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!

Buildin' & diggin' (High School Work Trip, Day 3)

By the time the sun found us this morning, we were midway through our breakfast and soon on our way back to The Source. Today we were mostly split into two groups - Alyssa was solo, and helping staff sort through clothes that had been donated and were completely disorganized, and Ryan C continued to help put up soffit miles above the surface of the earth - but e rest of us either worked on porch building or hill digging.



The Diggers: "We dug most of the way to China. We were hitting lava for a while there. We built a trench, 4 miles long and and 40 feet deep, and pretty much saved the world." "You can't even do that. But we did." -Ryan W
The Builders: "Oh yeah? Well, we built a porch all the way to the moon and back. So there." "We put in a billion screws, hung a million joist brackets, and nailed until our hands fell off." -Nick


At the end of the day, the window well was completely finished, and the porch was built - and the entire group was exhausted.



But not too exhausted to head to the Y for showers and to Key's restaurant for supper. Back at the church, we had some devo time, and then... CANDYCOMBS!! Candy had been hidden throughout the church, and it was our mission to find it, using a few obscure clues. Hindering us in our mission were two merciless guards, ready to send us to jail the second they caught us. By 2 am all the candy was found and most of us headed to bed.

I kinda think there may be some sleeping on the way back tomorrow!

Crashin' (Fall Work Trip, Day 2)

Today things crashed. Not everything, by any means, but some things did. Let's not talk about them quite yet, though.

Lori and a group of kids headed to Hope Academy. You may remember what a cool endeavor Hope is, but if not, check out this video that tells their story. They had a full and good day of reading to kids, interacting with them, helping with teaching prep stuff, and all sorts of other things. One important note of clarification: Tate was dubbed the laminTATEr because of her mad skills with the laminating machine, not because of any connection to sadness and/or the book of Lamentations in the Bible.
Marv worked with Luke and another guy on wall repair for most of the day. His mad wall finishing skills stood him in good stead on the project - though he might have liked getting a project other than his normal job. Maybe tomorrow things will be mixed up a bit!
A crew of guys took on hole digging. They were digging a 5 x 5 x 5 hole for an egress window, and another one to enable drainage and prevent future flooding. They were very, very manly in their efforts.
Mike and Nick worked on building a porch and made awesome progress in spite of the fact that Nick's brother Adam, who was coming with some friends to join in the fun, hit serious snags in the transportation process. They were still in time to be of real help in moving the project forward and in helping with a lot of cleanup.
Ryan and some other dudes were high up on a scaffold, putting up soffit. The height was significant, so I'm happy to report that they were NOT what crashed.
Angela had too much of her day job to still accomplish for the week, so she ended up staying at the church for the day, trying to catch up.
Crashing:
- the trailer, as it came off the truck en route today. No serious harm was done and all is well now, so maybe "crash" is too strong a word.
- the kids when they got back to the church after a hard day's work
- angela's laptop. 'course, the power cable might have been helpful...
- Dan and Holly's party. Dan is Mike's brother, and he is a pastor at the church where we're staying. We got to drop by their place, meet their family, scare their dog, and generally take over the place for a few hours. It's beautiful, and we really had a nice time.
- the kids, after eating all that pizza
- the original plans for the evening. We had, um, coordination issues that caused us to abandon the original plans (hanging out some more at The Source) and instead chill out at the Y. It was actually a pretty nice time.
- the kids (well, some of them) at the evening's "devos" with Mike. It was a neat time, in spite of everyone's exhaustion, and the kids had really thoughtful responses. Good times.
- all of us, now. 'Nuff said.

Rollin' (Senior High Fall Work Trip - Day 1)

I'm happy to report that we've arrived in the Twin Cities with the same number of folks we began with. Unfortunately, that can NOT be said of our tires. Just as we neared Weyauwega (half hour out of town), one of the tires on the trailer started spewing bits of itself across the world. So with that, a run to Fleet Farm once we reached Steven's Point for a new tire, and a bit of a late start to begin with, it was 1 AM before we were in the church with the trailer unloaded. So, *yawn* I believe we'll turn in!