Sunday, August 2, 2009

On Sunday, we attended worship at Calvary together. Many of the kids commented that they missed worshiping at home! Our week is beginning to wind down, but there is still so much to do. After worship we made stepping stones. The assignment was to collect things through the week that would remind them of their experience and the gifts that God has given them. The guys took on the job of mixing the cement….oh, by the way, we had to go to Home Depot (a mission trip is never complete without at least one trip to Home Depot, it is a rule!) to get cement mix, a trawl, cement forms, and a tub to mix it all in. We also got some glass stones and trinkets that they could put in the cement. It was fun to watch the process that everyone went through to make their stones. Dave wants to keep his on his desk, as a paper weight I guess.
We hurried and ate a quick lunch and met Shawn Franklin from Calvary. Shawn organizes the monthly trip to Baltimore to work with Helping Hands. She and her family led us to our worksite in inner city Baltimore. We arrived and set up our table. Shawn brought bananas. Bananas are a popular item on the table because many of the people have bad teeth and tender gums, and foods like apples are hard to eat. We made bags to distribute that had pudding cups, socks, snacks, tooth brushes, tooth paste, and other assorted toiletries.
Helping Hands was started ten years ago when a 9 year old girl saw people living on the street and decided to do something about it. She started with getting her family to make sandwiches to take to the street. When they couldn’t keep up they asked neighbors and churches to help out. Today she is in college and continues her passion to feed the homeless in Los Angeles.
Last week they had served over two hundred people. This week was down some, but we still gave away just shy of two hundred bags. The kids said they were touched by the people and enjoyed being able to talk with them.
We had planned to go to Washington to see the monuments, but as usually happens; there are more choices than time. The group voted to go to a seafood restaurant called the Cracked Crab in Frederick, MD. As it turned out it was the better choice. We were all disappointed that we didn’t walk the mall, but there was a downpour when we would have been there.
The restaurant was wonderful. We had a chance to taste some Pennsylvania Dutch style food, specifically apple butter and cottage cheese, yumm! Everything was really good! We recommend the Cracked Crab for your dining pleasure.We returned to the church for the ‘wedding’. There was romance on the trip. Kyle and Maggie developed a connection when they both jumped off the swing set and ripped their pants. Kyle decided then and there that Maggie was his soul mate. There was a bachelor party and even a bachelorette party. There were bridesmaids, flower girls, a photographer, and even a stand in Father of the Bride. In the end the bride ran off and the groom was in hot pursuit of the flower girl at the wedding dance….why waste a good band, right? It was all in good fun and we all laughed and laughed.