Most of us went to the beach this morning to see the sunrise. We left around 5:45 and walked down to the beach across the street. It was a truly gorgeous sight. It really me think about how amazing God truly his, that He can make all of that every morning.
For ministry my group went to Bloom, a nursing home on the island. We were first sent to Memory Lane, which held a lot of dementia patients, and played games with them. We bowled with plastic pins and Erin and I started a puzzle hoping that someone may join. Dorris and Ilene were two women that really loved the bowling and actually did extremely well at it. They kept asking for the ball to go again. Even if we got tired of the bowling at times, we kept going because it made them all so happy and that made me feel really good about some of the work we have done here by sacrificing ourselves. Every now and then we would ask if someone had a song that they really wanted to sing with us. Ilene loved God Bless America, so we all sang our hearts out two times to the classic song. We then came back out to the regular unit to go to their exercise class. It turned out to be a lot of stretching, but it was fun to see how much the residents enjoyed the class. When we were done, the leader asked me to read an excerpt from Chicken Soup for the Soul and Erin to read from Our Daily Bread.
Cami had joined our group for today because she is an amazing piano player and the residents often enjoy music. She brought her music and sat down to play in the living area. She played many songs that people could sing a long to. The leader brought a few more of them into the room so they could the music too; one of them was Miss Peggy. Miss Peggy was one resident that the other groups had told us about. She is almost 10 years old and has lived a crazy life and loved to tell stories of her and her late husband's adventures. We brought her outside to talk with us whole Cami continued the concert. Her many stories included the police on her wedding night, convict neighbors, and even the mafia.
Today's ministries were all half days, so everyone came to the church for lunch. Afterwards we participated in something called ATL, or Ask the Lord. This means that we delegates into our groups and took a few quite minutes just to think and pray in order to ask Gos where we should go to do work that day. Eventually the adults all got together and compared ideas that were spoken. If there were multiple of the same idea brought up, that could be a sin that it is fro God. Our group ended up deciding to go to a local grocery store and and buy two $5 gift cards for each student. We then took those, and some flyers for the church we were at, and walked around a underprivileged area in order to spark joy and try to start conversations with people. Many of us had deep conversations and even prayed over some people we met right then and there. Cami and I handed one card to a man named Zelda at one point and later we saw Joel speaking with Conner and Tait to Zelda and another man who we found out was Spencer. They talked to us for about 10 minutes about a lot of little things. They ended up saying that both of them were already saved but it was still very nice to talk to them and spread a little bit love around. We even learned the best places to eat around the island. It was really nice to finally meet people that wanted to talk to us and not only say thanks or just ignore us even. This situation was one straight from God. I didn't realize it right away but as we were leaving that area we ran into another man and tried to I've him a gift card and flyer. He seemed reluctant to accept and was about to walk away when Spencer came around the corner and told the man that we were "legit" and we didn't have any catch, we were just "being good Christians". That's interaction could have saved that man and he may start going to the church; all because Spencer was just walking to go run errands on his own time.
We got back to the hotel and had our debrief, both for the day and the last one for the trip. It was kind of sad when we all started to think about it, because no matter what we say, I think we all felt that we had an impact on at least one person and it feels good to realize that we have an opportunity to do good.
Joel had tried to keep the last fun activity that we did tonight a secret, but you know us, it spread within and a couple hours of him telling one person that we were going bowling. It wasn't a shock anymore but it was a still a lot of fun. Everyone was handed a pair of knee high socks, as tradition, and we strutted our way into that bowling ally. We all split up into lanes. The boys tried to roll as hard as they could with no aim, my group put up the bumpers, and we all rocked out to the great throwback songs that were playing in the speakers above us. It was an amazing night with a lot of friends and I think we are all realizing how close we have become as a youth group.
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