and Marilyn were amazed that I had memorized pretty much the whole of most of the songs.
On the first night, we…ate…crud. I can’t remember what we ate…(Beth! What did we eat the first night?!! (food? It wasn’t spaghetti….sloppy joes. Untidy Josephs.))
WE HAVE HAD SANDWICHS EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR LUNCH!!! GRAHHHHHH!!! THIS ANGERS ME DEEPLY, THOUGH, SINCE I’M A CARNIVORE WHO ONLY EATS FRUITS THAT FELL NATURALLY!! MWUAHAHAHHAHAA!!
Beth, Marilyn, Mr. Marilyn’s dad, and 3 people from a different church in Minnesota; Haylee, Sam, and Dave/George/Alfred/Aaron and I were assigned to the Goodwill store. Goodwill has 2 O’s tied together.
On the first day, we got a tour from Andy, the lovely manager who had gone to Goodwill in search of a steadier market than selling Subaru’s. After that, Marilyn and Beth were in charge of shoes (an unwise decision, if I may say so…) (along with Dave), I don’t really remember where Sam was…and Mr. McBain, Haylee, and I were working together, going through the racks and racks and racks and racks of women’s clothes, sorting them by size, and then color and pulling out all the ones with pink tags on them. We would then take the pink-tagged apparel and put clearance stickers on them, replacing the original clearances (which would be brought to the ‘back room’ and recycled) with them.
We ate spaghetti! ☺ On the second day, we continued with our Good Willy duties, though Sam and I were in charge of shoes. (Muwahahaha… I wonder why???) It took about 1 hour for me to sort the lovely “special” shoes on the “special” rack. I had to sort them by size and then rainbow color. I then had to sort through the CHILD’S special rack. (OooooH!!) And I have learned from the last three days at Goodwill that there are some really strange things you will see. We saw small children crawling through clothes racks and disappearing, never to be seen again, children attacking us with squirt guns, and Bob the Builder bowls randomly left in the dresses section.
We developed a wonderful bond with the various workers there.
Today was our last day there, and though I’m glad I won’t have to sort more clothes,
All in all, it was a great week! ;)




Keep praying for us.