Friday: Tour of DC

Today was a free day. When we woke up we had breakfast and headed out on the road to site see. We took the Metro again to downtown. Mr.H set up a tour for us starting at the Old Post Office Building in downtown D.C. We saw a lot of different monuments like Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument, World War II memorial, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Korean Memorial, the White House, Capital Building, Arlington Cemetery, and so much more. We got to tour on a yacht and see Washington D.C from the Potomac River. Some of us got nauseous from the waterL When we got back to the to the Old Post Office building, we decided to climb the bell tower (very high!). We went all the way to the top and saw the Washington monument and the top of apartment buildings and a lot more. There was also a food court and areas to shop so we went shopping for souvenirs. We went out to eat then headed back to the Metro. We had wait for a while in the station, but had fun looking at each other’s pictures.

            When we got back we were the first ones there, so we showered and packed. We figured out that we had to be up by five in the morning to start packing our things into the van. We had small group till about eleven at night and said goodbye to all our friends from Georgia and Josh the Team Effort coordinator at Urban Outreach head guy. We went to bed and were ready to get up at five in the morning.  

            This week has been a lot of fun. I feel I grew spiritually this week. I also am more aware of what is going on in the country and in the world considering hunger, homelessness and all of that. Before I thought it was no big deal I never really saw any homeless people or met any. We went to five parks with fifty bags of food and they were mostly gone after three parks. I also learned that if you have a job that does not mean you have a home, there are people who live out in the streets who have jobs but are not paid enough to afford a house. The shelters are very messed up to in D.C. If you go sleep in a shelter your stuff most likely will be stolen.

            The day I enjoyed the most was Wednesday when we worked with the kids in the elementary school. My group had Mr.D, Justin, Holly (Team Effort Staff), Brittany, and me. We moved and organized books in the school library and moved furniture. When we started to move furniture there were two ten year olds that helped us move. They were very cool to hang around with and hear stories from them. We then went for lunch and played with the kids in the pre-K class. Some how all the kids were on everyone’s shoulders. They enjoyed being on our shoulders especially Jeremy’s.

- Emily W

This opportunity to go on the mission trip is one that I will not forget. Having the opportunity to not only serve God by helping out those who need it but also the opportunity to grow as a person. Many people go into mission trips believing that they will change people’s lives, which is a great attitude, but I believe it isn’t totally a successful mission trip unless you as a person are changed as well. We were blessed to have some great leaders at Urban Outreach. Josh, Holly, Lauren, Renee, Spike and Pastor Will were fantastic people who really helped out a lot and not only helped us grow spiritually with their chapel discussions that they led, but they were always ready and willing to help us with anything that we needed.

My Favorite part of the trip was Wednesday when we helped out at the elementary school. We moved schoolroom furniture and cleaned some desks; we organized the school library and hung out with some of the students. My favorite part of this was getting to play with the students. Some of them just broke my heart. There was this one little boy named Zach who captured my heart the most. From the moment I met him, he was crawling all over me. He would not let me go for a minute. The first time I tried to leave, I set him down on the ground and he turned around, looked me in the eyes and said, no, don’t go, and wrapped his little arms around me as tight as he could.  Needless to say I stayed a little bit longer until story time was done but then I had to leave. This time when I set him down and he knew that I had to leave, He got really mad and started to hit me. I promised Him I would come back during lunch and he calmed down a little. We went back for lunch later and played with the kids some more and gave endless numbers of pony rides and shoulder rides to all of the kids. We later found out from Zach’s teachers that the reason why he gets so aggressive when people leave him is because he has taught himself to cut any ties from anyone who leaves him so he isn’t hurt when they are not there anymore. My heart still hurts for little Zach and I will never forget him.

Getting to see the sights, meeting new people, and growing as a group are all good things to do. But it is the people that you meet that touch your heart that is what will change you forever. I believe and know that I was changed by this experience as well as many, if not all of my fellow “family” members (team members). This was definitely a successful trip because my life was changed through everything that happened. Thank you for all of your support, whether it was financially or through prayer, it was appreciated by all. I hope this helps give an insight into some of the things that went on during the trip.

- Jeremy J.

Well my journey to and in D.C. was filled with many excitements along with many challenges. The first day we walked some streets of the local D.C. area and picked up trash that was lying around. Some found some weird things like wigs, articles of clothing, dentures, female products, and we even found an old Team Effort sign. What hit me the most doing that is how much trash there was on the streets and how appreciative some of the people were that we were helping. After lunch we went and helped out a lady named Ms. Vix for a project that was for Father’s day. Miss Vix runs a daycare type thing during summers for little kids that want to come and they get a choice to go, and many do in part because they get fed. The next day we started off helping Team Effort clean a room along with ovens and refrigerators. We also organized a closet where they keep a bunch of wires and a sound system along with a bunch of others stuff. After we were done with that we went to a food bank and sorted can foods into different categories. What amazed me at the food bank was how much they had to do and how many volunteers showed up to help organize. The third worksite we went to school. What we did at school was help clean desks and organize some things for teachers and students. After we ate lunch we had some free time to spend with kids first we were just playing on the play structure, then it was playing duck, duck, goose, and finally we were pretending to be horses carrying the kids on our backs or shoulders. After free time went and started to finish off the day. While we were getting done cleaning the library 3 kids were taking buckets filled with books to some bin downstairs. We later found out they weren’t supposed to, so we ended up reorganizing all of the books back in the library. The last worksite we did was to help the homeless. We made 50 lunches that consisted of a hot dog, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water. When we got to the first park it surprised me on how many people I actually saw there. As we were talking to our first guy named David I saw another person walk up to squirrels fighting over some bag and a homeless man walk over to it and pick it up which I thought was bad. The one person who stuck out in my mind was a man named Elijah aka Nature Boy. Nature boy was an interesting character, he wore nothing but shorts that were torn all the way up the sides of his legs and he had long white dread locked hair, and yes he looked different but he was surprisingly a pretty cool dude, even though his theology was way off target. After we gave our last lunch away we had the rest of the day to ourselves so we went to two Smithsonian museums that were “The Museum of Natural History” and “The Air and Space Museum”. We went to the Natural History Museum first, but that didn’t peak my interest very much, but then we went to the Air and Space Museum hit me hard. Both museums taught me many things about the world’s past and how the airplane was developed. The last day we had there was a full free day where we went on a tour of D.C. and saw all the monuments. The tour taught me quite a bit of things about how and why they were built there. After the tour we went on top of the old post office tower and took pictures. During our last night of chapel we were given the opportunity to let go of some of the “baggage” we had. There was a lot of crying, but we were all there for each other. After we prayed as a group we hammered our baggage on a wooden cross to get rid of it for good and before the night was done we had pretty much every group there singing “Days of Elijah” with us.  I learned what it is like working as a team in many different situations with many different people and how it is to grow closer to God. We all found newly developed relationships and I hope what we did in D.C. can stay with us when we get back to Oostburg. I met many new friends and learned much more about God I am so glad I decided to go on this trip and I can’t wait for another.

- Andrew Roerdink

Thursday: Ministering to the homeless and visiting the Smithsonian

Today we woke up and after breakfast we worked at creating fifty lunches for the homeless, which consisted of a hotdog wrapped in tinfoil with mustard and ketchup, a bag of chips, and a bottle of water. Once we were done with that we gathered together and took a survey about poverty and statistics of the homeless population all over. The winning score was surprisingly 46/64, by Andrew and Allison. After we recovered from the results of the statistics in the survey, we piled into the van and made our way over to the Metro. It was a new and interesting experience! We had tendencies to sprint on and off of the Metro platform worried the doors would close on usJ

            Once we got to our destination, we went over to Franklin Park where we met our supervisor for the day, David, the head of a major homeless organization called T.O.P’s, which stands for (Teen Opposed to Poverty?).  He advised us to stay in groups and said that we should always ask the names of the homeless we encountered and to also ask if we could pray with them. The last park was across from the White House, and we went to meet a quite popular homeless man named Nature Boy. He was a very, very charismatic and eccentric man.

            After all this, it was tourist time! We headed over to the Smithsonian, and went into the Natural History and then Air & Space museums. We had some pretty awesome times at Air & Space. From the hanging airplanes to Andrew buying a $65 Storm Trooper zip-up hoodie and later on wearing it to Chapel.

            Now, since we’ve already brought it up, we should inform you about Chapel. Tonight’s service was a very intimate and emotional time for everyone, as we had to write down our ‘baggage’ on a tag and nail it to a wooden cross outside the building to symbolize leaving our sins on the cross because Jesus had already paid it all, so we had no use to carry it around anymore. There, tears were many as we all huddled into a group hug, heads together, hands around one another, finally taking that first step into letting it go. We really became a family at that moment. We learned that we would always be there to catch one another when they fall or to wipe away the tears that may be brought on by many of the challenges we face in life. This trip had really opened up our eyes to a new life we’ve never encountered before and will help us stay on the pathway with Jesus. We came here packed lightly with clothes but packed heavy with problems, but we will still leave with lightly packed/dirty clothes but with fewer troubles that have been laid to rest with Jesus hopefully for the rest of our human lives here on Earth. 

Wednesday: C.W. Harris Elementary School (Cleaning, organizing, hanging with kids:)

            Today after breakfast we went to the local elementary school. Before we even left for the elementary school we knew that this was going to be one of the best days of the whole mission trip. We arrived at the C.W. Harris Elementary School and were assigned to either organizing books, cleaning desks, or moving furniture. My group was assigned to reorganizing books. We threw away some of the books that were in the 70s – early 90s and put the books in order. My group got done re-organizing books pretty quickly. After we got the books re-organized we had to move desks and other school supplies from one side of the school to the other side.

            All the groups met together in the library to reorganize some of the books that were unorganized. We stopped for lunch and ate our lunch with some of the little kids that were there. We played several rounds of duck-duck-goose. After the duck-duck-goose the kids wanted some piggyback rides. So we ran around the school giving piggyback rides to all the children that were there. They enjoyed the time that we spent with them and we enjoyed the time as well. It was fun to see how their faces lit up when we gave them a ride or played tag or duck-duck-goose with them. The kids needed that kind of attention. Many of the kids do not receive that kind of attention outside of school. So when they saw us leave, they were very sad to see us have to go.

Those kids made it worth going to D.C. At first I was on the borderline if I wanted to go or not. But now after seeing what I have seen, I am very glad to be a part of this mission trip. I’ve seen God work through normal people such as Miss Vix on our first day of service. I’ve seen people rejoice in the Lord even through pain and suffering. I’ve seen people who have seen what real pain is like and persevered because their hope in the Lord. Sometimes I wish that everyone could go on a mission trip like this. It has definitely strengthened my faith.

- Justin Vander Waal

Tuesday: Urban Outreach Clean-up and Food Bank

This morning it was so difficult to wake up, due to the long day we had the day before. But, even though we were technically exhausted, we trudged down the stairs and into the mess hall where we enjoyed a lovely pancake breakfast along with a series of the most eccentric conversations you can only find with our group’s sense of humor. Anyways, after breakfast we got heading upstairs to room 203 where we got cleaning three dirty stoves, three messy moldy fridges, and reorganized the sound room that called for our help. We finished with amazing results and the appliances just gleamed with a clean glow. The sound room was organized and after that, we were hungry! So we made our way back to the mess hall and into the kitchen where we had some sandwiches and fruit cups. Then once that fabulous lunch was devoured, we hopped into the huge 15 passenger van and headed to the Capital City Food Bank! There we met our very nice supervisor, David, and we started separating all the various foods into their individual crates where we then started packing the segregated foods into cardboard boxes that were then put onto pallets and labeled. We had the aid of two or three other groups, which put about fifty people working, counting ourselves. It was a great experience for each and every one of us! It was all finished in what seemed to be a blink of an eye and once there was no more to do we just headed back to the van and made our way back. We were tired, and dirty, so showers were being looked forward to once we had arrived back. Though, each person was calling dibs on who gets into the shower first. Making this day yet another one well spent! – Brittany Maloney

Monday- The Work Begins (Street Sweep and City Gate)

Pictures from our first day at work in DC. Last night we arrived at TeamEffort and soon realized it is not in the best neighborhood. We soon then realized when we got in our room that there was only one shower for about two-dozen girls! We were thankful when we learned we have air conditioning. In Washington D.C it will be about 90 and humid almost everyday. When we finished our IHOP breakfast and packed our lunches, we went out to the street to pick up garbage. We found many interesting things along the way like a wig, dentures, a takeout box with earwigs in it, an old Team Effort sign, old cups, tons of tiny bottles of alcohol, and many more. We picked up garbage for about an hour then we went to City Gate, which is a place for kids to go after school and get snacks and help with their homework. They are currently preparing for their Father’s Day family day and their VBS program. We got the chance to meet with Miss Vix, the head of City Gate, today and find out about her ministry and help her sort food for her food ministry. We found her to be a very energetic woman who has a passion for her Lord. She wakes up at five everyday and gets her kids ready for school then spends about two hours in devotion and prayer. It was very evident to us she has an impact on her community. After we got to know her better, she took us to see her orchard the kids helped her make. When we went there, a few kids had recess and saw Miss Vix and came running over to say hi. We then went to a house where Miss Vix prepares bags of food to distribute to the community and helped sort food. There were boxes in the house we had to carry out. There were cockroaches and other bugs under the boxes and in the boxes as well. We had to take the food out of boxes and containers and throw some broken or open containers away. We put the rest on tables in categories and counted each food item. While we sorted the food, there were clothes that needed to be sorted, and because of the bugs on the floor in the house, Jenny and Brittney sorted the clothes outside. After we had all the food categorized and counted, we put assorted things into bags for the people that lived in the government housing in the community. After we put the bags in boxes, we carried them inside so they could be put away in storage. We were sad when we had to leave Miss Vix. She’s such an awesome lady. She was clearly appreciative for our efforts. When we were heading back to the Team Effort building, our leader Holly, got us lost on the way back and we got an unexpected tour of the inner city. When we got back, we took showers and played games ‘til supper. We had supper duty and set up plates and forks for pizza and salad. After supper, we had free time and we played Ninja☺ We met other groups and had fun with them. We then had chapel, followed by small group time. This was a nice time of sharing about our experiences of the day. We learned a lot about the culture here. We are surely not in Oostburg anymore! - Hannah Wieskamp - Emily Wieskamp

Sunday: Traveling to DC!!

 Today we woke up in a nice air conditioned hotel room which was very enjoyable, and we all headed down to eat breakfast and stuff our faces full. After that we had a little sermon/devotional in Paster Tinsley’s room and we talked about how at times it may seem like things aren’t going our way but for all we know it could be for the better. After that we packed the van almost forgetting a couple things and left, then on to another five hours of driving. Driving is always fun with this group we are all very energetic, except for when we are sleeping. We played games, watched movies, played hand eye coordination games, which took a little while to learn, but was really fun in the end. Once we were almost there, everyone was very excited and hyped up on who knows how much caffeine. Once we got there it was definitely not Oostburg. It was a sketchy neighborhood and we knew we had to be carful with the way we acted and what we said. Once we got to the Urban Outreach building it got pretty chaotic, while we were all unpacking our stuff there was a chapel that was going to happen in like five minutes. We talked about all the baggage that we carry that weighs us down from running our race with the lord and how we will try to start letting go of that baggage this week and hopefully keep it off. After that we went to da korna sto (the corner store on the second floor of our building) and got drinks and snacks. By then we were all very tired so we went to bed ☺ - Allison Heinen - Jenny Wieskamp

On the Road

We are on the road to DC. We met at church at 5:45 and left at 6:00 (sort of- It took a little while to get everyone in the van)  We named our van Jet Puff- the great White Marshmallow. Thanks to Jeremy, we where all supplied with donuts and drinks from the Oostburg Bakery. We made our first stop at about 9:00 and are moving down Interstate 80 with Pastor John as our chief navigator. Here are some pictures from the day.
We departed from the Ministry building at around 6:00 in the morning. A group of people said goodbye to us at the ministry building. Despite everyone getting up extremely early. No one fell asleep right away in the car. We just hung out in the car. The ride wasn't anything out of the ordinary until we crossed into Illinois. When we got into Chicago we first noticed the skyline of buildings and took lots of pictures. We passed the time by playing games and jammin' out to music! The song of the day was "Call Me Maybe." The song is usually a girls song but we made it fun. We even reenacted parts of the Harvard baseball team "Call Me Maybe" YouTube video. We stopped for lunch at an Oasis rest stop in Indiana with a Burger King/Pizza shop. We then left Bear country into Colt country (illinois to Indiana). Most of us slept off a big chunk of time until we got into Ohio. We listened to Tim Hawkins, the Christian comedian, many of us are still quoting parts of his comedy such as how finding extra fries under your napkin in a McDonalds bag makes your entire day. "It's not over!!!" After 11 hours of driving, Tim Hawkins, and "Call me Maybe,"we finally got into Pennsylvania to our hotel and checked in. The first things we did was swim and get situated into our rooms, which are quite nice and comfortable. We ordered Vocelli pizza which according to the girls, had "cute" pepperonis on them. Nicole Ogena and Julia Bolkema joined since they were in Pittsburg. It was also Nicole's birthday so we surprised her with an ice cream cake.  After eating our ice-cream cake, Pastor Tinsley led us in devotions based on Colossians 4:12.  He challenged us to wrestle in prayer for each other. We went to our rooms later that night to sleep. We were all very excited to see that "Aladdin," the Disney movie, was on TV. Lord willing we will reach Washington DC tomorrow evening and will learn about exactly what we will be doing in DC. Can't wait to get on the road again!!
-Matt Rubsam
-Justin VanderWaal
-Andrew Roerdink