Hay yall! This was my first group alone, and I spent it with 13 middle schoolers, 2 leaders, and one student leader who was 16. It was a good week, though somewhat stressful, so here come the details of the week!
Sunday: I didn't go to church, bad, I know, so I rested until ten. I took a walk around the block with Sarah, Katie, and Sarah's roommate from school Rebekah. I read the rest of the afternoon which was glorious, and then got ready for the staff meeting. Since this is my first group alone I freaked out and cried for about 20 minutes panicking about the week, and a combination of other things. My group arrived and we had supper at a Salvadoran restaurant called Pollo Granjero, and then did the prayer tour, which was considerably easier because the main leader and driver of the bus has been on 6 CSM trips here before.
Monday: We started with City Survey=2 hours of free time for me, with which I talked to my mom and read! We had lunch at Anacostia Park with the other groups, and then went to Kids Konnection for VBS orientation. Our VBS site was at Stoddard Park, where we had around 40-50 kids. It went well and the group was well prepared=minimal work for me. :) Supper was at Taste of India, then we had Baskin Robbins for dessert. We debriefed at Rock Creek Park, which went well but they had a hard time focusing and not giggling. Such is junior high school though, I guess. It cracks me up how similar they are to the way we were in junior high...not much has changed, they even still listen to Sadie Hawkins Dance by Relient K like we did! Also this girl just said the phrase "way back when there was a drink called Surge, I think it was a cross between soda and an energy drink." Wow I'm old, I remember Surge well, and I liked it. Makes me think of Haley Booth putting skittles in it at the studio...anyway. We got home around 8:30 and I got to talk to my Zeeland group--one of the first groups I had this summer! They were having a DC reunion so they called Sarah and I--it was fantastic! I went to bed around 9:30 (also fantastic) after talking to my parents.
Tuesday: We started off at a project called Unique Development, which is a gardening project started by Reverend Hackney in Anacostia. We weeded for a good 3 hours, then I took the students for lunch at Anacostia Park and I met with Jason. Back to VBS for the afternoon where I met a precious 9 year old named Taywan (spelling?). He was wearing the same clothes he had worn the day before, and was dirty from head to toe. The other guys were picking on him and trying to fight him, and I thought I was going to fight them because they wouldn't stay off of him. The other boys were 10-12 years old, I'd guess. When they wouldn't go away, he looked up at me with big tears in his eyes and said he wouldn't fight them because there were more important things in life. He and I then went to color a game board for crafts. He talked about being stupid because he wasn't very good at his multiplication tables. I told him that I'll be a senior in college but I wasn't very good at my multiplication tables either, but that made neither of us dumb or stupid, it just gave us a reason to work harder. He acted like that made him feel better, and I certainly hope it did. He said he had no friends and his face lit up when I said I wanted to be his friend. I told him about Jesus and that Jesus would always be his friend. We talked a long time and my heart is broken for this little guy. We ate at Old City and then debriefed at Meridian Park. There are feces smashed all over the downstairs bathroom and we suspect its the fault of my group because a few of them refer to themselves as "the Deuce Brothers" OH MY! This week is going to be interesting at best.
Wednesday: We started the day at St. Thomas More, a nursing home facility, where the students did room visits and I talked to Gabriel, whom you'd just have to meet, he's an interesting character. The first thing he said to me when he turned the corner and saw me sitting there was "Hannah, baby, I've been longing to see you!" Oh my...After that we headed to lunch at the Aquatic Gardens which consisted of a lot of reading on my part--I finished the last book in my series! We went back to VBS, another successful day, and then supper at Wok and Roll. We debriefed at the National Cathedral, where the group did a circle of affirmation and encouraged each other for a minute straight. They started with me, and they were so nice!! It definitely did what it was supposed to and made me feel better about the remainder of the week.
Thursday: We started with a delivery at Food and Friends, which was pretty long and went pretty well. We had some extra time so the youth leader bought the 4 of us in the car cokes and we went to a park and drank them and talked about my book. He lent me another book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne, which started out great. We went to the Basilica for lunch and the group did a tour while the youth leader and I talked about random stuff. It was kind of nice. After the tour we went outside and talked about Catholicism and how it differs from our views as Protestants. We went back to VBS and then had supper at Ben's, which was a good time as usual. We debriefed at Haines Point (a park, sort of, down past the monuments which juts out into the Potomac) and afterward all of the students jumped in the river. It was a lot of fun, and they were all super pumped. On the way home we had a dance party in the van with a lot of awkward middle school esque dancing. It was great, I must admit:) We got in bed late because they all had to shower before bed, but it was still fun.
Friday: Happy 4th! We started off at Food and Friends doing a delivery, and then headed back to Star for lunch. The group was supposed to have a free day because of the 4th, but they didn't want to, so we did an urban plunge. It was a different plunge than usual though, because I didn't get off for it like we normally do, I rode down to Dupont Circle with the youth leader. The kids walked down instead of taking the bus, so we basically stalked them all down the street until we got to the circle. I talked to Tiffany for awhile (which was great, because I miss her a ton) and then Chris, the youth leader, and I had Five Guys while waiting on the kids to finish. They didn't want to go down to the mall for the 4th celebration, so we rode around for awhile and ended up in Virginia to watch them from the other side of the river. It rained on us and was a big mess, but we ended up watching a few minutes of fireworks on a bridge. We missed a lot though, because the smoke from the fireworks blocked a lot from our view. On the way home the students seemed to be having some conflict and the older guys in the group wanted to settle them, so we pulled over in a church and us leaders went off to a 7-11 for cokes and snacks while they finished up their conversation. We brought back 12 packs of cokes and some bags of chips and when we got back they were all in tears. Things seemed to be resolved though, and us leaders had a really good time hanging out that night anyway. We got home and did evaluations (which were especially good) and then headed to bed.
Saturday: The group got up really early to clean up Star because they wanted to serve us as well, and then left out around 10:30. We then headed to Tasty Diner and Borders (a usual Saturday around here now) before coming back to Star to chill out. My chilling was interrupted though by my friends wanting me to ride a bicycle. We headed over to Rock Creek Park in one sexy looking bike helmet and I attempted to ride. I did ok, I rode alone for about 10 feet, but the seat caused me a fair amount of pain...I don't know how that happened and I really hope I was just doing something wrong. It was fun until I got really frustrated, so we went in. I took my second shower of the day, and then we all (minus Katie and Sarah) went to Jason (our boss)'s house for an Independence Day cookout. It was fun and the food was great, but it gave me a large amount of heart burn so I had to hurry up and go to bed when I got back. We also watched JCTV (Jesus Christ Television), and saw a Christian rapper named Tracy Edmond who said "People need Jesus like phrases need commas!" We thought it was hilarious, so I thought it was quotable here on my blog:) It was a good night overall, but I did go to bed asap!
Sunday: Cassie and I woke up early and went to National Community Church, which was a great service. They played Hosanna by Hillsong United, and since it's one of my favorites it kind of made my day. We talked about Christians being Doers of the Word instead of just hearers, and it was definitely a good lesson to hear. We came back and napped and then got up for the staff meeting that we just finished. I'm praying for a good group and good day:)
So that's it for this week, my favorite week since I've been here, though I am glad it's over with. Despite feeling slightly shafted from missing the fireworks on the mall, I had a great time. Also, the leader gave me the book he'd originally lent me, which I'm still reading and its awesome. I miss everyone a lot and it'd be great to hear from you! I love you guys!
XOXO,
Hannah
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