We left Marquette bright and early this morning (stopping at
Starbucks of course for Nancy)
This morning’s car ride was much quieter than yesterday’s.
Most of the morning the kids slept or read in the car while Jeff and I listened
to worship music. We arrived in Duluth at about 12:00 central time, and began
looking for a place to eat lunch. The lead car’s GPS (not ours) told them there
was a McDonalds not far, but it sure seemed far by the time we got there!
After lunch we said our good-byes to the high schoolers as
they went on their way to Red Lake Reservation (check out their blog at
genevaseniorhighs.blogspot.com - Mike will be posting…)
We had about 3 hours before we could check in at our
Youthworks site. Someone suggested a movie, and there just happened to be a
showing of Despicable Me 2 in about 5 minutes, about ½ mile away! So off we
went.
We all enjoyed the movie, but we still had about an hour to
kill so we went to Canal Park for a bit and walked around.
Once we checked in at our Youthworks site, we met the staff:
Mike, a recent graduate who would like a job in Youth Ministry; his wife
Rachel, beginning graduate studies in the fall; Macy, a college student and
Starbucks fan (I like her already!) and Kelly a student at Colorado State
University. The staff is warm and
friendly.
As soon as we unpacked and set up our sleeping areas the
girls, Brenna and Lindsey began playing cards with girls from another church
while we waited for dinner.
After dinner was adult leader orientation and youth
orientation. In the adult leader orientation, we learned how our church groups
were split up and what sites we’d be going to. At this orientation, I was
reminded that all mission trips aren’t ideal. That we don’t always get to do
what we want to do or have the experiences that we want to have, but that God
will be able to use us no matter what. I
found out that our group was not split evenly (or close to it) but into a
group with one leader and 5 youth and no other churches working with us, and
another group of one leader and 2 youth - working with another church. Part of
the reason I like mission trips is so our youth get to meet other kids, but for
5 of our youth, they’re going to have to meet and hang out with other kids not
during work time. The good news is we actually are traveling to our work sites
with another church (they are going to drop us off…) so I guess that’s
something.
Our crews are broken up into “Seek” - Nancy, Brenna,
Lindsey, Nathan, Luke and Louie and “Wicked”- Jeff, Zach and Alex (along with
some people from another church). “Seek”
will be hanging out Monday and Tuesday at Union Gospel Mission, primarily known
as a soup kitchen and food shelf. Wednesday and Thursday we’ll be at Chris
Jensen Rehabilitation Center, a nursing home and short-term rehab center. “Wicked”
will be working Monday and Tuesday with One Roof Community Housing, which is an
organization to promote and sustain home ownership in Duluth. On Wednesday and Thursday,
they’ll be at the Union Gospel Mission.
I can’t wait to see what God has in store for us this week.
Thank you for your continued prayers!!
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