Thursday, June 19 - Fun in the Sun

Hello! This is Cate Duckwall and Lily Blackshaw. Today was our final day at Beth-El. The last few hours of our time there consisted of washing cars, cleaning up drywall, and bagging food. We said our goodbyes and took a group picture by the Beth-El sign with Javier, Luis, and Luis’s brother. Then we began our trip to Clearwater, Florida. Soon after we arrived we headed to the beach for a day of fun in the sun. We swam in the ocean for a few hours. Unfortunately, it began to thunder so we decided to head in for dinner. Luckily, Elizabeth had already made plans for dinner at Frenchy’s Rockaway Grill, which was located right alongside the beach. The food was great and then we got ice cream. Afterwards, we made our way onto the pier and witnessed a beautiful sunset. As our day began to close, it was time to head to Peace Memorial Church, our home for the night. We were thrilled to pull up to a beautiful pink church. It was different from our church and the people we spoke to were extremely friendly. Hopefully, we will all sleep well and wake up with a smile on our faces. Tomorrow we will begin our long drive back to Roanoke.

Wednesday, June 18 - “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20: 16

Hey, it’s Olivia Smith and Austin Dickson. Today we did a variaty of different projects, from dry-walling to packing bags for the food pantry and we got to hear about the life of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The first activity that we did in the morning was Sister Sarah, a physician’s assistant, came and talked to us about the conditions that farmworkers have to deal with and about how little they get payed for a lot of work. Sister Sarah told us that for a bucket of twenty pounds of tomatoes, the farmworkers would get payed less than fifty cents. If you were working in the food pantry you got to place cans of food such as pears, dried cherries, raisins, juice concentrate, carrots, vegetable soup, and salmon. After a few minutes of confusion, we figured out that the best way to make sure that every bag got the necessary foods was to create an assembly line and pass the bags down a table. While we were working in the food pantry we got to meet three kids that helped us double bag the grocery bags and lift the full bags onto the carts. After a few hours of placing cans into bags, we finished with the bags and filled the entire room and all the racks with bags full of food that were ready to be handed out at the next food bank. If you helped out with the dry-walling today, you helped finish it! We were able to get up the last boards of dry-wall and plaster the places that needed plastering. Hopefully tomorrow we can paint the rooms. After we got done, we helped out with other necessities that needed to be done. In our free-time in the afternoon, Austin, Dylan, Hank, Jeff, and Luis, a boy that we met in the food pantry, played a three-on-two basketball game that the adults, Hank and Jeff, won. Other people played card games during our free-time. Today we experienced a lot of different types of food. In the morning the cook, Maria, prepared pancakes for us. At lunch we had tostadas that had refried beans, rice, chicken, and lettuce on them. For dinner our cooking team prepared grilled cheese. We wrapped up our day with devotions where we talked about how God’s grace extends to everyone and how He treats everyone equally. After devotions we played a fun game of balderdash. Today is our last night at Beth-El. Tomorrow we will work a half day and then leave here after lunch. We will spend the afternoon at a beach in nearby Clearwater, and then crash on the floor of a local church. Friday we’ll be up early for our drive back to Roanoke!

Tuesday, June 17 - Fearlessly Facing Frightening Firsts

Buenas noches! It’s Ema Simpson and Kirby Evett posting tonight. A lot of things happened today! As usual breakfast crew got up early to make sure we had food and were well-fueled for the long work day ahead. Once breakfast was over, we packed up camp (which is set up in the back of the sanctuary), and slowly began dividing into two groups. Beth-El was beginning to fill up with people waiting for the weekly food pantry to open. Meanwhile, local volunteers along with the youth groups present (there are two other youth groups staying at a local campsite, probably 30 minutes down the road) prepared for the multitude of people eager to receive food bags to help them through the week. Since we also experienced working in the food pantry last year, the youth were excited to be a part of this event, as it is one of the most rewarding parts of this trip. Getting to interact with the local people and bringing a smile to their faces helps us to remember the purpose of trips like this one. Seeing people who are so incredibly grateful for things we take for granted makes us realize how fortunate we are. A couple rooms away, the second half of our group was working to put dry wall in the future office spaces adjoining the sanctuary. These were the rooms that were cleared out yesterday, and it’s been amazing to see the transformation. With the help of the incredible and patient Santos, who is responsible for many of the construction jobs here at Beth-El, we learned the art of drilling properly into studs to hang the dry wall and began plastering it in preparation for painting. This was a day of firsts for many youth and adults (a special thanks to Jeff and Hank, who bravely and enthusiastically led the youth in this project, relying only on Santos and instinct for guidance). Despite our initial nervousness, these “firsts” were very rewarding, particularly at the end of the day when we saw all we had accomplished. Following our busy and productive day, we straightened the sanctuary for the night’s worship service. After that we eagerly visited our beloved Shampoo Salon and then loaded up the bus for a delicious, authentic Mexican dinner at Don Julio’s. By the time we returned from dinner people had started to arrive for worship. We were a little out of our element, as the service was mostly in Spanish, but luckily the pastor translated most of the service for us. It was also incredible how despite the language barrier the members of Beth-El’s congregation managed to make us feel so welcome in their special space. The service was different from the ones we experience back home. It consisted largely of songs, but our only instrumental back-ups were a tambourine and our hands. There was also a time for prayer, when we were able to pray silently and voice concerns aloud to the congregation. Listening to the prayers of the people at Beth-El was a wonderful part of the day. They were very open about everything from their own quick tempers to the health concerns of neighbors, friends, and family. It reminded us that church is a place of fellowship, where worries can be expressed and met with kindness and comfort. We wrapped up the evening by playing Identity Theft and another round of Telephone Pictionary. We also reflected on the day by talking about the things that surprised us the most. As we end the day, we’d just like to express how thankful we are to be here. Even though our purpose here is to help the members of Beth-El’s community, in many ways they help us more than we could ever help them.

Monday, June 16 - "There's no Eye in Team!" (shout out to 1 Corinthians 12)

Hola, it’s Ali Sharpe and Meg Evett blogging tonight! Today was a very eventful day, full of various projects that our group worked on. Bright and early we got up, ate breakfast, and got ready for the day. After doing our daily devotionals, we met Javier and the other youth groups from Florida to learn about Beth-El and our tasks for the day. Once we split up in our different groups, our work varied from weeding to cleaning out attics. Many in our group worked on clearing out storage rooms and organizing the attic so these rooms could be better utilized for the Beth-El staff. We helped with the attic organizing and formed an assembly line going down the stairs to clean out the various items quickly. From chairs and desks to clothes and holiday decorations we quickly cleared out the attic which was stifling hot. From there, we cleaned and wiped down most of the items and categorized them to have them ready for locals to pick them up during the food drive tomorrow. Other people in our group cleared out potential office rooms for the staff, which involved unscrewing shelves and heavy lifting. Also, some youth helped prepare the food tomorrow for the food drive for the community. We surprised ourselves with how much we accomplished together in such little time. After a lunch break, we wrapped up our projects and took much-needed showers. We enjoyed showering in the Shampoo Salon Part Two, built by the Beth-El staff to accommodate our stay with them. After showers we piled on the bus and ventured two minutes down the road to La Tienda Mexicana, a local convenience store. Most bought something sweet such as ice cream and Elizabeth even bought a watermelon grown nearby to go with dinner. Yesterday we split into groups to cook dinner this week and so today’s group made pizzas and salad for this evening’s dinner. We all circled around the Spanish TV and watched the US win over Ghana in the World Cup! We then talked about the day and laughed over a round of telephone pictionary, a game Elizabeth introduced to our group. We all look forward to what the rest of the week will bring us, and are excited to get to know one another better too!

Sunday, June 15 - The journey to Florida continues

Hello, this is Caroline Nordt and Dylan Entsminger! Today was our second travel day! We woke up bright and early at 7:30am to prepare for our last day of travel before reaching Beth-El. We sleepily re-packed our belongings into the bus and slowly got ready to participate in Sunday School and the Worship service at First Pres. in Savannah, Georgia. But before the Sunday School class we joined in on, we had time to do some group bonding and play some games. The first game is rather hard to describe, it evolves one person going into the middle of a circle and doing a movement and adding a noise to that movement, both have to be copied by another member of the group and then the new person started the process over again. Then we found a more intense game, Chasing Carrots, as we will call it. It was a high energy and very awakening. The Sunday School class we joined was much different from those that we were used to. Instead of the normal lesson, “Today we will learn about....”, it was more open to the ideas of the group and held much group discussion. The Worship service, while it held many similarities, conducted the order of the service in a much different manner. It was also a lighter feeling service. Rather than a strict serious service, the minister was very friendly in what he had to say, interjecting humorous stories into the very confusing topic of the Trinity. Afterwards, we had some time to explore around Savannah. We got to return to a restaurant we had visited last year, Henry’s, filled with brightly colored teal walls and pretty good food! Then we went to the waterfront and had some time to explore. Some groups ventured into the candy shop while others went into souvenir stores and then coffee shops, I mean, c’mon, there was a game on... Then we continued with the long journey filled with many conversations and laughter. Finally, we have arrived at Beth-El. For many of us, it was like returning home. For others, it’s a new place that will be fun to explore and experience. It is definitely different than Virginia. Stay tuned for more! We begin work in the morning.