Hump day!

Half way through but so much more to do, to offer, to serve. Today was a new experience for everyone.

We spent the day at Whittier School, cleaning, scrubbing, painting, and generally making making what some would consider a second class school in a third class neighborhood into the first class learning place that it can be. The Church of the Resurrection here in Kansas City has a program called, "Bless This School" blitz. Working in schools that are located in communities that have larger  immigrant populations, in a weeks time they turn a dirty and tired building into a clean environment ready for learning. Another group that we worked with today is Global FC. Helping immigrants to assimilate into American lives, they use the common world language of soccer. We worked side by side with these young men at the school. They were similar age to us, and we tried to think about how we would handle leaving everything we know to start our lives in a new country, culture and language.

Half way through the afternoon we put away all our cleaning tool and headed to the soccer field for some fast action football. Our community has many members that play soccer at school in Lombard and we took the challenge. We learned that soccer truly is world language. Cleaning, painting, making friends and playing football, soccer, it was a fantastic day! And we had amazing ice cream with some interesting flavors: cereal milk, goat cheese, guac and chips, lavender and honey, and watermelon sorbet!

Thursday will take us back to reStart for another day of sharing. Another chance to share our Agape.

It's taco Tuesday!

While here in Kansas City, we  try to be a self sufficient as possible. Breakfast to dinners, lunches too. Tonight was Taco Tuesday!

This morning, we all started back at reStart again today. Some of us finishing projects, others deep in the basement of reStart. The building has been their home for 30+ years but began as a hospital. The building is showing signs of age and disrepair. The basement is where they store furniture and all the donated things that people need for a home. Some in better shape than others. It also was dirty, dank, smelly and in need of a little more than TLC. That is where our band of smiling faces

comes in. Our contact at reStart, Ann, loved that we didn't ask questions, we just did.

In the afternoon we made our way to Harvesters, the Kansas City version of Norther Illinois Food Bank. They do it right for sure. One of the top food programs in the country, we packed over 5000 pounds of bakery items, for immediate distribution. That's a lot of sandwiches. We also sorted and packed pallets of carrots and sweet potatoes from industrial size cartons to individual servings. They distribute over a million pounds a week to a 28 county area. Quite a task and we were a part of their mission today.

Wednesday will bring new challenges and solutions. New people to meet and new opportunities to share our Agape. 

We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

We're not in Kansas anymore, never were in fact. Kansas City, MO is our home for the week.
Arriving Sunday afternoon we made it safe and sound. Kansas City UCC in the Broadmore neighborhood is more than accommodating.  Boys in basement and girls upstairs, their version of our Fellowship Hall is our central meeting/eating area. A highlight for us, it's air conditioned!

Everyone was up early today and we were out the door at 7:30 on our way to meet our contact at
reStart. www.restartinc.org Since 1981 reStart's goal is to end homelessness in Kansas City.
They serve many different populations in distress from families, men, and women to adolescents and so much more.

Today's work was varied. All our groups but for one stayed at reStart, painting, moving boxes, sorting donations, and preparing the mid-day meal for the residences. One of our work groups went to Kansas City Work House were they helped to prepare and serve 367 meals in the short time between 11 and 2.

Todays fresh faces in our group caught on quickly to how things go. How to be a part of our community and share our Agape. Hard work, laughter, meeting the people that call this shelter home. Homelessness has many faces. Families, kids, men, women, all experiencing homelessness, all members of Gods family that we came here to serve.

Tuesday is another day, another opportunity to share our love, sweat and community.