Here are some photos (courtesy of Laura Stancher's Facebook) from the mission trip I went on last week to inner city Knoxville TN. We had about 10 youth from our church, St. Andrew, along with 50 or so other ELCA Lutherans stay at St. Johns for about a week and help out serving various ministries in the area.
This is Preston and his biggest fan. This photo was taken at the Knoxville Area Rescue Mission (aka KARM), a homeless shelter. A group went there and babysat the kiddos so the adults could have a meeting. Preston had the pleasure of being the only male coming from St. Andrew. I don't think he minded.
This is my friend Kaleigh and baby Heather at KARM. Heather is two monthes old. Kaleigh is seventeen years. =)
This is Kristen, a resident at KARM, and I. I've spent a lot of time with kids this summer so I left the babysitting up to my fellow mission workers and chatted with Kristen instead. We had fun.
The group did a scavenger hunt and part of our assignment was to take a picture representing a transformation. Our team did baptism, represented by our playing in the fountain. During the race, I had the interesting experience of being held hostage in a bathroom. I took a potty break towards the end of our little competition and found that the door wouldn't open. Another team was holding it from the other side demanding me to give them answers. You'd expect me to be angry, but I actually found the whole event to be hilarious! I about died laughing on the bathroom floor.
Elizabeth (blue shirt) and I met these two lovely ladies at Guy. B. Love, a sort of nursing home. We put on a Christmas in July pageant and then sat down with the residents for cookies. Valarie and Mary were hilarious. They told us all about their favorite Christmas memories and they even sang us their favorite song. I don't remember what it was called. They also asked us to pray that all the demons haunting Guy. B. Love go away.
Here's Emily B. trying on some of the kid ties while we hung up the baby clothes at Angelic Ministries. AM is a place where people can get clothes (for job interviews as well as pajamas), beds, toasters, shoes, strollers and other necessities. They pair each shopper with a guide who helps you find what you need and serves as a sort of spiritual mentor.
This is my youth leader, Sarah, cringing while we go through a series of trust falls.
This one was called "the wind and the willow". Elizabeth looks like she's enjoying these trust falls a lot more than Sarah.
This is me and my new buddy Gavin. He's quite a handful. I met him at the Wesley House, a summer camp for kids from lower income families.
This is a group of us and the Water Wagon.
What's a Water Wagon?
The Water Wagon crew walks around down town Knoxville and serves water to whoever is in need of a cool drink.
The Water Wagon was definitely a high point of my week.
WOW week 3.
No comments:
Post a Comment