Wednesday started off just like every other day, woke up early, dressed, teeth, hair, etc. Then upstairs for custy breakfast, then packing lunch, then packing vans then in for morning devos. We were all kind of in the hang of it by now considering we had kind of reached our mid-way point of the week. We all gathered back in the youth room and did our devos. I think the book that they gave us is such an awesome thing, because I know a lot of people struggle with finding ways to spend time or focus themselves on Christ, but this devotional book was just the neatest thing because I've had ones like these that they'd give us from camp when I was 8 or something, but these were books that our youth pastors were using as well. In our devo books, we were learning about reacting differently to situations were put in, and how to deal with them in a Godly way. There was a page in the book that was to be torn out, but on that page we had to write a problem we were dealing with, more specifically a problem we were having with someone. Then everyone would put their sheet in a basket and when we were done devos, we'd all take a sheet and pray for that person throughout the day. It was a cool idea. But there was an awkward number so I ended up without a sheet because I volunteered to go without. But it felt really cool knowing that someone was praying for my exact problem. But that led me to wondering how people would react if they knew that they were being prayed for, especially my non-Christian friends. It was kind of interesting.
Anyways, Team Jim had to re-meet up with Erin to find out what we were doing today because our schedule got changed half way through the week. We were done with Manor Care and Work Projects and were now moving on to Silence of Mary. Now we pretty much knew nothing about the Silence of Mary other than there was a lady who had a dog who has really big balls. This was had learned from the group that was there the past 2 days. Anyways, we were only briefly explained to about what this was and I guess the simplest way to put it is one lady who runs a bunch of homeless shelters, but it's so much more than that. It is one woman named Sue who has lived her whole life a Christian and when she was growing up, there was no poor, there was no hungry, there were no needy people; everyone was taken care of. And that's just how she lived so she continued to do that. Now something must be clear here, she is one lady. All on her own, no government support, no money coming in that she makes herself, nothing. Everything she does is either on her own or by way of donation. So what she does is basically takes in the homeless. She takes in those who are disabled, mentally challenged, sick, pregnant, orphaned, anything. And she makes them apart of her family. They aren't just clients, they are her legit family. She feeds them, gives them a bed, gives them a home, takes them to the doctors. These people are part of the family. So she basically has 8 different houses which she owns all around Harrisburg and she turns them into homes for these people. It's really cool.
So today we were just going to her house, Sue's direct house, where she and her husband live with one of the family members, Jody. And Jody is only there for a short time because she's getting ready to move out back on her own again after a terrible fire that occurred before. Because Sue does so much with her organization, she rarely does anything at all for herself. Basically today was going to spent helping her out around her house. She has quite a beautiful farm property. The first thing we did when we got there was go up this big hill with very heavy shovels and pile mounds of rocks into the back of a trailer so Sue could bring it down to patch up the holes in her driveway. She was afraid that because it was so rickety and broken up because of floods, if someone was to come to her in the middle of the night looking for shelter, they may fall and hurt themselves, so it was her goal to patch up the driveway. While we were shovelling, I got to talk to her a lot about her story which was really awesome to hear. She's around somewhere over 50 and the way she knows and talks about God is like she's just discovered Him for the very first time. She has such a passion for what she does and she's been doing it her whole life and can't imagine doing anything differently. It's just such an inspiration.
We did a variety of different jobs around the farm that day. When we were doing it, it really didn't seem like we were doing a lot but looking back, we got so much accomplished. We were able to pile all the rocks up, stain a chair, put the doors back on a newly furnish cabinet, cut down trees and bring the wood down to stack in the wood pile, refill all her laundry detergents and softeners, plant over 30 types of herbs as well as cut the grass and plant some bushes. The grass was very interesting. It was myself, Maddie and Mark who decided that we would take on the job. The grass that she had was up to my hips. MY hips, and if you know me, you know how long my legs are. It was insane. So when we cut this grass we didn't use a lawn mower. Oh no, we used something that I don't even know the name of. It was basically like a double ended saw attached to a pole, if that makes any sense. So we basically used them like a baseball bat swinging at the ground like it was bloody murder. It was wonderful. Now obviously we couldn't destroy the whole property so once we cleared out a good chunk of grass, we dug a hole with a shovel and a pix axe. Then we planted some Japanese plant that was very invasive, so the plan is that it will take over all the other grass and turn it into the plant that will flower and look pretty therefore they never have to worry about cutting the grass again. It was all very fun. Plus Becky came by and said hello around lunch and we all stayed and ate together in this little shack Sue had. It was fun. Our whole group had worn our Pocket Change apparel today so we were interrogated a lot about it, it was nice.
After saying good bye to Jody and Sue, we headed off to the Y for our daily showers. Somehow the guys managed to get in the pool, but we decided to just stick to the showers. After this, as per usual, Springvale kids went to Target. However this time we decided to drive, oh boy. Alex sped all the way into the plaza and then looped around the back of the store driving like a maniac the whole time, we were screaming and dancing and had our hands up in the air falling out of the seats, it was all good. And then we managed to park the van in a away that it took up 6 parking spots. Very nice looks from other customers and staff. After that exciting adventure, we headed back to the church for yet another stomach curdling dinner. After this, instead of having CLUB, we mixed it up a bit and went to our event first, then deciding to have CLUB afterward. But it wasn't really going to be CLUB, the past 2 days we had been talking about what we could do to show the Youthworks staff how much we appreciated them so we were going to do that for them tonight in CLUB. For our event we went to a youth group. Kind of like a Sr.High sort of deal. But we were told to dress nice. And by them saying nice, everyone started to dress like they were going out to dinner at some fancy place downtown. I mean, this is youth. But seeing everyone look so nice made everyone question whether or not they should change. Kat and I were walking down the stairs when two girls were debating whether or not they should change and Kat just said 'No, you look beautiful' and the girl responded with 'It's funny you say that, because I just went in my mail bag and found this' and she pulled out my note. I was so happy. So I just smiled and told her it was because it was true. I never found out who got the other ones but I was so happy that she got it and I found out that she got it and it made her day.
It was really sweet. I mean just walking in, you felt awesome and happy and loved and it's so incredible that they can set up the atmosphere like that. They facility was huge and so cool, they had a legit stage and technicoloured lights and mics and a sound system, nothing different than what we have, it was just set up like a concert. We started praise and worship, but it was a little strange because they wrote their own songs and they were really long, so none of us really knew the words to any of them. Half way through one of the songs, I bailed to go to the washroom, but I never re-entered the scene. When I came back I just sat down behind one of the pillars beside the huge group of everyone else. One of the student leaders of the youth came and talked to me to check and see if I was okay, I just told him I was feeling sick, which was true. He prayed for me and then went along and ended up semi-speaking. I kept listening to the songs. But my mind was just running wild. Then the speaker came up and started talking, it did partially confuse me how he started with 'Holy crap that was some good worship.' I guess it just threw me off, but what he was saying was really cool. He talked about hearing the voice of God and how He's always speaking, it just depends whether or not we're listening. As much as I'd really like to have what he said resonate with me, I was on the verge of a mental breakdown. Everyone stood up to leave and was saying good bye and giving hugs and I just sat there, until I actually had to stand up, then Schrep saw me and asked me how I was, and I told her I was about to fall apart, so we went outside and talked for a bit. But when you're in my situation, there's nothing someone can really say that makes anything better. I mean, I know the answers I'll get to the things I'll say so it's rather pointless to even say them. I guess I'm going to write more about this night on my main blog, so if you know it, you can go there for more details. I was just at a point of being so broken. And watching as those youth in there would stop in the middle of the song and fall to their knees and scream out prayers and praise to God. How every hand in the room would be stretched right up. How in between every song, everyone would stop and form a prayer huddle and just pray for each other. I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't pretend that I had that any more. I was so lost and to be in a place like that when that was not truly how I felt was probably one of the only times I stopped pretending.
I felt sick, I thought I would throw up, I felt like ripping my heart out. And it's nothing that you would understand, person reading my travel blog right now. I don't think it'd be something you could grasp. But just stopped feeling. And I left there with Jen, got in the van and stayed silent the whole way back, while they blasted their Jesus songs and all sang along, gladly carrying through the Jesus high they had just experienced while I so blatantly denied getting on the trip. We got back to the church and everyone went to CLUB but I just went to the sleeping rooms and cried. Emily sat and talked with me a bit. We've been though similar things but the leaders kept telling us we should go back up. Emily left but I stayed. I just needed a moment, minutes; anything. Something to gather my thoughts, scream, sing, let some tears out after being bottled in for so long. It still didn't help. I felt terrible and worthless and trapped. But I went up just in time to sign the giant cards we had made for the Staff to thank them. I had missed the prayers and feet washing and other things they did for them while I was in my mental instability. Which I still was, having gone upstairs but it was more mild. I came into our group time looking like a bag of poo but no one asked or said anything because they all know me as one who doesn't ask for help. But we talked about that youth and opinions, thoughts, questions, worries, then all about our day and how it went. Well, they talked, I sat there and stared at the floor. We all stood and prayed. I realized I hadn't prayed out loud the whole time we'd been here. My mind was still running away from me during all the prayers but other than that I tried to maintain my sanity in order to at least hear what the others were saying. After that, it branched off into craziness and randomness. And I smiled. Then I laughed. Then it got to falling off my chair laughing. Then to rolling on the ground laughing. And it only improved as we spent this time all in tears because we were laughing so hard. I'm talking Alex Street curled up into the fetal position laughing so hard he's crying, Sarah and Amy running out of the room laughing so hard. And a few people actually peeing their pants laughing so hard. It was exactly what I needed. I sign that it was okay to be happy. And that's why God works in such insane ways. We kept having fun and jumping tables which was really cool. Then other people poked their heads in to see what we were doing and others came in and judged us. But it was fine, I was happy. Genuinely content, and that's something that tends to be difficult so that I was really needed and I appreciate everyone for being so awesome and letting that happen. I few people asked me if I was okay, but I told them no, but then again, I never am. But it's getting better. They kind of shrugged it off and walked away confused. The night had been too much fun to spark insomnia over the previous events, so I crashed as soon as I laid down.
Datatadaa! Day 3.
Tuesday, August 23
Monday, August 22
Second Day Service
This day started out almost exactly like the other. I woke up insanely early, was late for breakfast, ate the nasty breakfast, packed a nasty lunch, then proceeded to finish preparing for the day. Everyone then piled into the youth room to start devos with our special little zebra books. When devos were done, we didn't really need to meet up with anyone because majority of us were doing the exact same thing.
Team Jim piled into the van and drove over to Manor Care. We were playing Bingo today. There is nothing better than playing BINGO in and old age home. How excited they get, oh jeez, it's crazy. And that my friends, is sarcasm. Well a few of them are. There was one lady who kept accusing another of cheating so she kept yelling at her. It was funny because the lady she was yelling at was hard of hearing so she just didn't care because she couldn't hear anything. We didn't play Bingo right away though, while Sammy was getting different residents to come play, we all got Bored Games down off the shelf and played with the residents until we were ready to start the game. We were playing cards, checkers, pictionary, all sorts of terribly exciting things. But I didn't really play anything, but that was because of the piano they had there. Emily would play something and I would sing to it while everyone else was playing. It was fun, and we had random residents who would poke their heads in and ask who was playing and singing then tell us we were really good and they enjoyed listening. We tried to keep the songs okay, so we stuck to mostly Adele and Christina Perri.
When Sammy was back with everyone she could find, we started the game. We played a bunch of different games, taking turns between myself, Maddie, Addie and Emily calling out the numbers. And by calling out, I mean screaming them and repeating around 3 times each so the partially def residents can hear as well. It was fun. When I wasn't calling out, and playing. I was sitting at a table with 3 other residents and the lady across me had nothing on her card yet, so I tried to make a joke about her doing even worse than me, and that's bad because I suck. But she just smiled and said she can't hear the numbers. So I was her Bingo buddy for the remainder of the games. Which was really cool because she ended up winning some games too. I guess they have this system at Manor Care that when you come out to Activities or do things or win games, you get 'Funny Money' and then at the end of the month they can use it to buy little things for themselves.
In the middle of one of the games, Sammy asked if she could see me. Now I had no clue what this was about, so I was a bit puzzled but I said sure. So we were talking outside and she was telling me how Sandy, the lady I was talking with yesterday really enjoyed talking to me yesterday and she really wanted to see if it was at all possible that I could go talk with her again today just to say good bye before I left. Now I was shocked at this, because I couldn't understand how I could have made that much of an impact from the little time I spent talking to her yesterday but I agreed and said it would be no problem so I told Sammy I'd pop in and see her before we all left. Though I was confused my it, it made me smile. So I continued playing Bingo happily assisting my table. When Bingo finally came to a close, Sammy had us help her set up for lunch and then she treated us all to popsicles to thank us for our help. It was then that I went to go see Sandy.
I basically just went in and she was watching TV. So I said 'Hi Sandy. Sammy told me that you wanted to see me' And she said 'Yes.' So the fact she didn't really say anything after that was kind of awkward but not overly, so I flashed a big smile and asked how she was. She responded by telling me how she was up all night thinking about me. And how I had been in her mind all day. She asked me to tell her a little more about why I was here. So I told her about Youthworks and how we were staying at the church and going to different places everyday to help out. She just smiled. She told me how she so greatly enjoyed talking to me yesterday and how she thinks I'm a great person and how she's so blown away by how good I am. Then she started talking about all the cool stuff there is to see around Hershey and all the Amish stuff that they have. We kept talking for a bit and then she just kind of stopped. Then she asked me if she'll ever see me again. This is where my heart just sunk. Her eyes were s filled with hope, yet sad at the fact she already knew the answer. I told her 'I don't know.' And I don't because who knows, I might be in Harrisburg 2 years time, I have no clue where I'll be, but for now, I don't know. She looked down at the floor and then back up at me. That's when Sammy interjected saying that Sandy could write me. It was such a good idea, and one I'd never have thought of myself. So I wrote down my address and gave it to Sandy, who seemed really pleased to have this new form of communication in place now. She asked me for a hug and I gladly obliged then headed on my out. I couldn't stop smiling. It was probably the oddest friendship I've ever formed, but it's one I won't soon forget.
We went back to the church to eat lunch because we needed to get directions for our next work project. So we ate on the gym floor and when we were done, Erin and Alex took us to our next location. We were working on this lady's house. Her name was Anna. And Anna probably lives in the sketchiest of all the ghettos in Harrisburg. There was another group already there, but we had been requested to come and help them because there was so much to do. So Anna is disabled, not mentally, but physically. She has a terrible back problem and can't even make it down the stairs to her kitchen without collapsing because of the pain. In addition to painting the upstairs bathroom and the entire front of her house, we were also placed with the task of cleaning up the basement. I entered along with Emily, not really knowing what to expect. Now I swear to you that this was so custy, the nastiest thing I have ever experienced in my life. There was clothing and random object sprawled all over the floor. Mold growing everywhere. I can't explain only using my words how bad it was but let me put it this way: we had to wear face masks and rubber gloves to enter the area. It was gross. There were bags just filled with pee. Do you know how gross that it? And poo, just laying on the floor covered with a bucket. Not to mention the random switchblades we found randomly as we were cleaning up. I was in there for a bit helping throw stuff out and doing laundry but after a while I couldn't take it anymore, I went back upstairs to go help paint the porch and door way.
When I got kicked off my painting duties, I already had the mindset of trying to avoid going into Anna's basement, so Team Jim, being the cool kids we are, decided to go above and beyond our required tasks and go check out the backyard. Now checking out the backyard would have been cool if we could have maybe seen the backyard. You could not see the ground. There was nasty all over and a fallen tree was just chilling the middle. We took an electric saw and cut the branches down to small, manageable pieces. These were then placed in a pile along with other leaves, branches, twig, and sticks covering the ground. Then another pile was formed for random miscellaneous objects including a headless teddy bear, a microwave, a doorknob, a metal gate, more knives and too many other bizarre items to remember. the third pile was one of bricks that we'd find just hanging out in random places. When these piles were established, we began to rake all of the left over yard waste/nasty into the tree pile, meanwhile being viciously barked at by the neighbours pit bulls. Since the ground was now somewhat visible, I found out that they had a path that ran through the middle of their yard. So I swept the path, and you could actually see the tiles. Upon discovering the path, I also noticed that there used to be garden beside the path, so we took all the bricks we had found and outlined the path so wonderfully, you could even see what was left of the garden. I was actually shocked at how different it looked when we were all done. It was a complete change from the way it was when we started. And that's the nice thing about physical service, you can literally watch the change happening in front of you. I was proud of the backyard, and even more so that it was something that wasn't required of us, but it was something that could make the most difference.
After that, we piled all the garbage out to the front of the house and emptied out the paint then headed off to the Y. It was a long day of service, but we were only at Anna's for half a day, the other group was only there for the whole week! The Y was chill and we reunited with our shower buds once more. Got wild cherry Pepsi once more. And ate cinnamon buns in the car ride back to the church. Free time was again spent going to Target, where Cameron decided to buy a thong. Very interesting. When we came back, we played a huge came of hide and go seek. Which then turned into a contest of who can roll down the hill the fastest. It was all good. Then we had another gross dinner. It was kind of weird having dinners so early, we ate at like 5:30 everyday. After dinner, there was CLUB in which we talked about acting different. And going from what you believe about God and how it affects what you do everyday, if it affects it. They did a really cool thing where Alex said that the first one to come up to the front would get a chocolate bar. And none of us really moved, everyone just sat and looked at him wondering whether we should take a chance and go up. Then Heidi jumped up and sprinted for Alex, and in return, Alex gave her a Snickers bar. And the overall message we took from this was that you need to act on what you believe. And it was a cool thought to be challenged with. They also did this really sick skit for us called Radio Romance and it was this play that was portrayed through lipsyncing al these mainstrem radio songs. It was kind of hilarious.
Tonight, we were supposed to have a city-wide scavenger hunt but instead we went to the Hershey Factory to make up for missing it on Monday, but we wouldn't have a make up for the scavenger hunt. In my opinion, that was totally fine because I wouldn't have minded either one. We drove down to the Factory which seemed vaguely familiar. I think I had been there before when I was really little with my parents driving back from Florida one year. But anyways, we got there and immediately upon arriving, we went for a little tour. In groups of 5 or 6 we all piled onto the little trolley cart things and went for a tour around the factory being instructed on how chocolate is made by our singing tour guide, Betsy the cow. It was all quite lovely. Then when we exited the ride, we were given samples of Hershey Drops which are kind of amazing. Then is was off to Chocolate World, the gift shop bigger than my house. Bigger than two of my houses actually. I have never seen so much chocolate in my life. They had the worlds largest chocolate bar, world's largest twizzlers, world's largest every-variation-of-candy. Almost everyone walked away with stacks of chocolate but I just bought some jolly ranchers because they're delicious. Katrina, Emily and I split a free milkshake and had just an overall dandy time. There was one point actually where we were all looking at plush tootsie pillows or something and I told Cameron he should plank on the stand, yeah I know, bad influence. Anyways, he did. In the process of doing so, he ended up pegging some little girl in the face! So he fell off because he was laughing so hard, and hit the floor. Then people proceeded to run up to him and ask him if he was okay. Meanwhile he's just laying there laughing saying 'I'm good. I'm good!' And people are just staring awkwardly saying how they thought he got knocked over or something. It was really really funny.
Back at the church we talked about our day and all the work we did and lives we impacted. Today I didn't feel worthless, today I felt like I accomplished something and that I was making a difference. I shared about Sandy and how it was finally starting to kick in that I was meant to be here, and I challenged everyone to keep in mind that even when you're feeling like you're not making any difference at all, you might actually be doing way more than you could have imagined. It was a good church group, like always and we were enjoying ourselves, like always. But there was a time when we actually had to sleep, and so we did. But before that, I went to go drop off 3 little letters. See, we had this thing going from day one where everyone on the trip had a brown paper bag and they were hung up on the wall in the dinning hall so people could drop encouraging messages in them. Like I normally do with situations like these, I wrote out 3 cards saying 'You're beautiful' and I dropped them into 3 random bags. Immediately after, I forgot what I did and decided to go down to the sleeping rooms. People kept coming up to us and saying how they were going to sneak into our church group because it was so much fun, but this gave us a bad reputation as just having fun, which was how most of them saw us, but they didn't see how serious we all are when we pray our how much we really take in. Street had all this stuff to talk about with us, all these verses to read for the whole week, but he didn't use any of them. We had real conversations every night. Not planned, not scripted; real. I fell asleep listening to worship music. And thus concluded day 2.
Team Jim piled into the van and drove over to Manor Care. We were playing Bingo today. There is nothing better than playing BINGO in and old age home. How excited they get, oh jeez, it's crazy. And that my friends, is sarcasm. Well a few of them are. There was one lady who kept accusing another of cheating so she kept yelling at her. It was funny because the lady she was yelling at was hard of hearing so she just didn't care because she couldn't hear anything. We didn't play Bingo right away though, while Sammy was getting different residents to come play, we all got Bored Games down off the shelf and played with the residents until we were ready to start the game. We were playing cards, checkers, pictionary, all sorts of terribly exciting things. But I didn't really play anything, but that was because of the piano they had there. Emily would play something and I would sing to it while everyone else was playing. It was fun, and we had random residents who would poke their heads in and ask who was playing and singing then tell us we were really good and they enjoyed listening. We tried to keep the songs okay, so we stuck to mostly Adele and Christina Perri.
When Sammy was back with everyone she could find, we started the game. We played a bunch of different games, taking turns between myself, Maddie, Addie and Emily calling out the numbers. And by calling out, I mean screaming them and repeating around 3 times each so the partially def residents can hear as well. It was fun. When I wasn't calling out, and playing. I was sitting at a table with 3 other residents and the lady across me had nothing on her card yet, so I tried to make a joke about her doing even worse than me, and that's bad because I suck. But she just smiled and said she can't hear the numbers. So I was her Bingo buddy for the remainder of the games. Which was really cool because she ended up winning some games too. I guess they have this system at Manor Care that when you come out to Activities or do things or win games, you get 'Funny Money' and then at the end of the month they can use it to buy little things for themselves.
In the middle of one of the games, Sammy asked if she could see me. Now I had no clue what this was about, so I was a bit puzzled but I said sure. So we were talking outside and she was telling me how Sandy, the lady I was talking with yesterday really enjoyed talking to me yesterday and she really wanted to see if it was at all possible that I could go talk with her again today just to say good bye before I left. Now I was shocked at this, because I couldn't understand how I could have made that much of an impact from the little time I spent talking to her yesterday but I agreed and said it would be no problem so I told Sammy I'd pop in and see her before we all left. Though I was confused my it, it made me smile. So I continued playing Bingo happily assisting my table. When Bingo finally came to a close, Sammy had us help her set up for lunch and then she treated us all to popsicles to thank us for our help. It was then that I went to go see Sandy.
I basically just went in and she was watching TV. So I said 'Hi Sandy. Sammy told me that you wanted to see me' And she said 'Yes.' So the fact she didn't really say anything after that was kind of awkward but not overly, so I flashed a big smile and asked how she was. She responded by telling me how she was up all night thinking about me. And how I had been in her mind all day. She asked me to tell her a little more about why I was here. So I told her about Youthworks and how we were staying at the church and going to different places everyday to help out. She just smiled. She told me how she so greatly enjoyed talking to me yesterday and how she thinks I'm a great person and how she's so blown away by how good I am. Then she started talking about all the cool stuff there is to see around Hershey and all the Amish stuff that they have. We kept talking for a bit and then she just kind of stopped. Then she asked me if she'll ever see me again. This is where my heart just sunk. Her eyes were s filled with hope, yet sad at the fact she already knew the answer. I told her 'I don't know.' And I don't because who knows, I might be in Harrisburg 2 years time, I have no clue where I'll be, but for now, I don't know. She looked down at the floor and then back up at me. That's when Sammy interjected saying that Sandy could write me. It was such a good idea, and one I'd never have thought of myself. So I wrote down my address and gave it to Sandy, who seemed really pleased to have this new form of communication in place now. She asked me for a hug and I gladly obliged then headed on my out. I couldn't stop smiling. It was probably the oddest friendship I've ever formed, but it's one I won't soon forget.
We went back to the church to eat lunch because we needed to get directions for our next work project. So we ate on the gym floor and when we were done, Erin and Alex took us to our next location. We were working on this lady's house. Her name was Anna. And Anna probably lives in the sketchiest of all the ghettos in Harrisburg. There was another group already there, but we had been requested to come and help them because there was so much to do. So Anna is disabled, not mentally, but physically. She has a terrible back problem and can't even make it down the stairs to her kitchen without collapsing because of the pain. In addition to painting the upstairs bathroom and the entire front of her house, we were also placed with the task of cleaning up the basement. I entered along with Emily, not really knowing what to expect. Now I swear to you that this was so custy, the nastiest thing I have ever experienced in my life. There was clothing and random object sprawled all over the floor. Mold growing everywhere. I can't explain only using my words how bad it was but let me put it this way: we had to wear face masks and rubber gloves to enter the area. It was gross. There were bags just filled with pee. Do you know how gross that it? And poo, just laying on the floor covered with a bucket. Not to mention the random switchblades we found randomly as we were cleaning up. I was in there for a bit helping throw stuff out and doing laundry but after a while I couldn't take it anymore, I went back upstairs to go help paint the porch and door way.
When I got kicked off my painting duties, I already had the mindset of trying to avoid going into Anna's basement, so Team Jim, being the cool kids we are, decided to go above and beyond our required tasks and go check out the backyard. Now checking out the backyard would have been cool if we could have maybe seen the backyard. You could not see the ground. There was nasty all over and a fallen tree was just chilling the middle. We took an electric saw and cut the branches down to small, manageable pieces. These were then placed in a pile along with other leaves, branches, twig, and sticks covering the ground. Then another pile was formed for random miscellaneous objects including a headless teddy bear, a microwave, a doorknob, a metal gate, more knives and too many other bizarre items to remember. the third pile was one of bricks that we'd find just hanging out in random places. When these piles were established, we began to rake all of the left over yard waste/nasty into the tree pile, meanwhile being viciously barked at by the neighbours pit bulls. Since the ground was now somewhat visible, I found out that they had a path that ran through the middle of their yard. So I swept the path, and you could actually see the tiles. Upon discovering the path, I also noticed that there used to be garden beside the path, so we took all the bricks we had found and outlined the path so wonderfully, you could even see what was left of the garden. I was actually shocked at how different it looked when we were all done. It was a complete change from the way it was when we started. And that's the nice thing about physical service, you can literally watch the change happening in front of you. I was proud of the backyard, and even more so that it was something that wasn't required of us, but it was something that could make the most difference.
After that, we piled all the garbage out to the front of the house and emptied out the paint then headed off to the Y. It was a long day of service, but we were only at Anna's for half a day, the other group was only there for the whole week! The Y was chill and we reunited with our shower buds once more. Got wild cherry Pepsi once more. And ate cinnamon buns in the car ride back to the church. Free time was again spent going to Target, where Cameron decided to buy a thong. Very interesting. When we came back, we played a huge came of hide and go seek. Which then turned into a contest of who can roll down the hill the fastest. It was all good. Then we had another gross dinner. It was kind of weird having dinners so early, we ate at like 5:30 everyday. After dinner, there was CLUB in which we talked about acting different. And going from what you believe about God and how it affects what you do everyday, if it affects it. They did a really cool thing where Alex said that the first one to come up to the front would get a chocolate bar. And none of us really moved, everyone just sat and looked at him wondering whether we should take a chance and go up. Then Heidi jumped up and sprinted for Alex, and in return, Alex gave her a Snickers bar. And the overall message we took from this was that you need to act on what you believe. And it was a cool thought to be challenged with. They also did this really sick skit for us called Radio Romance and it was this play that was portrayed through lipsyncing al these mainstrem radio songs. It was kind of hilarious.
Tonight, we were supposed to have a city-wide scavenger hunt but instead we went to the Hershey Factory to make up for missing it on Monday, but we wouldn't have a make up for the scavenger hunt. In my opinion, that was totally fine because I wouldn't have minded either one. We drove down to the Factory which seemed vaguely familiar. I think I had been there before when I was really little with my parents driving back from Florida one year. But anyways, we got there and immediately upon arriving, we went for a little tour. In groups of 5 or 6 we all piled onto the little trolley cart things and went for a tour around the factory being instructed on how chocolate is made by our singing tour guide, Betsy the cow. It was all quite lovely. Then when we exited the ride, we were given samples of Hershey Drops which are kind of amazing. Then is was off to Chocolate World, the gift shop bigger than my house. Bigger than two of my houses actually. I have never seen so much chocolate in my life. They had the worlds largest chocolate bar, world's largest twizzlers, world's largest every-variation-of-candy. Almost everyone walked away with stacks of chocolate but I just bought some jolly ranchers because they're delicious. Katrina, Emily and I split a free milkshake and had just an overall dandy time. There was one point actually where we were all looking at plush tootsie pillows or something and I told Cameron he should plank on the stand, yeah I know, bad influence. Anyways, he did. In the process of doing so, he ended up pegging some little girl in the face! So he fell off because he was laughing so hard, and hit the floor. Then people proceeded to run up to him and ask him if he was okay. Meanwhile he's just laying there laughing saying 'I'm good. I'm good!' And people are just staring awkwardly saying how they thought he got knocked over or something. It was really really funny.
Back at the church we talked about our day and all the work we did and lives we impacted. Today I didn't feel worthless, today I felt like I accomplished something and that I was making a difference. I shared about Sandy and how it was finally starting to kick in that I was meant to be here, and I challenged everyone to keep in mind that even when you're feeling like you're not making any difference at all, you might actually be doing way more than you could have imagined. It was a good church group, like always and we were enjoying ourselves, like always. But there was a time when we actually had to sleep, and so we did. But before that, I went to go drop off 3 little letters. See, we had this thing going from day one where everyone on the trip had a brown paper bag and they were hung up on the wall in the dinning hall so people could drop encouraging messages in them. Like I normally do with situations like these, I wrote out 3 cards saying 'You're beautiful' and I dropped them into 3 random bags. Immediately after, I forgot what I did and decided to go down to the sleeping rooms. People kept coming up to us and saying how they were going to sneak into our church group because it was so much fun, but this gave us a bad reputation as just having fun, which was how most of them saw us, but they didn't see how serious we all are when we pray our how much we really take in. Street had all this stuff to talk about with us, all these verses to read for the whole week, but he didn't use any of them. We had real conversations every night. Not planned, not scripted; real. I fell asleep listening to worship music. And thus concluded day 2.
Tuesday, August 16
Welcome to Harrisburg
We awoke at around 7:30 and basically just got dressed and headed upstairs. I was late. I was always late for breakfast, but that was fine. We all sat at a giant table and ate breakfast then went up and packed our lunches for the day in these small brown bags. I felt like I was going into grade 2 again, it was kind of funny. After that, we filled up our water bottles, filled our cooler, filled our water jug and hauled them out into the van.
We had morning devos all throughout the trip, so we were given this cute little devotional book to read through along with our bibles every morning. We basically all branched off to different places to do our devos and when we were done, we'd all come back and meet up together and head to the gym. Once in the gym, the different work groups were assembled. Everything we did related to the show 'The Office' so our teams were split up like that. My team was 'Team Jim' consisting of myself, Becka, Brendan, Emily M, Maddie, Mark, and Addie. Maddie Addie and Mark are from Maryland.
We all met with our team sand then talked to one of the programming staff to see what we would be doing for the day. My schedule was split Manor Care & Work Project. So only knowing that, we headed off to our service jobs. Manor Care, as it turns out, is an old age home. When we arrived, we met up with Sammy, the head of activities in Manor Care. She told us about the program they have going on with the residents that youth would come in and ask them about their life story and just talk one on one with them.
She gave us a lay of the land, went over some rules and we hung in the main room for a bit. It was nothing incredibly fancy, a bunch of tables and chairs, a piano and bookshelf filled with board games. Oh, and a bird cage, the birds name was Sassy and she was a love bird. Quite like Sunny actually. She lived alone and was very hateful towards everyone. I knew a few tricks that I had with Sunny before she passed, so I thought I'd try them out with Sassy and they worked. So everybody found it amusing how the love bird would spread out its wings full span as I pet its stomach. She was a cute bird, loud, but cute. Sammy came back after looking for residents who were awake and not deathly ill.
We followed her around and everyone branched off into a room with a resident. As we were going into the rooms, one old lady asked Becka, Emily and I to come in, so we did. She then insisted that we take all her 3 Musketeers chocolate bars from her because she cant eat them. We kindly refused, but she was persistent. It was really cute. We ended up not taking the chocolate because it was too early in the morning to have chocolate. Emily stayed and pursued the life stories program with her. I would have definitely wanted too as well, she was a really nice lady. As we were walking down the hallway, we could hear Emily: "fourteen. Fourteen. Fourteen! FOURTEEN!" I assumed she was asked about her age. Emily is not really the quietest kid but she'd so kind, I knew she'd feel very awkward about yelling at this lady.
Becka, Brendan and I were all put in the 'common room' type area. Brendan was put with probably the grumpiest old mad ever. He's such a nice guy too, I just laughed at every attempt the tried to ask a question and Hoag would just say 'No.' Becka and I were put with two ladies watching television. So it was somewhat hard to keep their attention at first. We were all close enough to hear each others conversations and feed off of what questions they were asking. Sammy had given us all a booklet with different questions to ask. I didn't use mine at all, I was trying to make real conversation. My lady's name was Sandy. She grew up on a farm with loads of brothers and sisters. She liked animals. That was about it. She got divorced at a young age, worked as a single mom all her life, never went to collage. I tried to ask her about her interests but she literally turned down everything I'd ask. 'Were you ever into music?' "Umm, no." 'Did you like to draw?' "No." 'Any type of art?" 'No.' And this continued until we eliminated sports, writing, singing, dancing, acting. There was some baseball that she played when she was young but other than that nothing. Plus she had terrible stage fright as a kid. Sounds like the coolest kid around right?
She was nice, but she didn't have that exciting of a life. And she didn't like to talk. It seemed as if she was fascinated at me being there but she just didn't make conversation. It was kind of a one word answer to every question I asked. So naturally, when people don't respond or things become awkward, I start talking to myself. But talking to myself in a way that others feel involved. All while she's managing to watch 'Let's Make a Deal' She eventually had to go to the washroom so I said my goodbyes as it was time to go back to the main room for the Morning Show. As much as I'd have liked to say that was fun, it wasn't. I felt so meh about everything. I guess I came in expecting to make a huge difference and felt feeling nothing had even happened. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.
I talked with Hoag for a bit with Brendan before it was time to go back to the main room, we kind of dragged him against his will to the morning show just because he's so depressing. but he is slightly amusing. He yelled at me to behave myself at one point. I almost fell asleep during the Morning Show. They basically read the weather, news, famous people born on this day, people who died this day, important events made on this day. It was jolly good fun. After the morning show, we all bailed and went to a park to eat our wonderfully bagged lunches. After that, it was off to Work Projects we go.
We ended up in the backyard of a very old broken lady grieving the death of her hamster in a very creepy neighbourhood. Her backyard wasn't terrible, it just needed some fixing up. We cut all her shrubs down and way back with clippers. We raked her whole yard. Watered all her plants. And trimmed her huge arse bush. It wasn't a lot of work, but it was crazy hot outside, so it just made it seem brutal. We thanked her for the opportunity to help out, and gladly relaxed in the cool air conditioned van.
I was a little confused at how showers were going to work due to the fact that there were none in the church, but it all made sense now. Everyday after we finished our service work for the day, we'd head to a Y (YMCA) and take showers there. I've never been to a Y before that but oh boy, they are fabulous. I'm not even kidding. The most beautiful thing. Showers, pool, gym, wild cherry Pepsi for only 6o cents. There is nothing better. And it was such a clean facility too. Emily and I made friends singing in the shower. It was quite enjoyable.
We then went back to the church, we had a little free time basically until everyone came back from their service jobs until dinner was made. When all the Springvale kids came back, we decided to walk down to Target. See, the church was like 2 blocks away from this amazing plaza filled with wonderful stores so we tended to go down there everyday. Plus the Target had a Starbucks in it, so it just became more beautiful. If I only say one thing about that place, its that I am actually so excited they're coming to Canada, no lie. They are the coolest thing. I didn't buy much though, because I was saving my money. After harassing a few of the staff, we came back and ate a nasty meal and then went to CLUB. We talked about putting your beliefs into action and such.
We were getting all stoked and ready to go to the Chocolate Factory that night after club, so people were just hanging out, doing whatever and it starts to POUR. The sky cracks and rain is just plummeting from the sky, there's a huge thunderstorm and lightening is blasting all around. Everyone was just staring at it in awe through the window. And there's me, who's out in the middle of the field dancing, coming back soaking wet. It was a great storm, as was the sunset we experienced the night before. I think that's where I find peace, in the middle of a rain storm, I know that doesn't make sense, but it works for me.
When I came back inside, people were freaking out because I group of Springvale kids were sitting outside filming the storm and then lightening struck 10 feet from them. I'm not kidding you, it's on video, 10 feet. So the whole video consists of them jumping up and booking it inside, scared for their lives. It was so funny! Well, obviously we couldn't go to the Factory because we couldn't even make it outside to our vans without dying. They set up Toy Story 3, the movie in the sanctuary so everyone could come watch. But the Springvale guys had a different idea, we played the animal game. Such a classic Springvale game too, and we taught all the Americans. It was fun, I was in the King's Seat for a while. After I lost, games of ninja were exchanged and we all headed off to Church Group Time. This was basically where all our different groups that we came with gathered together and talked about our day. What we liked, learned and saw love in the things we did that day.
Our group time was pretty legit because everyone was freaking out about how excited they were and how much they did and how in touch they felt with God. People were sharing stories of this garden that they had planted outside this orphanage or this church that they painted. There were stories about how many food boxes they packed at the homeless shelter or how many beds they made, how many homeless people they severed lunch too. There was one group who was working at a camp for the whole week, and knowing that I had just worked at camp all last week, I knew what great relationships they'd be building. It was crazy hearing all these different stories about how much the different groups had gotten done. Then I'm just sitting there like 'I talked to an old person and trimmed a bush.' I felt dumb, like I had gone through the whole day, not making any difference at all, meanwhile everyone else was out there changing lives. It kind of sucked for me, but it passed quickly. Like the day before, we stayed up way too late in our group, talking and making joke, having a good time. But we did a lot of praying for each other too. It was really cool.
But we did eventually have to go to bed, and so we did. Thus concluding day one in Harrisburg.
We had morning devos all throughout the trip, so we were given this cute little devotional book to read through along with our bibles every morning. We basically all branched off to different places to do our devos and when we were done, we'd all come back and meet up together and head to the gym. Once in the gym, the different work groups were assembled. Everything we did related to the show 'The Office' so our teams were split up like that. My team was 'Team Jim' consisting of myself, Becka, Brendan, Emily M, Maddie, Mark, and Addie. Maddie Addie and Mark are from Maryland.
We all met with our team sand then talked to one of the programming staff to see what we would be doing for the day. My schedule was split Manor Care & Work Project. So only knowing that, we headed off to our service jobs. Manor Care, as it turns out, is an old age home. When we arrived, we met up with Sammy, the head of activities in Manor Care. She told us about the program they have going on with the residents that youth would come in and ask them about their life story and just talk one on one with them.
She gave us a lay of the land, went over some rules and we hung in the main room for a bit. It was nothing incredibly fancy, a bunch of tables and chairs, a piano and bookshelf filled with board games. Oh, and a bird cage, the birds name was Sassy and she was a love bird. Quite like Sunny actually. She lived alone and was very hateful towards everyone. I knew a few tricks that I had with Sunny before she passed, so I thought I'd try them out with Sassy and they worked. So everybody found it amusing how the love bird would spread out its wings full span as I pet its stomach. She was a cute bird, loud, but cute. Sammy came back after looking for residents who were awake and not deathly ill.
We followed her around and everyone branched off into a room with a resident. As we were going into the rooms, one old lady asked Becka, Emily and I to come in, so we did. She then insisted that we take all her 3 Musketeers chocolate bars from her because she cant eat them. We kindly refused, but she was persistent. It was really cute. We ended up not taking the chocolate because it was too early in the morning to have chocolate. Emily stayed and pursued the life stories program with her. I would have definitely wanted too as well, she was a really nice lady. As we were walking down the hallway, we could hear Emily: "fourteen. Fourteen. Fourteen! FOURTEEN!" I assumed she was asked about her age. Emily is not really the quietest kid but she'd so kind, I knew she'd feel very awkward about yelling at this lady.
Becka, Brendan and I were all put in the 'common room' type area. Brendan was put with probably the grumpiest old mad ever. He's such a nice guy too, I just laughed at every attempt the tried to ask a question and Hoag would just say 'No.' Becka and I were put with two ladies watching television. So it was somewhat hard to keep their attention at first. We were all close enough to hear each others conversations and feed off of what questions they were asking. Sammy had given us all a booklet with different questions to ask. I didn't use mine at all, I was trying to make real conversation. My lady's name was Sandy. She grew up on a farm with loads of brothers and sisters. She liked animals. That was about it. She got divorced at a young age, worked as a single mom all her life, never went to collage. I tried to ask her about her interests but she literally turned down everything I'd ask. 'Were you ever into music?' "Umm, no." 'Did you like to draw?' "No." 'Any type of art?" 'No.' And this continued until we eliminated sports, writing, singing, dancing, acting. There was some baseball that she played when she was young but other than that nothing. Plus she had terrible stage fright as a kid. Sounds like the coolest kid around right?
She was nice, but she didn't have that exciting of a life. And she didn't like to talk. It seemed as if she was fascinated at me being there but she just didn't make conversation. It was kind of a one word answer to every question I asked. So naturally, when people don't respond or things become awkward, I start talking to myself. But talking to myself in a way that others feel involved. All while she's managing to watch 'Let's Make a Deal' She eventually had to go to the washroom so I said my goodbyes as it was time to go back to the main room for the Morning Show. As much as I'd have liked to say that was fun, it wasn't. I felt so meh about everything. I guess I came in expecting to make a huge difference and felt feeling nothing had even happened. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.
I talked with Hoag for a bit with Brendan before it was time to go back to the main room, we kind of dragged him against his will to the morning show just because he's so depressing. but he is slightly amusing. He yelled at me to behave myself at one point. I almost fell asleep during the Morning Show. They basically read the weather, news, famous people born on this day, people who died this day, important events made on this day. It was jolly good fun. After the morning show, we all bailed and went to a park to eat our wonderfully bagged lunches. After that, it was off to Work Projects we go.
We ended up in the backyard of a very old broken lady grieving the death of her hamster in a very creepy neighbourhood. Her backyard wasn't terrible, it just needed some fixing up. We cut all her shrubs down and way back with clippers. We raked her whole yard. Watered all her plants. And trimmed her huge arse bush. It wasn't a lot of work, but it was crazy hot outside, so it just made it seem brutal. We thanked her for the opportunity to help out, and gladly relaxed in the cool air conditioned van.
I was a little confused at how showers were going to work due to the fact that there were none in the church, but it all made sense now. Everyday after we finished our service work for the day, we'd head to a Y (YMCA) and take showers there. I've never been to a Y before that but oh boy, they are fabulous. I'm not even kidding. The most beautiful thing. Showers, pool, gym, wild cherry Pepsi for only 6o cents. There is nothing better. And it was such a clean facility too. Emily and I made friends singing in the shower. It was quite enjoyable.
We then went back to the church, we had a little free time basically until everyone came back from their service jobs until dinner was made. When all the Springvale kids came back, we decided to walk down to Target. See, the church was like 2 blocks away from this amazing plaza filled with wonderful stores so we tended to go down there everyday. Plus the Target had a Starbucks in it, so it just became more beautiful. If I only say one thing about that place, its that I am actually so excited they're coming to Canada, no lie. They are the coolest thing. I didn't buy much though, because I was saving my money. After harassing a few of the staff, we came back and ate a nasty meal and then went to CLUB. We talked about putting your beliefs into action and such.
We were getting all stoked and ready to go to the Chocolate Factory that night after club, so people were just hanging out, doing whatever and it starts to POUR. The sky cracks and rain is just plummeting from the sky, there's a huge thunderstorm and lightening is blasting all around. Everyone was just staring at it in awe through the window. And there's me, who's out in the middle of the field dancing, coming back soaking wet. It was a great storm, as was the sunset we experienced the night before. I think that's where I find peace, in the middle of a rain storm, I know that doesn't make sense, but it works for me.
When I came back inside, people were freaking out because I group of Springvale kids were sitting outside filming the storm and then lightening struck 10 feet from them. I'm not kidding you, it's on video, 10 feet. So the whole video consists of them jumping up and booking it inside, scared for their lives. It was so funny! Well, obviously we couldn't go to the Factory because we couldn't even make it outside to our vans without dying. They set up Toy Story 3, the movie in the sanctuary so everyone could come watch. But the Springvale guys had a different idea, we played the animal game. Such a classic Springvale game too, and we taught all the Americans. It was fun, I was in the King's Seat for a while. After I lost, games of ninja were exchanged and we all headed off to Church Group Time. This was basically where all our different groups that we came with gathered together and talked about our day. What we liked, learned and saw love in the things we did that day.
Our group time was pretty legit because everyone was freaking out about how excited they were and how much they did and how in touch they felt with God. People were sharing stories of this garden that they had planted outside this orphanage or this church that they painted. There were stories about how many food boxes they packed at the homeless shelter or how many beds they made, how many homeless people they severed lunch too. There was one group who was working at a camp for the whole week, and knowing that I had just worked at camp all last week, I knew what great relationships they'd be building. It was crazy hearing all these different stories about how much the different groups had gotten done. Then I'm just sitting there like 'I talked to an old person and trimmed a bush.' I felt dumb, like I had gone through the whole day, not making any difference at all, meanwhile everyone else was out there changing lives. It kind of sucked for me, but it passed quickly. Like the day before, we stayed up way too late in our group, talking and making joke, having a good time. But we did a lot of praying for each other too. It was really cool.
But we did eventually have to go to bed, and so we did. Thus concluding day one in Harrisburg.
Monday, August 8
Heads Up
So if you note the title, this is just a little fill in / heads up for those who don't really know what's been happening recently in my life. I'm going to try to do the best I possible can to recall all the details of my trip.
My trip, which was myself going out of the country to Harrisburg Pennsylvania with 21 other Canadians to meet up with several other American groups under the Supervision of Youthworks in Harrisburg.
We were there as a Church going down on a Mission to just go there and help out with the various needs in the community. In order to do this, we needed to apply, answer questions, go to meetings, give up a week of our summer, be accepted, and then manage to raise $10, 500 as the overall cost of our trip.
So myself, and 15 other kids were selected as well as 8 other adults were made into the Harrisburg Team. Fundraising was quite difficult because another group from our church was actually going down to Poland for around a month and they were fundraising around the same time as we were. We both managed to fund our trips, so it was quite incredible.
We basically took 2 large white vans down Saturday morning at around 5AM. So the night before a bunch of us slept over at the church photocopying passports, getting everything put together, packing the vans, blasting music, playing ball tag, and just hanging out really. I know for a short time Robbie took my phone and started texting you, so that was kind of funny. Anyways, we were all asleep before 1 so it was okay, we slept in the sanctuary after having a little talk with the girls about what we were afraid of and what we wanted to take out of the trip. Then I think we all crashed pretty hard listening to Jesus Culture.
The next morning we were up bright and early and in the vans pretty quick. My van was Alex, Becka, Kat, Emily, Brendan, Cameron, Caleb, Tyler, Greg and Ryan. So it was pretty legit. I actually expected to sleep a bit. HAHAH, like that happened. No chance at all. We were talking and playing games and jamming out to music. It was pretty intense. Party Rock was our song for the trip. I loved it. Van rides were just so much fun. We'd be dancing and then a car would pass and we'd just be rocking it out and someone would turn and see the reaction and die laughing. I fell out of my seat so many times it's not even funny. Plus I had my seat belt locked, so I was kind of confined to my seat for a while, like what Patty and Thomas used to do in the morning rides. Gosh I miss them!
When we go into Niagara, we stopped and took off out of the van to go look at the Falls. We had a few nice group pictures there. It was pretty sweet, because I've never really seen the Falls before. Anyways, we got back in the vans and crossed the border, they basically asked us what we were doing, where we were going, asked if we were a youth group. He made us all hold our passports up to our face and take off our glasses/hats etc and slid the door open and checked us. Then he A-OK-ed the pedo vans to enter America. So we drove past the Falls of the USA side and man, they're not as pretty as the are in Canada.
In our van, we had this weird thing that we'd hold our breath every time we went over a bridge, but the bridges we crossed were about a two and half minutes each, so we all light headed after each bridge adventure. So it was obviously completely safe for Alex Street to be doing it while driving.
We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast then messed around in the gift shop and took a group shot there. Then it was back in the vans! We decided to play Hands Up. Which is basically where you put one of your hands up and see how long you can last without putting it down. I think Kat and Greg were going for a good 3 hours until they agreed to both put theirs down. It was actually really funny because we all went to Wendy's for lunch and they walked in with their hands up in the air. Lots of weird looks. We basically responded to everything with a "Sorry, we're Canadian" It was fun.
While we were driving we passed this open field where this group of people were setting up a slip and slide so we made Alex do a U-turn and go back. He asked them if we could use it but they didn't have any water because a fire truck was coming so they could use that water in 45 minutes. Instead, in the time we had, we got out of the vehicles and ran around, played balls, and rolled down the hills as a little break from sitting in the car for so long. They did let us take a picture with them though, so that was cool.
We continued to drive until we reached Pennsylvania. Where many landscape pictures were taken and a group shot as well. Lots of planking and owling, but still, it was all good. We possed with our hands up in the picture, so Katrina and Greg could continue their competetion. We then loaded back in the vans and pretty much drove until we got there.
The church we stayed at was called the Swatara Church of God and they're awesome for letting us all crash there. We all stayed in the basement. There were 4 sleeping rooms for guys and 4 for girls. So we crammed all the Springvale girls in one room. Let's just say that there wasn't that much room to breathe. It was all good though. We set up all our stuff upon getting there. Then the leaders had a meeting and the kids went upstairs to the youth room for a lay down of all the rules. "No Purple" would have to be one of my faveourites. It meant no guys in girls room, no girls in guys rooms, etc. Get it? Like red and blue making purple. I thought it was kind of hilarious. That rule was broken a few times though, no big deal.
We had a nasty dinner of American nasty food, it was just like camp food, but disgusting. So yay. We ate in the gym with tables and chairs etc, so it wasn't like we were all eating on the floor or anything. After dinner, we had this thing called CLUB which is kind of like Chapel at WSC, worship, music, scripture, and a speaker who happened to be Alex who was one of the Youthworks Staff for the week. There were 4 of them Alex, Aaron, Becky, and Jenny. They're all really cool. Anyways, CLUB was cool and after CLUB we had church group time, so Springvale met in the youth room, so we didn't have to go anywhere. We stayed there much longer than we were expected to. We were talking through our worries, our fears, what we wanted this trip to do, what we wanted to take back home with us. We also looked at what we were doing for the week and talked about how we felt about that. I had Manor Care, Work Project & Silence of Mary. So I really didn't know what any of those would be so I had no real concerns, just a general nervous excitement.
We had some deep conversations, as per usual. So we were up late. A lot of people asked why our group went so long. I really dont know how to anwser that question. I mean, I get it with everything I do with this group. We just have real conversations. Real people, real prayers, a real God, real struggles, and we're really there for each other. And that's all I can really say.
We all went to bed after church group time, meanwhile every other group was already passed out asleep. We were all pretty exhausted from the car ride and night before. Myself espically from being at camp the week before. So we were passed out in a matter of minutes. On the wonderful, hard, cold, carpeted, church basement floor.
And that was just one day. I suggest you brace yourself for the rest of the week.
My trip, which was myself going out of the country to Harrisburg Pennsylvania with 21 other Canadians to meet up with several other American groups under the Supervision of Youthworks in Harrisburg.
We were there as a Church going down on a Mission to just go there and help out with the various needs in the community. In order to do this, we needed to apply, answer questions, go to meetings, give up a week of our summer, be accepted, and then manage to raise $10, 500 as the overall cost of our trip.
So myself, and 15 other kids were selected as well as 8 other adults were made into the Harrisburg Team. Fundraising was quite difficult because another group from our church was actually going down to Poland for around a month and they were fundraising around the same time as we were. We both managed to fund our trips, so it was quite incredible.
We basically took 2 large white vans down Saturday morning at around 5AM. So the night before a bunch of us slept over at the church photocopying passports, getting everything put together, packing the vans, blasting music, playing ball tag, and just hanging out really. I know for a short time Robbie took my phone and started texting you, so that was kind of funny. Anyways, we were all asleep before 1 so it was okay, we slept in the sanctuary after having a little talk with the girls about what we were afraid of and what we wanted to take out of the trip. Then I think we all crashed pretty hard listening to Jesus Culture.
The next morning we were up bright and early and in the vans pretty quick. My van was Alex, Becka, Kat, Emily, Brendan, Cameron, Caleb, Tyler, Greg and Ryan. So it was pretty legit. I actually expected to sleep a bit. HAHAH, like that happened. No chance at all. We were talking and playing games and jamming out to music. It was pretty intense. Party Rock was our song for the trip. I loved it. Van rides were just so much fun. We'd be dancing and then a car would pass and we'd just be rocking it out and someone would turn and see the reaction and die laughing. I fell out of my seat so many times it's not even funny. Plus I had my seat belt locked, so I was kind of confined to my seat for a while, like what Patty and Thomas used to do in the morning rides. Gosh I miss them!
When we go into Niagara, we stopped and took off out of the van to go look at the Falls. We had a few nice group pictures there. It was pretty sweet, because I've never really seen the Falls before. Anyways, we got back in the vans and crossed the border, they basically asked us what we were doing, where we were going, asked if we were a youth group. He made us all hold our passports up to our face and take off our glasses/hats etc and slid the door open and checked us. Then he A-OK-ed the pedo vans to enter America. So we drove past the Falls of the USA side and man, they're not as pretty as the are in Canada.
In our van, we had this weird thing that we'd hold our breath every time we went over a bridge, but the bridges we crossed were about a two and half minutes each, so we all light headed after each bridge adventure. So it was obviously completely safe for Alex Street to be doing it while driving.
We stopped at the Cracker Barrel for breakfast then messed around in the gift shop and took a group shot there. Then it was back in the vans! We decided to play Hands Up. Which is basically where you put one of your hands up and see how long you can last without putting it down. I think Kat and Greg were going for a good 3 hours until they agreed to both put theirs down. It was actually really funny because we all went to Wendy's for lunch and they walked in with their hands up in the air. Lots of weird looks. We basically responded to everything with a "Sorry, we're Canadian" It was fun.
While we were driving we passed this open field where this group of people were setting up a slip and slide so we made Alex do a U-turn and go back. He asked them if we could use it but they didn't have any water because a fire truck was coming so they could use that water in 45 minutes. Instead, in the time we had, we got out of the vehicles and ran around, played balls, and rolled down the hills as a little break from sitting in the car for so long. They did let us take a picture with them though, so that was cool.
We continued to drive until we reached Pennsylvania. Where many landscape pictures were taken and a group shot as well. Lots of planking and owling, but still, it was all good. We possed with our hands up in the picture, so Katrina and Greg could continue their competetion. We then loaded back in the vans and pretty much drove until we got there.
The church we stayed at was called the Swatara Church of God and they're awesome for letting us all crash there. We all stayed in the basement. There were 4 sleeping rooms for guys and 4 for girls. So we crammed all the Springvale girls in one room. Let's just say that there wasn't that much room to breathe. It was all good though. We set up all our stuff upon getting there. Then the leaders had a meeting and the kids went upstairs to the youth room for a lay down of all the rules. "No Purple" would have to be one of my faveourites. It meant no guys in girls room, no girls in guys rooms, etc. Get it? Like red and blue making purple. I thought it was kind of hilarious. That rule was broken a few times though, no big deal.
We had a nasty dinner of American nasty food, it was just like camp food, but disgusting. So yay. We ate in the gym with tables and chairs etc, so it wasn't like we were all eating on the floor or anything. After dinner, we had this thing called CLUB which is kind of like Chapel at WSC, worship, music, scripture, and a speaker who happened to be Alex who was one of the Youthworks Staff for the week. There were 4 of them Alex, Aaron, Becky, and Jenny. They're all really cool. Anyways, CLUB was cool and after CLUB we had church group time, so Springvale met in the youth room, so we didn't have to go anywhere. We stayed there much longer than we were expected to. We were talking through our worries, our fears, what we wanted this trip to do, what we wanted to take back home with us. We also looked at what we were doing for the week and talked about how we felt about that. I had Manor Care, Work Project & Silence of Mary. So I really didn't know what any of those would be so I had no real concerns, just a general nervous excitement.
We had some deep conversations, as per usual. So we were up late. A lot of people asked why our group went so long. I really dont know how to anwser that question. I mean, I get it with everything I do with this group. We just have real conversations. Real people, real prayers, a real God, real struggles, and we're really there for each other. And that's all I can really say.
We all went to bed after church group time, meanwhile every other group was already passed out asleep. We were all pretty exhausted from the car ride and night before. Myself espically from being at camp the week before. So we were passed out in a matter of minutes. On the wonderful, hard, cold, carpeted, church basement floor.
And that was just one day. I suggest you brace yourself for the rest of the week.
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