Day 1 of Service!

The Can-Do Missions theme for the week focuses on how Jesus is the light of the world....

Today was a great first day of service! Our day started at 6 am, then 7 am was breakfast (eggs, sausage, biscuits with gravy, and grits...yum!). We had "orientation" and met Emily(director of volunteer relations), Kathy Wendling (who assigns us to our Human care sites) & Walt (the construction supervisor). They are all amazing examples of servants!

Then James & Mitch were nice enough to make all of our sandwiches for lunch, while Amelia and Anna packed our snacks :) Mack & Skarda made sure we stayed hydrated by filling our Igloo for the day! We kidnapped Alyssa (the intern) and were off to the Community Center of St. Bernard, located in St. Bernard Parish. Please take a minute to check out their website...the founder is from NH, but more importantly it has an amazing story!!! www.ccstb.org

The Community Center offers MANY different things to the people of St. Bernard Parish & the surrounding areas, including a food pantry and clothing center where people can get all items for FREE! This area was SEVERELY impacted by Katrina, & the BP oil spill....with most monthly family incomes now being around $800 per month!

The teams first task was setting up the food pantry which included setting up shelves and filling them with food (which the boys did most of the stocking of the shelves). The girls worked hard at setting up the clothing center outside, and in one of the trailers shown below (the one on the right).

Mitch, James, and Mack were given the task of cleaning out a freezer that had broke a couple days ago and was storing A LOT of meat...not a fun task, but it had to be done. They worked beside Joe, the food pantry assistant, who was the one emptying the freezer's meat. The boys did a great job! :)

Jordan, Skarda, and Alyssa worked inside the food pantry, helping people "cash out", and carrying items to their vehicle (if they had one). The were poster children for "service with a smile!"

Claire was successfully picked up from the airport, and was able to serve with us at the Community Center for a couple hours, and jumped right into the task of sorting clothing! We were joined by a youth group from Seattle (I think...I missed that part of the conversation, LOL!). Together we sorted clothing for about 2 hours....it was a lot of work, and we were really sweaty after (it was easily 110 degrees today!), but we made it fun!

We drank lots of water throughout the day, applied sunscreen, and had a great time serving at the community center! :) We came back to camp and relaxed a little before dinner; which was one of cook Lorriane's yummy homemade classics, red beans & rice! It was really yummy! After dinner, we came together for group reflection and devotions. (talk one of us to hear what we talked about!), followed by worship @ 8 pm. Peter gave a great message about how important it is to focus on Jesus, not all the worldly things that appear to bring happiness...it went perfect with our day!

Tomorrow is an early start, we need to be gone by 7:30 am...to go meet with the kids at the local Head Start program! We'll need all the sleep we can get to keep up with the 3-5 year olds! So good night everyone, and thank you for keeping us in your prayers!