As the camel in the commercial likes to say, "It is Hump Day," Wednesday is the day we cross over the hump and head into the second half of our week. We have had two full days of work and fun and look forward to three more (including today). These days in Niagara Falls have been hot and full of hard work, but there have been many rewarding experiences.
Our main goal has been to provide assistance to the Community Mission of Niagara Falls. They help hundreds of people every day in so many ways. They feed the hungry and provide emergency shelter. There is a home for young mothers who have nowhere else to go. There is a toy closet for children and a clothes closet for families. And this takes tons of volunteer hours to keep going. Our youth provided dozens of valuable hours of work and one on one time with people.
One on one, even more than, was the ratio for our first day for Vacation Bible School for the children. This was a new thing for Community Mission and there was some breakdown in communication, so only two families showed up with four children. Our six youth gave them such a good time they promise to come back with all their friends and the office will call to remind those who had registered. We'll get some stories from VBS into this blog.
The other team went back to the home for young mothers and finished the clean up of the yard (it looks professionally landscaped, I might add). When the youth started to wonder why we had to do this I simply asked, "Do you think these girls (ages 16-21) deserve to have a nice-looking home and yard. They all realized that they do and they took real pride in their work. Sarah led a team that weeded and then planted a raised vegetable garden. What a great way to supplement the sense of "home" for these young women, to say nothing of the excellent vegetables they will be eating later this summer.
In the evening we went as promised to the Anchor Bar (no it is not just a bar)--the home of the original Buffalo wings. We got an order of the "suicide wings" which were off the charts on the heat index. Some of the boys wanted to impress everyone with how they could handle them, and some seemed to be able to. Others gasped for air at the first taste. As we ate we followed the exciting, but disappointing soccer game between the U.S. and Belgium.
After dinner we went to see the falls for the first time since our arrival. We went to the park on the American side. I can't wait to show them the Canadian side on Friday. One van went home while some of us stayed to watch the Canada Day fireworks over the falls. Pretty good show, but just wait till the 4th!
We got home late so there was not time for our evening meeting. We will have a longer one tonight to process how the week has gone and what we hope to get out of the rest of the week.
Pastor Dale (in case you hadn't guessed)
Yesterday we built a garden for the young pregnant women shelter. The women were from ages 16 to 21, and all came from pretty bad situations (abusive partner, kicked out of house by parents, etc.) The facility was made to not only give a home for these women for absolutely no cost, but also helps put them back into school, get jobs, and overall get prepared to live alone. Its really such an impressive and amazing facility.
For the day, We ripped out the weeds and roots from this huge section of the ground, and for hours. Now I understand my mom's pain. Anyway, after lunch, the ground was perfectly clear (thanks to the girls amazing work) and the boys covered the section with mulch. We then planted tomatoes, peppers, Brussel sprouts, and more, and somehow the girls ended up painting our bodies and faces with mud. The boys, on the other hand, were terrified of the mud and distanced themselves from us >:). In the end, though, I knew building a garden would be not only praising to the women who run the shelter, but also very helpful for the whole facility. I knew that a garden can not only give peace and relaxation to the struggling, stressed pregnant women in poor situations, but also be rewarding towards their children to grow up with, as well as teaching the moms to be self sufficient with healthy food. It was truly a privilege to help such an incredibly facility, and I was so galvanized to help from the moment we arrived.
-JULIET KRAUS
Kids club yesterday was very fun. I got to meet 5 kids by the name of Anijon, Anijah, Anthony, Alexa, and Lindsay. We made them breakfast, played outside, and sang songs.
Akin
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