Jesus is more dependable than squirrels...

So we forgot to write a blog last night! bah! Yesterday (Sunday) was scheduled as our "relax" day, well I'll tell you, it was quite the day! After quite the harrowing trip Saturday, and a late night for myself (Lindsay) and Alisa, we woke up at the Taylor's house (Monica and Dana at the Lane's) we met up at the church (Kenwood Baptist Church). We were blessed with an amazing sermon from a guest speaker who serves as president of the Christian Medical and Dental Association. We then had the opportunity to spend lunch at the church with a ministry called Teen Challenge, where we got to meet some amazing men in the program and talk to them. I talked with two guys at my table and they were both surprisingly open and honest about their current realities. It was such a blessing to meet them and have really amazing conversations with them. There were so many small blessings from meeting and sharing with the youth group to getting to know the Taylor family more, to just sharing in fellowship with one another as a team. It was simply fantastic. I for one felt a little of the jetlag that comes with traveling three time zones and was exhausted. In the afternoon, April took us to this pretty neat place called Chateau Laroche, a really cool castle built by one man. We got to spend the rest of the evening bonding as a team. We went on an adventure to go shopping after dinner and discovered that nothing is opened after 6 on a Sunday, so we just visited Whole Foods and then ventured to find Target. Well, whilst we were on the freeway looking for it we were honored to witness the most astonishing, breathtaking sunset I personally have ever seen. We all agreed that even if we never found Target that the trip would have been worth it just to see that glorious sun. The evening ended with a lovely movie and great fellowship. Thank you Jesus for blessing us with safe travels, building relationships and divine opportunities to have amazing kingdom conversations with your people! I can't wait to see what else is in store this week.

-Lindsay



Onto Monday...

Ahh, Monday. Today was Monday…and it feels like we have been here forever already. But we’re glad we still have almost the whole week ahead of us! We started our day at Matthew 25 Ministries. This is a disaster relief organization that sends out donations to places in need. -pause- Let me explain the title of today's entry. Our navigation for this trip is being run by a strange squirrel voice inside a GPS. Today we decided to follow the GPS (duh...) but it led us astray and we were about 30 minutes late to work. Okay -unpause- From 9(:30)-4 we were kept busy sorting clothes and linens. It was a great opportunity to serve. Sometime during our lunch break, we all went a little laugh-happy, which seemed to follow us for the rest of the day.

After working, we made our way to Skyline Chili for dinner with Jeremy. We can now all proudly (or…not) say that we have eaten real Cincinnati chili while wearing stylish white bibs (kindly provided by our waitress).

To conclude the night, we led the Youth Group at Kenwood. This included dancing to Pharaoh Pharaoh during worship, playing several rounds of movie psychiatrist, and then ending by discussing what it means to be a light to those around us.

Today was a great day. God has been blessing our team a lot. I am so thankful that he used this day to help us bond closer together as a team. I pray that we will continue to grow and that God will be able to use that growth for His purpose.

Monica