Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Tuesday


Day 2! It’s still warm here, but we’re all making sure we are drinking lots of water.

Today our schedules were a bit different than usual. We usually work at our sites till about 3:00 when we stop for showers, then back to the church for free time before dinner. In the evenings after dinner we usually have an offsite evening activity before club time (worship/announcements/message.) Today, our ‘evening activity’ was really an afternoon activity so we only worked till 1:00 today.

The Ones spent the morning at a ministry next door to the church where we are staying. It’s called CAIN , which stands for Churches Active In Northside. (The area where we are staying is called Northside.) This ministry is a huge food pantry that was started by one woman in the late 1970s and now serves about 400 people each month. What’s really great about this food pantry is that instead of just handing bags of food to people in need, those people come in and actually pick out their own food. They are given choices to be able to feed themselves and their families in an empowering way. It was our pleasure to be able to help these people make healthy choices. Along with assisting in picking out and bagging food, we also helped unload the food, worked in their garden and helped in the storage rooms.

The Salts were back at Us Bank Boys and Girls Club. Their day was very similar to yesterday. The kids they worked with were the same as yesterday. They were excited to be back. The girls love Drew and Caitlin’s hair still; braiding Drew’s hair into lots and lots of braids. Jeff even got in the jump rope line and was pretty successful at it! The Salts are really pouring their love out to these boys and girls at the club.  They are practicing patience and understanding.

We went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center for a few hours before dinner. This was an amazing place. We had a great docent who showed us around, explaining many of the exhibits. To me, knowing that all this happened at all, let alone only 150 years ago is very moving. I think our youth also enjoyed this activity. Many of the kids enjoyed that they’d learned about it in school and then got to learn more about it. They said it was a really great experience.

We talked tonight about how we invested our time and talents today. These kids are really jumping out of their normal behavior this week, talking with adults, working with people that are challenging, and finding God in any of the mundane things they were doing.  I know I say this a lot, but I LOVE working with these kids. They are really wonderful disciples. I can’t wait to serve with them again tomorrow.

Thank you for your prayers.

(Sorry, no time to upload pictures today…)

Monday, July 30, 2012

Monday


Our First work day!

The Salts (Jeff, Caitlin and Drew and some people from Maryland) spent the day at US Bank Boys’ and Girls’ Club.

When the group first got there they played games with the kids like pool and Ping Pong.  After a while they went with the cadet group (6-8 year old kids) and watched some TV shows – after all, the weekly theme at the Boy’s and Girls’ club was TV!! Caitlin said there were about 25 cadets.  So far, this doesn’t sound like too much work!!

After the TV the group played a spelling game with the cadet kids until lunch. During lunch, they ate lunch with the kids at the club. After lunch was gym time, where they participated in relay races and basketball. Caitlin and Drew’s long hair was very popular with the girls at the club. They had as many as five girls at once braiding and playing with their hair! When they weren’t playing with their hair they were giving the kids piggyback rides. Both Caitlin and Drew said that some of the kids were heavy! The Salts will be going back every day this week.

While the Salts were at the Boys’ and Girls’ Club, the Ones (Nancy, Josh, Nathan, TJ, Jessica, Alex and Louie) went to the Price Hill Community Center. We split up at first, Nancy, Louie, TJ, and Josh spent the morning weeding part of their vegetable garden. It was very hot! The kids did a really great and thorough job of pulling up weeds (by their roots!) While they were weeding, Jessica, Alex and Nathan organized a big walk-in supply closet for the day camp program. They organized games and art supplies and a lot of things. They finished a little bit before lunch so they went outside and helped the other group finish up an area of weeding for about 20 minutes. After lunch we all got to help out with the day camp program. These kids were 5-12 years old. We did some art projects with them and went outside and played with them until it was time for their lunch at 2:00. We had a little time left before showers so we cleaned up the kitchen area in the community center before we took showers at 3:00.  Tomorrow the Ones will be going to a new place…. Stay tuned!



I think we all had a pretty good day of service. Right now, the kids are enjoying some free time: some playing cards with kids from another church, and some learning a new game (though the Salts have dinner prep tonight….) After dinner tonight we will be travelling to the Purple People Bridge to hang out. It should be fun. Our kids are already making friends with kids from other churches!

Your support is so much appreciated. These youth are already growing in Christ, making new friends and serving  the community of Cincinnati. We appreciate your continued prayers. 

Sunday, July 29, 2012

We're Here!

We made it to warm and sunny Cincinnati! W had a 'boys' car' and 'girls' car' on the way down, and we stopped for lunch at pizza hut about half way. The church we are staying at is full of hallways and little rooms, and while we got a tour when we first arrived, we're still trying to figure it all out. There are 63 (I think) people here. The sleeping rooms are full and warm!

We've already been challenged here. While we were hoping to be split up evenly, 2 groups of 4, each with an adult. God had other plans (or Youthworks did anyway.) We were challenged to split our group into 2 groups- one with 2 youth and one adult (along with another church) and one with 6 youth and one adult, and no other church. We also had the challenge that the group with 2 people had to have youth 13 or over (in order to work with kids at a boys and girls center. We've met our first challenge and created these groups: The Ones consists of Joshua, Nathan, Alex, Louie, TJ, Jessica and Nancy;  The Salts consists of Caitlin and Drew with Jeff.

The staff here is terrific! Our site director is Kati, who seems like she's got it all together and is very understanding. The service staff are Megan and Sean (by the way, any Washington DC mission trip alumni reading this-- they both know Shawn!) and the program staffer is Lestan. He gave an awesome message about Love tonight. I don't know how he's going to top it tomorrow!!

Another challenge is that our leader meetings aren't right before dinner, they are at 6:45 AM! Ideally this will give us more free time after our work day before dinner, but it means our youth have to be able to get up and get ready and make it to breakfast on their own!

We know that although this isn't the situation we'd hoped for, we will still be rewarded this week. We are all excited and anxious to start serving tomorrow and waiting to see what God has in store for us.

We appreciate all your prayers  as we work here in Cincinnati, we are blessed to have such a wonderfully supportive congregation that allows us to have these awesome opportunities of mission.