Day TWO: Homeless

Just like yesterday, today was AWESOMEEEEE!!! :) The youth were SUPER excited to get to do more of what they did in Atlanta last year. 

We got up this morning and ate breakfast (DUH!) then we sat down and took a survey about homelessness in the world, America, and DC. We were shocked at the answers we found out. The statistics about the child homelessness and poverty in AMERICA were absolutely astounding. After our survey, we packed 70 lunches in plastic sacks. Each lunch consisted of a plain hotdog, a packet of ketchup, packet of mustard, bag of chips, bottle of water, and a roll of smarties with bible verses on them (compliments of US!). Our objective was to find a way to carry all 70 of the bag lunches and a FULL water cooler to about 5 different parks. We DID achieve this objective! We got on the metro and got off at one park and walked and walked and walked. We passed out ALL of the lunches!! We got to meet some SUPER interesting people, for example: nature boy (a man with only shorts on and they were cut up to the waist) & Paul (a guy covered in bleeding sores that he says came from a tarantula bite). The youth were such good apostles by praying with each and every person they gave a lunch to. You could REALLY tell how much they affected each persons lives. 

After passing out the lunches we met up with a lady named Janna. Janna had a CRAZYYY story; let's say 'a series of unfortunate events' have happened to her in the past 12 years and her life is on a downward spiral. Anyways- Janna works for a newspaper company called Street Sense. Street Sense was started by a guy who wanted to employ the homeless. The workers buy a certain amount of newspapers (with articles written by the homeless) for 35 cents each and then sell them on the street for a dollar each. Janna had 46 newspapers to sell so we divided them up (2 each), got in groups of 4, and went to separate street corners to sell the newspapers. We thought for SURE it'd be easy to sell these papers. We assumed that by NOT looking homeless and being youth people would be proud of our endeavors and buy papers. Unfortunately we learned REALLY quick this was NOT the case! Everyone from adults to the youth were completely ignored. Some of us were called hateful names, we were shunned, we had people completely avoid us, people tell us they were in a hurry and then slowly walk off, and even people accuse us of being scam artists. In the end, we earned Ms. Janna $80.50 by selling 41 papers (we got donations too). She said this was the MOST money that had ever been earned!!! By helping her she was able to buy headache medicine and her prescription medicine she was needing. Just wait until you hear the youths stories from this experience...they are HILARIOUS!! 

After working with Ms. Janna we finally got to eat. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: we didn't get lunch today to simulate what it's like to go hungry. Of course we had snacks in case someone was getting lightheaded....BUT, they were all CHAMPS!! :) For 'lupper' (lunch/supper) all they had was a fruit cup OR apple, a pb & j sandwich OR a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water. Needless to say we're hungry. LOL!! We were super excited  to have a few minutes to rest.


After eating we split up into 4 groups and went on a super scavenger hunt! We had to get 25 cans out of a trashcan, start with a penny and barter for things bigger and better, find a homeless person and find out their story, etc. We did this for about 2 hours. It was a BLAST! There were some crazy things!! :)

After the scavenger hunt we were supposed to have worship in the park but it started raining and lightning.... After getting back we had a great devo time! God's really doing some awesome things in our youth. We, as adults, are SUPER lucky to be able to serve alongside them and watch them grow so much in their faith! :)


Everyone is ecstatic about tomorrow. We are leaving at 8:45 in the morning and heading to The Mall for the National Parade, museums, monuments, and FOOD; oh yeah, and FIREWORKS!!! :) During devo time the youth were going on and on about what their plans and expectations are for tomorrow!! :)


It's late and morning comes EARLY...check back tomorrow night for updates! :)


-GUMY

**For some reason it's not letting us upload pictures tonight. We'll try to get the pictures uploaded tomorrow at some time.**