Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

 What a blessed day it was. We began our morning with breakfast by Frank.

Pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes and other goodies

Our first performance of the day was at Bethany UMC. It was such a cozy church. There were several of their youth there. We were thrilled to have Mr. & Mrs. Santiago to join us again for this concert.
After the service, the youth director feed us grilled burgers and dogs. Several of the youth hung out and chatted. They sent us away with COOKIES! We stayed for a while just enjoying the beautiful day before we headed to our next performance.

Our next performance for the day was at Timberlake UMC. Most of the kids (and adults) took this opportunity to nap. I would post some cute pictures of this but Mr. Izzo threatened to make me ride UNDER the bus if I did. :-)

We arrived and set up then were fed an amazing pot luck style dinner. We had the joy of eating with many of the congregants and made many new friends.

We had a very good concert to a fairly large congregation. I apologize for not having pictures from this concert but I left my phone on the bus. 

Once we returned to the dorm, we had our Bible study time, Tribal counsel voting and our nightly challenge. Tonight's challenge was a little easier to stomach. They family groups had to put together identical jigsaw puzzles....without the picture to go by.

The candy bar family group won once again.

Saturday continued

We continued our day at Fort Hill UMC. They provided us a tasty dinner then we performed. The congregation was super sweet.
Our new friend, the director at Camp Timothy so see us once again.

Our challenge for the night was a fun trivia game of "how well do you know your counselors". Let's just say it was eye opening.

Saturday morning

So sorry for not having posted lately. Between WiFi being sketchy and a busy schedule, it hasn't been as easy to do as I had hoped. Not to mention it has closed out without saving 3 times today.

Here is a brief update of our weekend.

Saturday we went to work at the food pantry at Park View Mission. The kids helped sort food beforehand, helped the "neighbors" shop, cleaned and helped everywhere.

                     Sorting produce

                         More sorting

                         Roger sweeping

                          Even Mr. Izzo helped.

                       The kitchen got a good cleaning

                      Having fun

                          Sam handed out carts

                          Freezer helpers

                More kitchen cleaners

                Great helpers

1st challenge...... baby food challenge

Ok, so I may have been a little evil when choosing the baby food flavors. But hey, who doesn't love the carrots, mixed vegetables, butternut squash, been beans and green peas? The goal was to correctly identify the 5 flavors from 8 choices given. The first family group to do this was the "candy bar" family group. Congratulations Kara, Latina, Ethan, and Christina. Great job Kara and Ethan for having such a distinguishing pallette..... and for not losing it all.

In other news, Jenny was the winner for the tribal council vote. It was a tie with 3 votes each between her and Tyler but the show of hands went to Jenny. She will receive her prize at the end of the trip.

Enjoy these shots of our group evening.

                         Taco dinner on the 5th floor

                        Bible study time

                          Bible study time

          Brave volunteers and the winners

                       Yummy

                         Go Tyler!

                        Go Robby!

 Not everyone enjoys green peas

And the winning list

In the beginning

                                              loading the bus

                                          It's a REALLY tight fit

                                             Our annual bus picture

We are 24 hours into our Mission trip and what a trip it has been already!

We arrived yesterday afternoon and got settled in. We then made our way to the Lynchburg Hill Cats baseball stadium. The kids did a beautiful job singing the National Anthem. We were then able to enjoy the game for a while. The kids seemed to enjoy having the time together and watching the game.

JNS National Anthem  (click here for the video)

                                                       Getting ready to go on the field

                                                          Our fearless leader

                                                       Waiting....

                                                         This is where we are

                                                         Places everyone

                                                 After the game

                                                        He's such a good sport. lol


Day 2:

The next morning, we woke up and had an amazing breakfast prepared by our personal chef, Frank Priest. These waffles and bacon/sausage were definitely NOT the frozen kind.

Shortly after, we made our way over to Camp Timothy. This camp is housed at the Westminster Presbyterian Church but is sponsored by the Churches for Urban Ministry. It has been happening every summer for the past 63 years. It began by just 1 person starting something for 8 African American students and has grown to an average of 90 students each summer with a staff of 26. Its federal funding is limited because they refuse to give up the Christian foundation of the program. The Churches for Urban Ministry provides a large portion of the funding. The ACTUAL cost is $650 per child for the 6 weeks. However, through funding, it only costs families $125 per child for the entire 6 weeks! Yes, that's just barely over $20 a week. Did I mention they also serve them a nutritious breakfast and lunch while they are there?

We had the opportunity to join them for their morning "assembly". WOW! If you aren't praising the Lord by the end of that then you should check your pulse. Seriously, there is no way to have a bad day after an experience like that. They kids led prayer, performed skits, reviewed the key words they had learned through the week and sang. No, they didn't sing, they praised GOD and had WORSHIP! Think VBS on steroids!

The kids then split up and went to mingle with the kids in their different classrooms while some kids helped out in the office. We enjoyed a lunch of fish sticks, carrots and applesauce/fruit with them. About 30 minutes later, we performed our concert for them. The kids did another beautiful job. Then.....the staff thanked us by singing for us. It was beautiful. After that song, the kids joined in and there was song, after song, after song. WOW! 2 worship and praise sessions in 1 amazing day. We were all so blessed by this. We definitely got the words to some of the songs so that we can add them to our repertoire.

  The sanctuary of the church we sang at. We didn't actually sing in here but it was beautiful.

Work/performance wise, this has been an easy day. Worship wise, it has been a huge blessing. Now the kids are out in groups exploring this beautiful campus of Randolph College. It is old and simply beautiful. We will be enjoying a dinner of tacos prepared by our chef then enjoy a night of challenges, Bible study and all around fun. (We are using a Survivor theme so there are challenges along the way to win immunity (the right to be first in line for the next day). We will also be voting for people that have gone over and above today. There will be no voting people off this island. 😁) Tonight's challenge is a baby food challenge.