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.
