Tuesday

From Joy...

Project Transformation is for little kids from kindergarten to fifth grade. They take kids from rough neighborhoods and get their reading levels and math skills ready for next year. I worked in the reading room – which at first I thought I’d be good at it but it turns out I wasn’t. (From Michele: She was fine – her student wasn’t easy.) My kid only read five pages because he talked the whole time. He was in fourth or fifth grade. There were also science, art and recreation rooms. They called it play time. And they got snacks. A policemen had come and shown them his badge and stuff on his belt and what he does. I hope we made them happy.

From Reese…

At Project Transformation Dane, Heaven, Robert, and I got to play a violent game of dodge ball. Even though we had to roll the bad rather than throw it. The fist rotation was a nice even calm-ish game but when the second group stormed in…let’s just say things got out of control. It was the four of us against ALL of them! We were spinning and dodging, catching and throwing

From Brittney...

There was a lot of work when we did the bread at the Food Bank. I got to do a bunch of different jobs. I boxed bread – you take different varieties of bread and put them in boxes for different agencies to share. We stacked bread – we took donated bread and put them on the table for the boxers to put in the boxes. The boys and Joy and Heaven folded and labeled boxes and put them on the table. The best part of doing the bread was putting them in the boxes. My least favorite part was putting the moldy bread in the compost bin – I gagged so much.

From Mareena...

We were invited by Michele’s parents friends from Bible study and we went to their house for dinner. Their names are Mr. and Mrs. Tresner. We had hot dogs and chips and beans and watermelon and potato salad and soda. Some of ate outside and some of us ate inside. After we ate everyone played outside. We kept wrapping people up in the picnic blanket and called each other, “enchilada.” Some people let a bunch of flies get on their food. One person had 21 flies on his plate and Corey had 17 on his hot dog. I don’t think they ate We had watermelon for dessert. Joy played on the piano and the boys kept stealing Brittney’s sunglasses and flip flops and she kept chasing them. I mostly just sat there and watched everything.

Tuesday

From Heaven...
Project Transformation: A summer program for low income families invloving kids in elementary school, that keep them reading and active so they don't lose their reading skills during the summer months. My favorite thing we did on Tuesday was playing dodgeball with the little kids. Don't worry though, we had to roll the ball. Some kids still threw the ball, thinking that rule didn't apply to them. The first group we had was pretty good, but there was one little girl who liked stepping on my feet. The second group was pretty rowdy. They were calling us aliens and chunked the ball at us. But we still had a great time.

Shhh...the kids are sleeping!

At the end of Monday...

Oh my goodness! We are exhausted, delirious, cheerful, connected and ready to go back tomorrow for some more.

By the end of the day at the food bank we had boxed up 12,588 meals worth of food. That's almost 1,600 meals each!! (We moved 33264 pounds worth of food.) You would be amazed at how hard these kids worked and at how well they worked together. One of our goals for the week was for the kids to open up and begin to build friendships with kids they don't normally connect with at church. We are definitely seeing a lot of that happening on this trip!!

At the Food Bank they worked hard at different jobs. We took turns, but the jobs included: Stockers - their job was to keep the table filled with the various foods that went into the boxes (ours were all food items), Assemblers - each person had two or three different items they put in the box (from cereal boxes to canned goods to pasta/rice), one person weighed them to make sure they had everything, one person taped them closed and another person moved them to the pallet. You wouldn't believe how quickly they put systems in place so it would run most efficiently! We were all shocked when we heard our final numbers.

We then came back and took showers before heading to the movie. We saw, "How to Train Your Dragon." They discussed how they would turn it into a tv show on the way back to the church. We have some future scriptwriters, producers and directors in our youth ministry.

The church provided homemade cookies and milk for us upon our return. We enjoyed them very much. Be sure to ask your kids about the minute of silence before they could eat their cookies. We eventually gave it to them for 28 seconds of silence. The adults were laughing so hard!

Our devotions are going very well. Tonight we talked about how we can be a more welcoming youth group. We looked at Acts 2:42-47 and talked about how we can be more like those in the early church. We really have an incredible group of kids. I'm going to sleep tonight with a smile on my face thinking of all that they are doing and saying!

I'm trying to include a video the kids made for you - it makes me laugh just thinking about it! Check my facebook if it never shows up here.

Have a great week...hope to have kids update some in the morning!

Michele

Finally getting online!

Saturday

We got on the road and traveled all the way to Giddings before our first stop. It was a quick one for gas and then we made it all the way to Waco where we stopped for lunch. The kids were very excited because they had four or five options to choose from. Every kid chose either Taco Bell or Wendy's. We then got back in the car for the drive to Norman. We did have to make a quick stop in Ft. Worth for some Braum's Ice Cream - it was delicious.

We finally arrived in Norman around 6:00. The kids were shocked when they got their first view of McFarlin UMC. It's a 105,000 square foot, 5,000 member church built in a gothic style. I had told them it was a little bigger than our church.

After our initial view of the church we finally arrived in the parking lot but still had to go grocery shopping and get moved in. We found another group in our spot and they weren't leaving until 8:30 so we joined them for some games and fun while Michele went shopping. After a fine dinner of Chicken Express we were able to move in and begin our program.

Part of our evening program was to create "Team" names. Michele's group became the, "Funky Ninja Chickens". Misty's group chose, "Purple Hippos". Jann's group is now, "Little Rascals".

The Funky Ninja Chickens include: Heaven, Joy, Cory and Lewis. The Purple Hippos are, Robert, Reese, Brittney and Mareena. The Little Rascals are Matthew, Mikey, DJ and Dane.
We got to bed a little later than we planned and the kids went to sleep almost immediately. They were so tired. It was kind of cute...Jr. High kids are hilarious when they get tired.

Sunday

We woke up early to be ready for the Traditional early service at 8:30. We took up a full pew and a half! We were asked to stand up and the church gave us a round of applause. It was a very traditional service with lots of standing up and sitting down. Most of us did a VERY good job of staying awake through the whole service, some of us struggled but we all made it through awake.

As soon as worship was over we made a beeline for the donuts and juice - that helped us wake up completely!! We then joined the jr. high Sunday school class. I was so proud of our kids - they joined right in and weren't afraid to share. We broke up into small groups to discuss and when we came back to share it was always a La Grange student who shared. They are definitely leaders!!
We then moved to the Lifeline (Contemporary) worship for a different experience. We were recognized again in worship and enjoyed a different sermon on the same scripture. Many of us had a harder time staying awake during the second worship!

When worship was over we went to the Chissoe's house for a pizza lunch. We tried to eat outside but it was HOT!!! Everyone moved back inside to eat, but soon after several of the boys went outside to play kickball. They came in a while later dripping wet. I (Michele) made them go in the back yard a hose down. Of course they got in a water fight! It was hilarious...until they found out they had to stay outside until they dried off. Naturally they had a fun time hanging out in the backyard. Then they came in and had popsicles and ice cream sandwiches. Eventually we moved outside for a quick game of nine square. One would think we had enough of the hot and muggy outdoors. But after some ice cole watermelon we moved to a school playground and played Blind Man's Bluff. It was awesome!!

When we got back to the church we took showers - everyone was ready to get clean! - and prepared for dinner. The Purple Hippos were in charge of cooking dinner. They made us "Build Your Own Tacos"...yumm.

Our first game of the even was the Frozen T-shirt game. Each team had to put a t-shirt on their team leader (Heaven, Robert and Dane). The t-shirts were folded neatly and frozen solid. The teams had to thaw the t-shirt enough to put it on their players. The video is hilarious! I'll probably upload it this evening - just be ready to laugh!

Monday

Now we're at the Food Bank. They're downstairs working hard while I'm up here putting this together. I can hear their voices as they put together family boxes. These boxes are for families who get food cards from agencies like AMEN. Often times the cards only allow them to get food and they're unable to afford cleaning supplies and paper goods. These boxes include both food and household necessities. Some of the kids are stocking the boxes, some are taping and stacking the cojmpleted boxes, some are stocking the tables for the other stockers and some are preparing the crates. They're rotating jobs during the breaks so everyone gets a chance to do everything.

We're going to work here all day (9-noon and 1-4). I'm pretty sure they're all going to sleep on the way home! I can't sit up here and listen to them work any longer - I've got to go join them. I'll try to post some more tonight. Pray that I'll be able to get online at McFarlin!!

Don't worry about your child! Everyone's having a great time: they're playing hard, working hard, eating well and getting to know every person on this trip. Check back here daily - I'll try to update often.

Thanks for trusting us with your kids - we love them all!