Today the youth of Geist Christian Church woke up at 7:00am. We made our own breakfast before heading out for our adventure! Our pit stop was to The Contributor, a newspaper that employs people experiencing homelessness giving them an opportunity to own their own business. There we moved old newspapers out and brought new ones inside. After work we went to the Parthenon at Centennial Park and saw a statue of Athena that was really big, really tall, and really shiny. She is the goddess of war and she had a big shield with a weird face on it (it’s tongue was sticking out), a spear, and a snake. 

After lunch we headed downtown to the Nashville Library. There we met Lindsey and Terry from Open Table Nashville. We spent the afternoon walking around the streets and talking about how much the community has changed and pushed people who are experiencing homelessness out. They have taken out benches and made laws that make it a felony to sleep outside. They have basically taken rights away from people experiencing homelessness. Then we played some games to put things into perspective. The first game showed us how it might feel like to be homeless and how lucky we are to have the families and resources that we have. The second game was a version of musical chairs that showed us how people can get their homes and resources taken away by increased prices and developers. 

To wrap our day of working we got ice cream at Bobby’s Dairy Dip and went back to make dinner for Taco Tuesday!! It was a great day! (we had a taco stuffed animal mascot provided by Laila)

Brenna (8th grade): Today, I woke up peacefully. I made myself some breakfast, and some lunch. We got on the bus. Then we dropped the boys off to help prep food at Luke 14:12, a nonprofit here in Nashville. After we got to the destination we saw a dog named Wrigley. Then we headed to Safe Haven, a shelter home for families experiencing homelessness. We moved school supplies into the van. After we got to the destination we unloaded. After we unloaded all the school supplies we reloaded the van with housing stuff for a family. After that, we went to go get the boys. On todays mission I learned that stereotypes about people experiencing homelessness are not true at all.

Laila (8th grade): Today I woke up to Lion King theme song next we all got ready and hit the road the bus was super fun I learned a lot about homeless work and a lot of cool thing I didn’t know before after all that we came home and talked about pray partners and then just talked afterwards.

Taylor (sophomore in college): Today was our first day in Nashville. We started our day with dropping the boys off at a food pantry while the rest of us headed to Souls for Soles to collect school supplies to take back to Safe Haven. One packed in the van we headed back to safe haven and unloaded the van, and then reloaded the van with more housing supplies. We then picked up the boys from their mission, and brought them back to Safe Haven. We then did some more stuff there and spent some time digging deeper into homelessness and learning some personal stories from people who have experienced homelessness through watching a video. We then spent some time outside, and went back to the church to eat a meal provided by Woodland Christian Church. I’m looking forward to the ways we can help the community in Nashville, and am hoping to build better connections this week and see God through our mission.

To start off the day we had french toast sticks for breakfast, which were provided by the camp for us. Then we drove roughly 30 min to the theme park, Adventureland, listening to Jackson’s playlist he made which was very good. (Btw it was very fun). First when we got to the theme park (that had a bit of a reputation) we did a few rollercoasters as a group. Then we split off in 2 groups. The first 1 was Sam, Ella, Dave, Katie, and Abby. Group 2 was Nick, Lindsey, Jackson, Ashlyn, and Lauren. So both groups rode so rides and then we eat lunch. After that we went to the water park, which is where the theme park got its reputation. We stayed in our groups pretty much the rest of the time and we went to a race slide that Nick and Jackson won every time. Then we eat a burger joint that took over an hour to get the food and when we did it was devoured almost immediately. The food was very good but we wish we had gotten it sooner. To end the we went to get rolled ice cream provided by Sam’s mom. Then went to bed. The End.

The church camp that where we are staying and working, the Christian Conference Center, has been building and painting chairs all summer as part of their summer camp theme, “building more chair at the table” Today we painted a chair to represent our group and Geist Christian Church. We made it a minion and added pickles (in honor of the HUGE jar of pickles bought at the beginning of the week) and our names on the back. We sealed the other chairs to make them waterproof. Then we helped clean the Chi Rho villages. We swept cabins, put curtains on rods, hung up tarps, and set windows up for rods to get hung up. Later some of us dug/worked on a trench while the others helped clean off the trails. We cooked dinner ourselves outside in one of the villages. We grilled hamburgers and then had dinner with the camp interns. After that we went to the lake and Sam ~attempted~ to play some of the games, but ultimately failed. We ended the day with devotional.

This morning we pulled weeds on the camp’s putt putt course; many bruises were formed from the monstrous weeds. After that we tore down an old shed in the back of a full time employee’s home and deconstructed the screened-in patio to prep it to be re-screened. We broke for lunch (corn dogs and jello, a fan favorite) and headed back to finish our demo project. To get the shed down we had to attach it to the ATV and dragged it out of its corner, and in riveting turn of events the shed came down with little issues. During the tear down we were discarding some trash and discovered a small chipmunk living inside an old gutter. We ended with some ice cream and volleyball in the pool. Our day didn’t go by without a few injuries from rusty nails and dehydration, but we all made it out okay in the end. After dinner we had an exciting round of bowling and headed back for our evening devotion. In our devotional we discussed and visualized the importance of community and nature and how it is all connected to our faiths. To end the night we had a late night snack of pickles, with a few anti-pickle remarks.

Our first day working started off strong with a good breakfast provided by the camp. After breakfast we got together and talked through our morning devotional before we got down and dirty for the day. The work day started off at 9am at the infamous black hole; moving old paint, wood scraps, brick, and metal. Clearing space out and making the camp grounds look nicer and removing unwanted junk that they didn’t need. And after lunch we headed back into the woods to clean up and get the cabins ready for camps happening in the coming weeks. One group stayed at the cabins to hang up curtains and prep the cabin windows. The other group took trips in the back of the camp’s pickup truck to grab mattresses and chairs that needed to be moved to the cabins. The group got mattress surf down some stairs… because it was obviously the most efficient way to get the mattresses down. While working all day we saw an assortment of bugs and animals including: spiders, beetles, wasps, mice, baby mice, a bat, frog, and deer. So you could say it was an eventful day of work. To end our day of work we went to see Minions: Rise of Gru and then came back to eat dinner and go swimming in the lake. We were cut short with our time in the lake due to roaring winds from the incoming storm. Our night was spent in the storm shelter playing cards and doing our nightly devotion rapping up the day.

On Monday we started the drive around 9 am. Three hours into the drive we stopped at Culver’s and got some lunch. After that we played a game for the rest of the ride down to the camp. We all joined a playlist group on Spotify, in this game we all had to add a song to the playlist that fit into a category that was chosen by someone on the bus. We spent the majority of the rest of the ride singing songs and adding them to the playlist. When we got to Newton we went to the store and split up in groups to buy food for dinner. We also bought a foam football that we have used a-lot so far! We got to the cabin and started to make dinner. After we ate we all got to play games. We played volleyball and corn hole. Lindsey and Jackson fished while Nick and Lauren beat everyone in corn hole. After we played games at the cabin we went down to play putt putt. After putt putt we had devotion and communion. We ended the night playing clue and then went to sleep!

Hey y’all, I’m Hailey and I just graduated from Mt. Vernon High School so this is my last mission trip as a youth! Our last day of service here in Fort Worth, Texas started out with us going to the Water Garden for some interesting sight seeing and to talk about the things we could possibly do to continue our work her back at home. Then we headed over to help the folks at DRC Solutions distribute food to the residents in their apartments. There we met some very nice people and some even came back just to chitchat with us! After that we went back to the Refugees Services of Texas’ clubhouse to throw a party for the neighborhood kids. Next we ventured over to Neighborhood Needs to help out DeWitt in the Neighborhood Needs Community Garden. Then we ended our day with Fuzzy’s Tacos and devotion at the Modern Art Museum. An overall packed day but it feels good to be done, looking forward to our fun day tomorrow and all that it brings! And as Crystal would say, “have a good day, make good choices!”

The day started off bright and early at 7:00 a.m. Everyone had a delicious breakfast to begin the morning off right. The first activity of the day was right outside at the church’s community garden. We managed to pull some weeds out of the ground, pick some cherries and peas, shoveling some mulch, and cutting some tarp to put on the ground. Right after that, we managed to have some lunch and take a nice break in the air conditioning. After we settled and got cleaned up, we did our second activity of the day with the Refugee Services of Texas. The youth were separated into groups. The first group went out and did some grocery shopping for a refugee family of 13 people. This adventure took them to a Halal Meat Market where they met Hassan, the shop owner, who helped the group get the right cut meat to make the family feel at home. The other group went and delivered gifts for parents who have recently given birth or parents who are expecting. This group got to meet a few babies and some wonderful families After a long day of working, we headed back to the church to have some dinner provided by Sam’s parents. Today was an impactful day for all of us and we hope that tomorrow will be a fun last day working with refugees.

Today we woke up to meet at 7:15 and prepared for our day by watching videos about the places we were going and a video teaching us the differences between empathy and sympathy. Then we headed over to Neighborhood Needs, a local food pantry that provides people with groceries on Tuesdays and Saturdays. We packed carts full of different groceries and then pushed them out to the cars. I (Corinne) got the task of pushing a cart full of toys around to give out to parents and kids, a very fun experience to help parents choose the right toy for their children. We finished up at the food pantry after 3 hours of volunteering and getting to bring food out to people and talk to them. Then we headed over to a great picnic lunch at Clearfork next to the Trinity River in Fort Worth!

Our afternoon focused on a presentation on advocacy. We listened to a representative from Church World Services, Ayesha Hassan, talk about how we can help refugees by using our voices and we put the advocacy into practice. We wrote letters and emails, and even called senators to advocate for the FY23 refugee admissions goal. We were advocating to raise the goal to 200,000 refugees. This evening we ate some delicious brisket and mac n cheese. Following our meal we competed in a bake off. The two teams went to Tom Thumb and bought out supplies. The two dishes made were a naughty brownie and an apple puff pastry. After a tough competition, the judges were at a draw on deciding who won so it was a tie!