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.