Wednesday Wednesday Wednesday

It seems pretty sad that an update for this week feels like it should start with a "who's sick now" update, but that is just the way this week has rolled. Maybe we should make a table:

	Not Yet Sick (as of Wed)	Sick	Mostly/Better
Saturday	everyone else...	Alyssa Lori
Sunday	everyone else...	Alyssa Lori
Monday	everyone else...	Heather Rachel Tirzah Sara Christy Mike	Alyssa Lori
Tuesday	everyone else...??	Tirzah Jake Mike Jeremiah Walker	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy
Wednesday	Tom Angela Gloria Antonio Colleen Jim Bob Messiah	Logan Ryan Paco Mike	Alyssa Lori Heather Rachel Sara Christy Tirzah Jake Walker Jeremiah Mike
Thursday	???		Logan Ryan

So yeah, it’s been quite a run! That being said – the kids really have had great attitudes and overall have enjoyed their time here a lot. It’s been neat to get to know the other group from Iowa that’s here this week, and have a chance to connect with kids, each other, and with God.
Today we had to bid farewell to 4 of the “grown-ups” (ha!) that have been with us so far – Tom, Lori, Christy and Jeremiah. They had to get back to jobs and other grown up things. Fortunately, 2 brand-spankin’ new ones arrived later to continue carrying the torch – Sue and Tim (yippeee!).
Normally our days go (roughly) tutoring –> lunch –> work projects –> supper –> Kids Club. But today we started before breakfast with tie dyeing the t-shirts we get from this week, and instead of our afternoon work project we had a 2 hour retreat of silence. That was a change for high schoolers who are used to going at a crazy pace: talking, listening to music, or sleeping. Andrew challenged us not to talk, or sleep, during that time, but rather to take time for quiet prayer and reflection. Neat stuff!
It was hard to wrap up Kids Club for the week. The kids just seemed so sweet and willing to connect this year. A couple of 20-year-old guys that Ryan was talking with live in the same complex as these kids. They told him, “it’s just so neat to see the children smiling and having fun. You brought them joy”. Just cool stuff! Tonight in addition to our normal game playing and dispensing of sno cones and popcorn, we handed out dental supplies! Alyssa had asked around with dentists in the Valley and rounded up a big supply that we were able to package and get to the kids. They loved them and kept coming back in line to get more for their brothers and sisters.
We wrapped up the day at the laundromat –hopefully we now have enough clean clothes to end the week in style!

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Alejandros Essay (typed by Ramiro Rosas)

Mike is very strict about wearing your seatbelt while he is driving. Alejandro would always forget to put his seatbelt on while we started driving. So mike would always read the rules that were written on a sticker about what precautions should be done when driving a 15 passenger van. So Mike made Alejandro write a 200 word essay on the way back to Wisconsin:

Most of the people drive everyday to work, field trips, and more. Seventy-Two percent of the people driving DO NOT KNOW the cautions, and ten percent know the cautions and don’t follow them, and the rest don’ even know what’s going on. Scientist predict in the future all drivers should eat, to keep them stop thinking of food, this will help cause accidents. Sleeping helps to relax, and dream and stop focusing on real life, but sleeping while driving might  be a bad thing. Teachers from ”UW Washington University” were looking and observing most of drivers need more sleep to keep them awake, drivers don’t realize how important it is to sleep, “people who make shortcuts always lose… (Mike C.)” Texting is another thing that is causing accidents, why? ill give an example, as I am driving I get a text message from my friend saying “where are you?” I say “I am home” when I m not even home. 20 mins later my friend is in my house and for not paying attention to his text while I was driving we could chill for awhile. The perfect time to drive is on a sunday afternoon in a sunny day, no traffic and is a day to relax, the conclusion is to drive safe  

now this is a short article on paco’s music rap group, Nameless, created in the trailer park. with a coming up song about saint louis, although the song is unnamed at the moment but will go into work with M. Collison and R. Collison and more members of the rap group. and a remix of a song well known but you will see how well it sounds. Along with that there may be a live performance of it very soon, pressured, we will do our best to give you the best of our skills we have. It will be at the church, but the day I will leave a mystery! ;D here is a short sneak peak to the beginning of the song
“havin breakfeast early in the mornin/ even though some of us are yawnin/ while we’re servin/ up a meal/ a sweet deal/ or a combo/ that takes a dance or a mambo/ through our system/

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.

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!