Detroit Day Four

It was another amazing day in "The D." Our kids had so many different experiences today showing God's love and being the hands and feet of Jesus. (Their words during our reflection/devotional time.)
As you remember, on Tuesday, we participated in the sandwich ministry through Riverside Church out of ETS. This morning, after ate our breakfasts and made lunch for the day, we used all the leftover bread, tortillas and bagels to make sandwiches and we packed lunch bags with sandwiches, chips, peanuts, cookies, fruit and any other food we had leftover. We ended up making about 28 more small sack lunches. We divided them up into cars so we could hand them out to hungry people that we met today. Even before we got to Fort Street this morning we got to hand a sack lunch to someone. They were very grateful. The kids were super excited that someone actually accepted their offering of food.

After our morning meeting at Fort Street we all went back to Gratiot Avenue Church. There we were given our assignments for the day. Don and Debbie and their team stayed at Gratiot Ave. Church and helped spruce the place up. They cleaned pews, did lots of yard work, helped clear out ancient hymnals and made the place look great. They were surprised that the church members that they met were so proud of their little church. This group worked hard helping to make the church shine. Once their work was finished at the church, they went to one of the members' homes and helped spruce that place up as well.

My group went to go work in another one of the Detroit Rescue Mission sites. This one was a facility for men on Woodward in HIghland Park. Drew and Breana, along with two Calvary Church youth helped to serve lunch to over 75 people. Travis, along with another Calvary youth work in the back of the kitchen preparing potatoes for dinner. Billy and Josh stayed out front greeting the people, helping to clear their dishes, offering more water and just fellowshipping with them. One of the staffers, James, who assigned the jobs, told me they would love to have us back at any of the DRM sites. He said this particular site serves 10,000 meals a year (breakfast lunch and dinner every day.) I think all the kids understood the reward of serving those less fortunate. I can't wait to go back.

After our lunch service, my group headed over to an organization called The Hub of Detroit on Cass Avenue. This is a place that restores bikes and either sells them or gives them away. Even with little or no experience with fixing bikes, we definitely got our hands very dirty and actually fixed a few donated bikes.

To and from all of our ministry sites today we saw people in need. We were so happy that we had made all those extra lunches that we could hand out. I know in my car the kids would yell out, "Stop, there's someone who could use a lunch!" and I'd pull over so they could run out and say hello and offer a sandwich and sometimes a prayer. We met many many kind individuals today that we are praying for tonight.

Around 3:30, our group met back up at Fort Street, where we were going to eat dinner. Since we had some time, we walked past Cobo Hall to Hart Plaza, then all the way down the riverwalk to the carousel at the end. We had a few sack lunches left and tried hard to hand them out. We met some very interesting people as we were handing out our lunches. You might just hear about them Sunday, if not, you'll have to ask some of the kids (especially Jessica, she has a great story!) Also along the way we stopped and played in the fountains behind the Renaissance Center. At first the kids said they didn't want to get wet, but they were hot and the water looked so inviting..... next thing I knew.... Madeline was soaked (and proud of it!) It really cooled them off and they had fun playing.

Dinner at Fort Street was a little different than we've been experiencing this week. This week in Detroit there is an event going on called the US Social Forum. A Youth group from Minnesota joined us for dinner as well as a group from the Presbyterian Hunger program that has been on a journey called Heaven on Earth. They have been on a road trip that has encompassed 8 states, starting in Louisville and ending at the US Social Forum here in Detroit. So we had lots of extra people at dinner, plus, we ate dinner where they serve people at the Open Door Ministries, so that was cool.

After dinner, we had worship lead by some youth from Fort Street Church. I was sitting at the table with them at dinner and discovered one of the youth was from Plymouth and goes to Salem High School! We've been having lots of experiences like that this week. We keep running into people we know, or who have one or two degrees of separation. We are finding that we really are all connected, no mater where we are. After worship we heard form the Louisville group who spoke to us about their road trip, and their passion for using local food whenever possible and food justice projects. It was very interesting and we were invited to think about where our food comes from and who might be involved in that process.

The rest of the evening was showers, and longer sharing and reflecting during our devotional time since we are finished with the service portion of our week. We also prepared for our part of the worship service tomorrow morning at Fort Street and by the time that ended it was just about time for lights out!

Tomorrow we all meet at Fort Street for breakfast and then we will have a worship and closing service together. Our plan is to eat lunch downtown and go to the Detroit Science Center before we come back to Geneva for our own wrap up and closing ceremony.

I'll write one last blog tomorrow night (hopefully not at midnight, like it is now.) Until then, good night.