Check out a few pictures from our mission trip!

Click here

Wednesday, July 11
Today we spent the day in one spot for the first time, other than a few side trips for Austyn and Brandon. We set up shop to scrap and paint a family’s garage. First we had to cut back some flowers and weeds and bag them up. Then we got to the scraping. Wow did that take a long time! The kids worked hard and kept at it and it just took forever. But we got it done. After the ice cream truck rolled through we had a little more energy and finished it off. The painting didn’t take too long. One of the moms stopped by with cold drinks which was very sweet!
We cleaned up all the supplies and were waiting for the trailer to load everything when the kids decided to line dance. The neighbors seem to enjoy the show. After everything was loaded up we had a stop at Pinkey’s Shuga Shop for yet another dessert. But it was very tasty and nice to support a local bakery, and the kids line danced again with the bakery staff!
After showers and dinner we had devotions all about “Building Together” and how it takes many hands to re-build and build up the city.
Then we headed out to the Eastern Market area to visit Omni Corps – a space for techies and creatives of all kinds – our kids LOVED this place! They got to make things, learn things, meet very interesting people. It was a great evening.
Another great day – 2 more work days to go!!

Thursday July 12
The week is starting to catch up with us in terms of energy level, but these kids just keep pushing through! We tackled a few different job sites today – our home base for the day was another garage job, but twice different groups went to other sites for yard work and another garage. It was another gorgeous day, although I suspect it got a little hotter that the last 3 days.
Lots and lots of laughter today -Mark the intern from Motown Mission is full of ridiculous riddles and our kids know some real groaner jokes. It helps pass the time 🙂
After work today, we headed to Mexican town for another stop on our bakery tour, as well as some more flashmob dancing and to check out the pedestrian bridge over 96. We also stopped at the old train station for some dancing, and Brandon and Austyn met an older homeless man who shared some of his life stories with them. At devotions that night, Brandon shared that experience with everyone, starting it off with “We stopped there to flashmob, because, well that’s what we do.”
Our kids have been on set up or clean up of every meal since we got here and have done an amazing job. No complaints!
Our devotions tonight were about Jesus walking on the water and the storms that come into our lives that shake us up. The kids talked a lot about what the storms are in their lives especially as they go home from an experience like this.
Such a great group – one more day!!

Friday, July 13
Last day on the work site! We spent the whole day on one block, scraping, priming and painting a garage and scraping and caulking windows. Everyone did a great job today – these guys worked really hard!
At the end of the work day our student leaders presented their paperplate awards to Karen and Carl from Rippling Hope, the organization we had worked with all week. I think they liked them. After our work day was through we hit the local McDonalds and headed back to Metro UMC to realx a bit before dinner. We had dinner and devotions and then we met up in the library to have our closing session together. Paperplate awards from the student leaders produce much laughter and our closing affirmations often produce tears. But both speak to the week we have shared – the work we have done and the fun we have had.
Tomorrow morning we head home – it will take about 20 minutes, making this trip our best idea ever 🙂

Thanks for reading! Pictures will be coming soon!