Hello everyone. We
are sitting on the plane, exhausted, waiting to come home. It has been an amazing week filled with so
much it may be hard to remember everything I want to say, but I will try. The daily schedule was up at 5:30 am and in
bed around 11:00 pm. It was literally
non-stop from morning to night with no down time.
We were divided into two groups. Teresa had six of our kids. I had three of our kids and
two kids from Bend, Oregon. Teresa’s
group spent the week at the Tenderloin Boy’s and Girl’s Club. All I can say is picture the poorest of the
poor areas and you will get an idea where it is located. They did amazing work with the kids teaching
and playing with them. I will let Teresa
cover more of their work.
My group spent three days at the All Nations Youth Ministry
further south in SF. We helped a church
with a large group of primarily Korean children. We had to help them with math, music, English
and art classes. I helped James with the
4th and 5th graders.
In math class they asked, “Can you help me with that question?” I would look at it and usually respond,
“That’s math?” I would try to Google help
with the question and usually the kid finished the problem in their head before
I could figure it out. I felt like a
contestant on “Our You Smarter than a Fifth Grader.” We also played with the kids all three days
and I had to captain one of the teams for capture the flag every day.
On our last day there, our teenagers organized the morning
worship. The subject was on the Ten
Commandments. Our kids worked for two
days picking songs, choreographing moves for the kids and preparing a short
Bible study. The kids loved it, and I was
very proud of our teenagers. At the end, we had
to say good-bye to the kids which was very difficult. I feel more blessed than ever having been
with them.
One of our days we went to a mission that fed elderly people
in the neighborhood. We helped in the
kitchen, handed out food and visited with the residents. We were forced by the staff to go into the
Zumba class the elderly women were taking.
This was like no Zumba I have ever seen.
It was Hispanic and Asian women doing line dancing to Mariachi
music. The women dragged myself and Josh
on the floor and we had to dance several songs with them. We finished with everyone in the group doing
the longest, most energetic line dance I have ever been in. My legs were sore for days. After the mission, we went to a food bank
larger than any Costco and helped sort plums for distribution to local groups.
Our last day of service we had food left over from our
group. We took the food, and Adam and James
stood on the street and gave it away to the homeless and needy. The last person to get food was an elderly
Jewish woman who asked the kids to pray with her. As James started the prayer, she stopped him
and said, “Remember, I’m Jewish.”
This has been one of those experiences that I will carry
with me and talk about forever. There
was good and bad. Sitting in traffic,
taking two hours to go 16 miles was not good.
But listening to the kids connecting with the Youth Works leaders and
randomly naming people in passing cars was awesome. Having a sunset service on a mountain was
amazing. Sleeping in a room with 12 boys
on air mattresses was, let’s say, an experience. Any conflicts the kids had were completely
worked out between them with no interference from us. That shows a tremendous amount of maturity on
their behalf. I am very proud of all of
the kids and what they did this week.
As I close this, we are thirty minutes into our flight and
the our kids are not sleeping. It was a flight with only 70 people, and although there were rows and rows of open seats, they all sat together. They are spending every last second together. Thank
you to Community Lutheran Church of Escondido, for giving Teresa and I, the
opportunity to spend a week with these teenagers in serving the community of
San Francisco. We are truly grateful.
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