Maria's thoughts

I learned a lot of things this week.
Maria

Mariela's thoughts

I learned how to take care of kids and how to pull weeds. I also enjoyed making friends with the group from Mississippi.
Mariela

Hannah's thoughts

This week has been a true blessing. I absolutely love hanging out with my church friends and meeting new people. My favorite thing this week has been working with little kids and helping at kids club.
Hannah

Casey's thoughts

This week has probably been the most interesting trip I've been on. From the many work assignments to the little time I had to tutor the week was very busy. My favorite thing about this whole trip was the excitement on the kids' faces at kids club.
Casey

Rachel's thoughts

This trip meant a lot to me because I felt most useful because I was painting a mural and I felt my skills were being best used as opposed to other years.
Rachel

Paco's mind upon the trip

To me this trip that I took ment that I was to do many things that I was not expecting to do, it ment that I would most likely be doing something completely different as to what I am used to doing and that is one of the reasons as to why I enjoy this trip so much, i am here doing many many things, for starters I met new people some of which I hope to see again next year, tutoring is a huge hassle but once I'm there, there is no going back, but the repayment of being with them and having grow onto so quickly is nice to see, now I won't lie and say I grew onto him all that easily since he tended to ware me out so much, haha, but it was nice to see that he will miss me, lets me know my efforts were not wasted and that warms my heart a little, also I am more than happy to say that I will be hopefully coming back EVERY single year, this is my second and do wish to miss any from now on. So I will be back soon ish, and see my friends yet again, be worn out, pul some weeds, make new friends, get some dirt in my shoes and lips, haha, go around and make some new project that mike is probably thinking of now as we speak, I am more than happy to live in this type of life and I hope to live like this forever, I can't (currently) think of a better way to live but there is always room for improvement. I shall see this place next year.
:) P. A. C. O.

My great adventure (Antonio)

Well at first I thought to my self "should I go to St. Louis". I Talked to my parents about it and I convinced them on letting me go. When we arrived we went to the cahokia Mountains which was gorgeous with all the fire flies and good view of the city. Through out the week it was really tough waking up early in the morning, hanging out with the little rugrats and working with other people I don't even know. one of the best things is that i got to meet new friends. " myster,Luke, Hanna, Casey, Thorne, makensie, Austin, livie,
John and leaders like lil mike, Angela, Clint, Gosh, Keith, Andrew, and the funny one Elliot,anyways I had lots of fun just like pastor mike said. By: Antonio Renteria aka BBT

Location:St. Louis

Working in St. Louis. (from Antonio)

On our week visit in St. Louis we divided into groups working on projects. On Monday I got chosen/forced to work for a refugee/immigrant garden. Basically what I did is pull weeds, shovel dirt, and sweat in the heat. Yours truly: Antonio Renteria

Location:St.louis

The kids (Myster's update)

Hi name myster me and this boy named Calvin was going to give out free slushes and you would think that all the little kids would be good


but they waz bad little kids they would Make you give them one and one little girl toke like 3 of them and then came back


for more
So thats my story don't let kids tell you what to do from Myster

Ladies of the Afghan World

Written by Tate, told by Angela.

My work assignment this week was teaching English to two Afghani women. Hannah came with me three of the four days and really helped with their children while we tutored. Each day I learned more about them as they learned colors, money, time, and household objects. On Thursday, as we were getting ready to go, we were asked to stay for a meal. As we entered into another apartment, it was immaculant and beautiful with gorgeous rugs and lovely wall paintings. They spread a cloth on the floor. On it placed marinated chickens,cucumber tomato salad, a pasta bean dish, chilled cans of sprite, and amazing afghani naan (There's a better name but I can't think of it).






I was humbled and over whelmed by their generosity. As who knows how difficult it was to get the groceries (neither of them has a car) or how much of their living income it cost them. All week long when we asked them questions they would answer as best they could. When we were talking after this meal however, they became very animated. As we admired their home and cooking they told us " In Afghanistan, no cook, no clean, no husband." They even stood up to tell us " Husband, mom visit to see this one cook. This one clean. If no cook, no clean, no husband. No read, write, ok. No cook, no clean, no husband." I think they were saying, they had all the necessary skills to be successful adults where they came from. Here the rules have changed and they're having to adapt quickly to a different set of circumstances.

I love the chance to get to know them a little bit and to help them transition into this country. Most of all I am so glad that New City is here long term to be apart of their lives. It's such a privilege to be able to help a little and know that it's a apart of something bigger.

Location:North Hodiamont

Cajons

Based on a phone interview with Nick Matula with the background voice of Mike Collison.



{Above is Nick and Luke building Cajons}

There were 25 Cajons built for kids, 5 for leaders, and 1 big Cajons for New City Fellowship. Most Cajons was built by the kids for the kids. The group including many of our team, plus a few others, split the steps into different days.

Step 1: Put the box together with glue and then glue on front bass
Step 2: Put in back support, snare, and hole (that includes the woodworking elves that exhausted themselves overnight)
Step 3: Sanding and staining with colors of mahogany, red, blue, green, pecan. The kids also designed their drums with criss cross, smilies, and other designs. There was clear coating them and drilling the screws.


{Above are the kids building their Cajons}

The background story to the Cajons started 3 years ago when Mike saw a Cajon at his brothers church. Mike soon figured out it was expensive and like Mike, he had to figure out how to build a Cajon and getting more for his buck. Mike, Nick, and Ryan built one and it seemed that people started to dig on them. Using their intelligent minds, the Cajons were used as a fundraiser to have more kids come to St. Louis. "It's a really hot selling item." said Mike. "Boy scouts, campfires, it's for everyone." An old idea of a box drum became a reality for kids of Firm Foundation as they enjoy their musical instruments. "It was crazy and a lot of work that pays off" said Nick Mautla, a main creator of the drum. "We didn't get the green light until two days before so Mike was running around." Nick continued. Nick's favorite moment was the drum circle where all the kids, with their unique drums, were led by Mike in a beat.

All in all, the drums were a success thanks to all who helped.


Written by Tate Phillip

Location:In the car on the phone with Nick Matula

The journey home... What the trip meant to me (Ryan, Tate and Sara)

As one who is returning from my fourth trip to St Louis, I find it a bit difficult to find some things new. For four years we have returned to the same apartment complex for kid's club, I tutored a child I had years previous, the shirts given at the end of the week were mostly reminiscent of last Year's. However this year I realized after coming so many times I am no longer in the company of kind strangers but friends. There are kids that I remember from my first wild ride to St Louis. Though I said that I felt as if I did things that did not feel "new", I know this really is not true. I help paint a mural and met loads of new people. I am not disappointed with this year, it was just as wild and enjoyable as any of my previous trips. God was at work among us and working through us, that much I am certain of.

Ryan

This week meant a lot to me in terms of relationships, strengthening old relationships and creating new ones. Our youth group has definitely become a family to me and I know I would be lost without them. This is my fifth year on this trip and every year helps me grow in my friendships with these people. Aside from old relationships we form new ones with kids and staff members at New City. Tutoring in the morning connects us with the students and the college City Lights teaching team. Our afternoons are filled with work projects with our group and others. This year I helped paint a mural with others from our group and our project leader Mark Taylor. In the evenings we headed off to kids club to develop more friendships with children. What a joy! All in all, a great trip and I look forward to returning for my sixth year next year! - Sara


This trip meant to me the ending to my senior year. I will most likely stop going on trips for quite some time due to my intense 20 months of college. However this trip was so frustrating at times but I must admit other times it was a blessing. This was my fourth and final year. Too bad I had to be sick for most of it. -Tate

A few mini updates from Thursday

Rachel: today was our last day of tutoring and the little girl that I had been tutoring all week was sad to see me go. So before I left she gave me three cards. It was the highlight of my week and I will miss tutoring dearly. :)

Casey: feeling better and not sure about indian food. I miss guitar and my family very much! And hannah misses tootsie.

We will be creating more updates from the car tomorrow, but there are more photos out there for you to check out in the meantime!

(use link on right or click here).

Today I drank a Sunkist

...and Gloria drank Arizona Green Tea. That is Wednesday's update, according to my roommate Mariela.

Gloria's update: I miss everybody back home. I got sweet, genuine hugs from the girls in the neighborhood tonight (tonight was our last night of kids club).

Maria's update (translated by Mariela): everyone said bye to me tonight and I wanted to cry. I pray to God that He would touch them, that they could be touched by Him.

Gloria wants to end with a closing thought of Hakuna Matata - no worries! That is the song she is singing into her hairbrush at the moment.

Now that I posted updates from my roommates, I will add that today was a full and beautiful day. The temperature was maybe 80 at the highest and cool and breezy - makes me wonder if we're really in St. Louis! I think we all have a lot we're processing, and at the same time are feeling a sense of accomplishment: picnic tables have been finished, kids club are done, we gave away lots of toothbrushes, the mural and canoes are nearing completion, the team that was weeding got a LOT done on a field that will be used by refugees, and we did laundry!

And now it has started raining shoes: "lluvia de zapatos" (I'm on the bottom bunk) so I think I must wrap it up for now. Until tomorrow!

Quick Notes from Tuesday

Good day! Teammates that weren't feeling well are back on their feet, and we're all charging full speed ahead. The day was filled with good moments with our tutor kids, good times with each other, interesting work projects, and a crazy-good as usual kids club. Thanks for your prayers!
who wants to leave first?


playin' air trumpet and crazy dancing to jazz











Cheese puffs and no plate!


Lunch, pre-afternoon work


Mural progress!

Lost Boys

We watched part of the movie God Grew Tired of Us today as part of our devotion time. It's a movie put together by National Geographic on the "Lost Boys" - thousands of boys that fled Sudan and the fighting and lost pretty much everything, including their families, in the process. The movie tells the story a few boys/men who eventually emigrate to the U.S. and their experience here as complete newcomers.

Here's one student's reflections on the movie.


Skeleton, dark walking skeletons. The lost boys of Africa numbered over 27,000 then 12,000. Who am I to complain about another thing in my life.

Still they are not broken. They laugh like boys and men do, they are human while having endured things that can not just kill you but take your heart and soul.

I would have probably already taken my own life.

They are strong, they should have nothing left. Now they must leave the men they struggled with, to go to a land where they are not wanted.

The few men chosen to go know that leaving their brothers will hurt but they cannot deny themselves this opportunity.

Can you imagine anything stranger than the Western world with all its convenience, protocols. They are utterly lost.

From different lenses

Today we started tutoring and the girl that I am tutoring name is Alyssa and I had just met her when she told me that she had decided that we were going to be great friends. It made my day totally worth while to know that she liked me and that she wanted to be my friend. 
Now I can't wait to see her tomorrow for some more fun and friendship.
-Rachel
At kids club today Hannah and I walked around finding out the names of the many kids that were there. For 2 hours I wrote name tags only to realize that I had already written about 50 names and had only gotten about 65% of the total names of the kids. It was a great thing to realize how many kids enjoy our company and wait for us to come every summer.
I cant wait until tomorrow when we get to go do it all over again! 
-Rachel

This is Paco talkin now, and I hope u can tell by the way I be typin, hehe, anyways, today at tutoring we were doin sumtin about a black renaissance so so and such and such, so somehow we came to talkin about rap and the teacher asks if anyone in the classroom can rap, so I get pointed I didn't even raise my hand, so I was pretty much forced into rappin something or anything in a couple of seconds, so, I came up with some random words that did not ryhme but apparently sounded good to the teacher and so she asked me to do a rap for tomorrow and I told her ild see what I could come up with, so now here is the first verse to what will hopefully be a full song by the end of this week, I do not promise this will be the same when I have the final result

We are here in saint loui
And so my mind went cablui 
Cuz the heat was mighty flamin
And yet we was still playin
And we be showin some new things 
While we sit here with the kids
As we pursue our happiness
And me sayin some rap - ness
And yet even though we've never met before 
We be likin each other like a metaphor 
So I kno we be havin a good time
And ild be glad to blow your mind 

Me ending will definatly be:
Now i hope you liked my rhyme 
Because now I am out of time 

... And back to Angela
We've had a great day. Well, most of us. Tate has been fighting a bug that took her out of kids club last night, and then Casey came down with something that had him out all of today. We're hoping both will be back on their feet tomorrow - AND that nothing is contagious!

It was really neat to meet the kids we'll be tutoring this morning. Some are really challenging, some are much less so, but all are a privilege to meet and to get to know.

For the afternoon, we split into different groups for yard work, visiting nursing homes, painting a mural, making cahones (wooden box drums) and picnic tables, and whatever else we were asked to do. Hannah and I and two other girls were assigned to help tutor English to two Afghani women - so neat. Hannah played with the kids, and the intern and I talked about colors and family relationships and whatever else they showed interest in. My favorite part was teaching them the word "fat". They started giggling and each saying that she was fat, and we all got the giggles for some reason. Just fun to laugh together when there's so much we're unable to communicate about. 

On to more adventures and stories tomorrow!

Pictures!

Well - it's harder to get pictures out here than it is to get text updates, so there's been some delay on adding the pictures that went with the stories of the past few days. I'm happy to report that they're now up here, and some have been added to individual updates.

For the full St. Louis photo album, visit this link.

Updates from my breakfast companions

Update from Adrian: I fell asleep. It was good. I met a kid who can do the rainbow (a soccer move). I did it once and then I never did it again.

Update from Antonio: Kids Club was fun last night. I was playing with a bunch of kids - little kids. It was actually fun! 

Paco - I like the song Sunshine by Lupe Fiasco

Sunday is a good day (but maybe not a day of rest here in St. Louis!)

The kids began today with an energetic start - on time for breakfast and ready to go well before our 9:30 meeting. We'll see how that trend continues! After a discussion with Josh Chapeau (yes THE Josh that has come multiple times to visit us in Appleton!) about what we might expect from the week, we headed to church. At church we sang songs in multiple languages and a bunch of us participated in a conga line that spontaneously started during one of the songs. After church, we were divided into smaller groups and went home with various families from the church. We were fed amazing food and answered and asked many questions. One story that arose was of a family that owned a huge house and then learned of a family in the church with 14 (yes, 1-4) children. Four of their own and several sibling groups of foster kids that came in batches. So the first family moved to a smaller house to make their six-bedroom home available to the larger family. Ironically - both families hosted part of our group today, so it was fun to compare stories! Quite an example of the kind of stuff that goes on in this church.
Next, you're probably thinking it was time to rest. Nope! Not remotely! We split into groups of kids and "grown-ups" and were oriented separately, then brought back together to finish up orientation. That brought us to supper (pizza! Hooray!)

Then it was time to clean up and head to our Kids Club sites.  Our team was assigned to a neighborhood called North Hodiamont, a place we have visited before.  Sadly, Tater Tot took ill and stayed back to recuperate.  Mike pulled the trailer right onto the grass in the middle of the courtyard where there were a few kids, but not many.  As we set up the popcorn and snowcone table, this quickly changed.  We played games with many of our young neighbors for a few memorable hours.  Rachel was an awesome bouncer and broke up a potential throwdown between a couple small children.  She was greatly loved by many of the kids there because of her awesome heart.  Many others in the group were just as awesome and awesomely loved by our young neighbors.  We wrapped up our time by prying some children off the trailer so we could back it up and out.  We celebrated a great kickoff to the week with slushees and debriefing time.  Tomorrow we are looking forward to meeting our tutoring kids, starting our work project and continuing our awesome adventure!
~Angela, Lori, Erica and Rachel

Site seeing with our St.Louis Neighbors

sure we have a jack!

St. Louis Basilica

Yes, Virginia, that IS real gold

wondering about the story of this chapel

What happened to the street that used to be here??

Inside the Basilica

The day started slow, even though we were awakened early by the other group throwing soccer balls.  We had a leisurely breakfast and group time where we talked about "who is our neighbor."  We then had many opportunities to discover our neighbors by heading to downtown St. Louis.  Inspite of the GPS's explicit instructions, we headed our own way.  On the way, we saw a car pulled over with police cars around.  When Mike asked what the trouble was, we learned they had a spare tire but no jack.  Well, we had those.  Please picture 3 vans and mini vans and 20 kids wandering around the side of the road as we helped get them back in gear.

Next we were off to the Basilica where we met another one of our neighbors. Mike made friends with a man who had traveled down from Minneapolis who was in need of food.  Well, we had that.  We explored the Basilica, we jammed to some music, played a raucous game of pterodactyl (for which the details are not forthcoming), and then were joined by John and Kathy at an interesting art museum.  And then it was off to the arch!

Neighbors from all over the country (as evidenced by the license plates in the parking lot) came to witness the magnificent arch and the mighty Mississsippi. The Mississippi is currently at about 30ft above its normal level, so the street in front of the arch was covered in water.  The water was a lovely and "normal" color.  This did not stop our intrepid people from wading across and hanging out on the viewing platform across the road.  Some even did many pushups into the water.  We're not sure why.  After exploring the museum beneath the arch, we headed to the St. Louis Union Station for food and frivolity.  We were surprised to learn that shop workers in St. Louis are quite musical.  Apparently, cutting fudge makes one burst into song!  We were almost tempted to join in, but then Lori started dancing and it was all downhill from there. :)

After almost leaving 2 from our group, we headed back to the dorm to meet the other groups- one from Mississippi and one from Kansas.  They should be fun folks to work with this week.  We're looking forward to it!  The evening wrapped up with a run to Ted Drewes, a custard stand indigenous to St. Louis.  Many more of our St. Louis neighbors were out and waiting for the edible awesomeness.  Custard, touring and fun people...maybe St. Louis won't be so bad.~Angela and Erica

annnd we're OFF!

view of St. Louis

Myster wants to be awake tonight, so he's planning ahead

Teaching on the top of Monk's Mound, Cahokia Mounds

Monk's Mound, Cahokia Mounds

see the fireflies?

And we're off!
This year's take-off was modified a bit from the usual approach: we had one rendezvous at the church, and a second at Country Crossings! The result was a caravan of four vehicles meandering its way through Milwaukee, Chicago, and endless Illinois prairie. I am happy to report that in this part of the country at least, the corn is well beyond knee-high by the fourth of July!

The evening found us drawing near to the city and pausing at the Cahokia mounds. These human-made mounds served some unknown purpose in the 900 - 1500s (probably religious) and still form an impressive monument in their own right, as well as an expansive view of the City. We're pretty sure they built the mounds in order to have a better view of the Arch, actually.

We took the time to regroup after a long day of travel, and Mike talked through a bit of what we might expect this week: the group we'll be working with (New City Fellowship) decided their "neighbor" was the poor and disenfranchised inner-city population. They began serving here in St. Louis, and eventually started a church in one of the most dangerous parts of town - with church members literally moving into the neighborhood. As we learn from them this week, we hope to take what we learn back home with us.

We prayed and headed down from the mound, pausing to admire the fireflies that are everywhere around the mound this time of year. We were also joined by a friend, Clint, who used to live in the Fox Valley with his family, but is now living in North Carolina! I think we're all looking forward a great deal to all that is in store for the coming week.

The day ended with a meal at Steak n Shake, and then a move in to our domicile for the next week: a school for the deaf that now serves as a dorm for the teams that come and serve here. Tomorrow is tour St. Louis day!

Gettin' set

We're on target for a Friday morning departure to St. Louis! The kids made a whole bunch of whine bread on Saturday to raise $$ and golly was it good! We're still trying to raise last minute scholarship money - so please contact the church office if you're able to help out (730-0507). Stay tuned for more notes - we'll keep mini-updates coming in the Twitter feed on the right - and bigger updates here in the main area!