Day One

Monday, July 9, 2012

Day One

Day one in Philly! Today has been full, very full, but extremely eye-opening.
Our first project today was at Sunday Breakfast Mission. This was a rescue mission for homeless guys- a place that offered shelter and food for men that were in need. We were given a tour of the building, shown where the men slept, ate, and showered. SBM offers two programs- one that provides shelter for men for 30 days, and one that offers an interenship, housing and intense Bible lessons for about a year.
These first pictures show where the men staying for 30 days sleep- about 200 men fit in this room.

Men who are entered into the interenship program (called Over-comers) get more private rooms- two men are in each room. This little cubicals were small and modest, but something that filled a need in these men's lives.

This shelter really works are getting men back on their feet, making sure they have a job, are saving money, but it zeros in on one key goal: to teach the men how to be leaders in their family. They are taught how to be good fathers to their children and how to provide for everyone in their family. We were put to work on cleaning out the "pantry" at this mission. This room, as you can see, was huge. It was packed full, from the floor to the ceiling, with crates and boxes full of canned goods. Our leader explained that they have problems with animals (mainly mice) and they need this room cleaned out on a regular basis. This job required: sweeping, cleaning off each shelf, hosing off the boxes and crates, and cleaning each can. That's right, individually wiping off every single can, sorting throw the rusted ones, and packing them neatly back in the boxes.

We worked here until 12:30pm and had cleaned out just about one fourth of the room.

Every evening we are helping out with Vacation Bible School here at Grace Church. The amount of varitey in cultures here is amazing. We have kids coming from everywhere (tonight we had around 40 kids). Each one of us is a "crew member" and is assigned between 3-5 kids. We are in charge of these kids every night. On the basic level, we are required to lead our kids from station to station, through Bible, crafts, games and snacks. On a deeper level, however, our responsibility is to create relationships with our kids. We are asked to connect with our group of kids, to talk to them, be available if they have any questions, to encourage them and to have fun!

We have each been given names and addresses for our kids, with the hope of keeping in contact with some of them after we come back to Hermann.

We've spent a lot of time praying for these kids, praying for unity in our group, but we would really appreciate your prayers too!! God is so present here. He has given us so much to work with. I just pray we have the ability to use what He has given us. Pray in specific for continued energy (the work jobs we are doing really are exhausting), for continued unity in our group (we need one mind and one goal in order to accomplish what God wants us to accomplish), and especially for the kids we are working with during VBS. We've had several opportunities to talk about more serious things with the kids, but please pray we will be attentive to what they need and able to help them if they have questions