Today was are last day of Mission trip work day today! It was such a fun time but I am going to talk about today. First I woke up with a great amount of sleep but I was still exhausted. I got up changed and then ate a pop tart for breakfast. Then we went across the street to work. We did a lot of things like cleaning the kitchen cooking and working outside to get all of the plants. After lunch we went back made meals for less fortunate citizens. We gave them out and some people had an amazing personality that kept me going. We got done and played kick ball and I almost got hit so many times😂. Then we went out for ice cream and Miriam’s grandparents were super nice and payed for our stuff. We came back had fun upstairs and we got ready for bed chatted and went to bed.

-Lila Dietrich

The day has been amazing. When I woke I got breakfast, which was a donut. After that I got ready and then went to the church to help out. Ava, Harper, and me started cleaning where the plates were. We finished then we had to do more work which was outside. It wasn’t very hot so it was nice. After a while we went inside had lunch and hung out. I had a jelly sandwich and some M&Ms. It was good and it got better. We started hanging out with kids and cooking food for people in need. Everyone was really happy and so was I!! After 4 hours we had dinner that Kate and Pam made for us. It was really good!! I loved it!! We played more at the house (kick ball). Till it started raining. I didn’t play because I fell and literally killed my back. After the game we got ice cream! My grandparents bought all of us the ice cream. I love them. Then we hung out for a couple hours. That was my day!!

-Miriam Brown

Today on the mission trip we started they day working at the church cleaning the kitchen after we finished we cleaned up the landscaping then ate some lunch at the house. After we had finished lunch we went to help at with food and gave it out and finally to finish up we played an intense game of kickball then got ice cream.

-Libby Dixon

Yesterday was a blast!

Yesterday we went to the Carnegie Theater and helped sort books and clean up the place, and after that we had a WHOLE DAY to ourselves! We spent this time first by eating lunch, then going on a hike! We saw a bunch of amazing things (and we kinda sorta went through a tunnel we didn’t mean to go through…twice.) After that we had pizza and then went to target to gather supplies for a bake-off! During this time the team full of boys played Euchre, and one other boy along with all the girls baked in the kitchen while dancing to music. Overall, the boys had the best tasting food, but everyone one different awards for their dish. It was a BLAST last night!

-Simon Smith

Day three of the our mission trip. We went to Carnegie center. We cleaned and sorted books. Ally, Sam, Libby, and Braydon all went downstairs with Taylor. We cleaned all the tables, whiteboards, and other things. We played a game of ping pong with the little whiteboards. After that we all went home and eat lunch. Then we got on the bus and drove to the hiking place. It was a 1 hour drive. We got there and realized that we went the wrong way. The view was beautiful thought. Then we had another bus ride to the right place. We hiked to the top of the mountain and took a lot of pictures. After that we went to a pizza place and got pizza. The boys played basketball in the rain and the girls watched and did other things. We got the pizza and ran to the bus in the rain. We drove to target and got stuff for our bake off. The boys went outside and the girls were downstairs singing. It was so fun. And that was the end of the day pretty much.

-Ally Berfield

Disclaimer: This donut was not left on trail, we did bring it home with us.

Today for our Tuesday adventure we started the day off early by going to Chrysalis House. There we cleaned the kitchen and scraped the ground, under the serving line. It was a good experience to see how everything worked and how they are helping out to many women . We came back for a break and went to Nathaniel Mission and made food boxes for seniors and made cute cards for them. We also helped pick up trash around their campus and had a good time! We had a special delivery from Pastor Kyle with dinner, the Kentucky staple: Ale 8! We then came back and went mini putt-putting, super fun! Our day was very fun and adventurous! I loved seeing how these places can provide all of this stuff to people how great!

-Harper Riesterer

So today we were up early and ready for the day, first we went to the chrysalis house cleaned the kitchen, had some fun. But then we went outside to shovel mulch yipee! We were out there working our butts off to help, some outstanding helpers were, me of course, Corey taught me and some other kids how to trim the bushes and really pulled his weight shoveling the mulch, everyone did a great job all day.

-Braydon Kerr

Braydon, being an outstanding helper as stated above.

Yesterday we arrived after a three hour bus ride. Today we went to the Living Art Museum and we saw lots of animals and took fun pictures. Then in the afternoon we went to Riding for Hope and helped clean horse stalls and got to pet and learn how to lead a horse it was a great experience and lots of fun.

-Ava Gulden

So today we went to an art museum then we came back and ate lunch. I had a grilled cheese made by Corey, the best driver ever.
Then we went to a horse farm and scooped dukes for 4 hours (edit from Sam: we were there for a total of 3 hours and only spent 1.5 hour cleaning out the stalls and the rest of the time we hung out with the horses) then we ate dinner and did a lip singing thing and I should have won but whatever.
And tomorrow the group’s “go” word is gunna be purple elephants (I hope.)

The end thx for your time.

-Braden Longest

“I’ll nap here…. y’all have fun.” -Harper

Note from Sam: Sorry, this post is a couple days late. Really I just wasn’t ready to admit that our trip was over.

Kenzie (8th grade): On Friday we went to Country Music Hall of Fame. There was a Taylor Swift room and of course we were in there the longest. Then we recorded T Swift songs. Below or above is one of the recordings. Some of us got things at the gift shop. The church treated us to Jeni’s ice cream. Then we had lunch back at the house. We got to the lake and it was amazing. We skipped rocks, raced, showed our swimming off, TikTok’s, and much more. We sadly had to leave. Then we went to a book store for more souvenirs. We picked up Hattie B’s hot chicken for dinner. We all did our cleaning jobs. Then a quick round of catch phase and Mao. Dominic taught us officially how to play Mao. Then we headed to bed. We found out who the sleep talker was during the night but what happens on the mission trip stays on the mission trip. We woke up and packed the bus and started the journey back home. Before leaving the city we made a couple stops the first of which was to visit our friend, Walter, and pick up some copies of the current issue of the Contributor. Then Heather and Christina treated us to Five Daughter Donuts. Then back on the bus we are. BeReal update above or below. Overall best trip ever thanks to Sam, Taylor, and Dominic.

Laila (8th Grade): So my day started of getting up at 8 (we got to sleep in!)and then after that we ate breakfast and went to the Vandeerbilt campus. After went back home to say bye to Brenna sadly:( After that we went to Shower the People and tie dye! Last but not least we went to Safe Haven to pack school supplies!!

Kenzie (8th Grade): We all sadly had to say goodbye to our amazing Brenna. Today we went to Shower the People and tie dyed towels for people experiencing homelessness. I filed up bottles of tie dye and brought them outside to everyone. I love how we all got to use our creativeness on the towels. After that we headed back to our house and ate lunch. We went to Safe Haven and organized and carried school supplies. They had yummy pizza for us for dinner then we continued with organizing. We got on the bus and had our necessary Target run. Then got back to the house and had devotions. We all ended the night with some chores and then hit the hay. Update on BeReal above or below.

Taylor (College Sophomore): Taylor: Day 4! Today we woke up and had the morning free so some stayed back and others went to Vandy. After that we all went to Shower the People to tie dye towels for people experiencing homelessness. After that we went to Safe Haven to finish our day sorting school supplies. We ate dinner there and had some nice conversations. Came back and had a good devotion. It was a good day!

Kenzie (8th grade): We started off to day at the Contributor by serving breakfast to people that experience homelessness. I had the chance to be able to get to know a few of the people working for the Contributor that experience homelessness. We hopped in the bus and headed to the warehouse called Shower the People. We organized shower and hygiene products. We then headed to Mother to Mother where some of us folded baby clothes and sorted them. Others (me included) were carrying boxes and bins full of anything you could think of for a new mothers to load onto trucks to take to the community. I thought it was so amazing how so many people were dropping off donations while we were there for only around 3 hours. One fun thing I would like to share with you all is our BeReals on the trip. Let me explain what is first. It’s an app that gives you a random notification during the day to take a picture from the front and back of your camera. It’s a fun app to see what everyone is up to during the day. Down below are our BeReals so far. Today and this trip has been such a great experience and I’m excited to see what Thursday brings for us all.

Selena (8th grade): Today in the morning we went to the Contributor, and that is a newspaper where people experiencing homelessness were the vendors. We served breakfast, while they had one of their first vendor meetings after Covid. After that we went to the warehouse of Shower the People, and we helped them sort and pack hygiene kits and dental kits. When we finished our lunch on the go, we went to Mother to Mother where they give supplies to low income moms for them and their children. During our Connect time with Hope, we talked about how when you are connected and you do something, everyone you’re connected to is affected by your actions. While we were still connected with the string we made a map of our area, and while we did that we looked for ties to Nashville.

Sam (7th grade): What I found exiting was talking to people experiencing homelessness. I liked listening to their stories and how they are. A card game I found exiting was the game Mao, it’s a really fun game.

Dominic (College Sophomore): So we definitely had an interesting day today for the mission trip. After waking up 30 minutes late and having to rush out of the church, I was positive that the youth would be dead tired, unenthusiastic, and overall not happy to be there, but they proved the opposite. It was amazing to watch the youth jump into their work serving breakfast to the vendors working for the street paper The Contributor, and just forming connections with everyone they met. Afterwards, we took a quick trip over to Shower the People, and organization which focuses on delivering hygiene and dental products to people on the streets experiencing homelessness, as well as providing a place to shower and get cleaned up in a converted bus which now holds 2 functional showers. Although it was slightly tedious, the group worked hard organizing various hygiene products so other groups could put them into the care packages which would be distributed.  Our final stop of the day was Mother to Mother, a group which accepts and redistributes products for mothers including diapers, toys, clothes, etc, where we worked for a few hours and filled an entire van and U-Haul with supplies for a trip they are taking tomorrow. To end the day, the group did an exercise in which we were all connected with a piece of yarn, and then drew a map of our home and church to show the importance and consequence of connection. It was a long, worked filled day, with lots of heavy lifting and sweating, but these youth stepped up, even under the circumstances, and took the challenge to heart and did some truly incredible work.

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.