Monkey1 was able to go on a 3 day mission trip this summer with our church. The pictures are from the trip, taken by the adults wrangling the kids. The text, is written by Monkey1. Enjoy.
Day 1:
Mommy dropped me off at the church, we stood around a bit, waiting for everybody else to get there. Then once mommy had left and the other kids had gotten here, we loaded up our luggage and started work on the church.
At first most of us worked at the playground; pulling weeds and killing fire ants. Then we went inside and were tasked with sweeping out the attic, easy right? Attics are so cluttered it won't be any work! Why would a church have an almost empty attic about the size of a football field? Yeah, I and three other girls spent 3+ hours sweeping out the church’s attic! It was humid and the dust hung about in a haze, but it was fun.
After we swept we had lunch in the Youth Group room, my sandwich squished itself against my rice cake, yay. But then we were separated into groups and loaded into cars to be shipped off to For The Nations Refugee Outreach, to teach with some Burmese refugees. Us girls had SO much fun while we were driving there, we chatted for the whole ride! Once we got to the apartments, we taught the refugees; some reading, math and then bible study.
Then we went back into the cars and headed off to the Fairview House. It is so cool! They have a huge pool, with a hot tub and a little diving board! We played in the pool from 4:30 - 6:30. I was exhausted! Then it was dinner and worship. Then we played Capture the Flag. We were all divided into two teams; girls and boys. We girls hid our flag properly, where it could be REACHED. The other team hid their flag on the roof, where it could NOT be reached. So the boys team ended up winning because they cheated and hid their flag on the roof. After the game we laid out our beds and went to sleep.
Day 2:
The night of Day 1 passed WAY too quickly. I had only just put my head on the pillow, when one of the volunteers was shaking my shoulder! Though I did sleep well. Once we were all up, us kids played pool, air hockey and ping pong in the game room/girls sleep room. Then we had a breakfast of pancakes and cardboard rock waffles.
After that we loaded up again and went to the church to finish our work. Once we were done at the church we went back to the refugees and did; reading, math and bible study again. Then it was back to the Fairview house to play in the pool.
For dinner we had some amazing brisket sandwiches, they were so good! Then we had worship and challenged the boys for a rematch. We did our flag in the electrical box, the boys still cheated! Not only did they make THREE flags, but they moved them about! Not allowed! But in the end nobody won because one of the grownups lost their car keys and then a kid broke his arm, falling. So the game ended in a tie. We played in the game room for a bit, we heard the severe thunderstorm alert on the radio, some of the boys were building storm shelters out of pillows! But it ended up that everybody slept through the storm!
Day 3:
Yay! Yay! All happy and bouncy! No. We were exhausted, none would admit it, but you could see it in the quiet that hovered over our current place of living. Our breakfast was one of slabs of cardboard made to look like waffles and lemonade. But we were then tasked with packing up ALL of our stuff and loading up into the vans, because once we left the Fairview house today, we would not be coming back.
Well I packed and loaded all of my stuff and some of the girls who I was with and I went to go say bye to the dog that lived out there. She was a very sweet dog, old, probably around Cody’s age, but she ran after her Tennis Ball like nothing! So there I was standing still watching her chase the tennis ball, I felt something crawling on my leg, without looking I brushed it off, I felt another creepy crawly and this time I looked down! Fire ants! All over my leg, in my shoe, down my socks, up my leg! I slowly and carefully lifted my leg off the ground and hopped over to the little pavilion walkway. I threw off my shoe and sock and brushed off those that were on my leg. Not a single bite or sting. I had had an army of fire ants crawling all over my leg and not a single bite. Or sting!
Once we left we went to Shiloh Place and organized their little store that they have for the mothers. Then we left for the refugees for the last time and worked with them. I worked with a different child on Day 3, but he was VERY good with his math, i was about ready to start him on beginner’s multiplication! Once we were done with the refugees, we left to go and play at the Fairview volleyball courts, more like Fairview mud puddle courts, the whole place was a swamp from the night of Day 2s storm, so we decided to have a scavenger hunt. Originally it was thought that we were going to go shopping! But then most of the boys were like; Nnnnnoooooooo! So it was decided that we would go store hunting. The two groups were divided into; girls and boys, each team was given a set of clues and a map and we set off!
Twenty minutes later us girls came around the corner of the playground and arrived at the appointed finish. It was empty... maybe a few crickets. We had won! Finally! The judge checked our clues and pronounced us the winners! About ten minutes later the boys showed up expecting to see an empty playground. Unfortunately for them it was not empty, we got their first, and they lost. Then we loaded BACK up into the cars and headed off to the church. On the way back some of us made bets on whose parents would be there. I was like; my parents? You really think that they would get here 30 minutes early? Not happening. Turns out nobody was at the church! It was completely empty! We played around a bit, and slowly parents started to show up. Mine showed up about 3 min after 5:00, which was the appointed pick-up time. And so ended my three day of
torture happiness (I loved every bit of it).
The End.
