Today was our first official day of the Mission Indy weeks! We arrived at North Liberty Christian Church, our home for the week around 11 on sunday. Before we unloaded our bags we prayed for the week and got a tour of the church. An elder welcomed us and was very happy to have us at their church. Each of the interns was assigned a job to perform each week before the youth groups arrive and once those jobs were done, we anxiously waited for the kids to arrive. When Clear Creek got there we were a little nervous and hestitant about what to do next. Then New Hope arrived and after the tours we ate dinner. It's easy when you first meet a group of people to stay in your comfort zone with the people you already know, but as an intern part of what we're expected to do it branch out and make people feel welcomed. It's not always my first instinct to sit with people I don't know. However, I decided to sit with some junior high boys from New Hope and got to know a little bit about them. I find it's usually rewarding to take the time to learn about others. During orientation we did some funny skits, but they didn't really know us at the time so the laughter was few and inbetween. IT took them awhile to get comfortable enough to laugh with us...well mostly at us. My job for the first week of mission indy was to help with VBS in the mornings and lead a work site in the afternoon. It sounded like something I could handle. It was easy to see on the first night that both the groups were very receptive, so already the makings of a good week were in order. -Even on the first night I thought about the Damar boys and will be looking forward to seeing them again.
The VBS was at a church on the East side of Indy called Full Gospel. They are a small church that has stayed in the same area despite many trials in their surrounding community. The church asked for some help with starting a VBS so that's where M.I. came into play. Joe and Tracy led the lesson. Jen is the VBS coordinator making sure everything is in order. Megan and I were the VBS helpers. And New Hope was the youth group to help with the kids, games, lesson, and crafts. (Pretty much wherever they were needed.) We were expecting anywhere from 50-150 kids in attendance. However, we ended up with 20 at the most. It made for a good VBS though because we were able to get to know all the kids. The first day I noticed a few girls who were about 13. They were obviously not having a good time with the younger kids. I overheard them saying they wouldn't be coming back the next day so I decided to ask what I could do to change that. They said they just wanted to be seperate from the kids. I decided to make bracelets with them if they promised to come back the next day. They were pretty excited. We made bracelets and talked through the lesson instead of having it taught to them like little kids. I actually enjoyed it a lot. And I pray that those girls got something from it. Overall the VBS week went really well and every single person was a huge help.
After lunch we would head to the worksite where instead of being the helpers Megan B. and I would switch to the leaders. The first day we arrived we thought we could conqure this little house in no time. All we had to do was scrap, sand, prime, caulk, and paint it. It seemed like a little house. On the contrary, it was no easy job. The scrapping pretty much took the whole week. Whoever painted the house before us must have figured the scrapping was not important because the paint was coming off in sheets. Each time we thought we were done scrapping, we were wrong. Despite the humidity and the rain, the kids were great. I heard no complaining and I even heard some people say they enjoyed scrapping. I was impressed with New Hope and the work they did this week. Even though we didn't get to finish it, I know they were a huge help and took care of the dirty work. I've learned scrapping is almost the most important part of painting a house with wood paneling. The lady we were scrapping for had just had her house painted 3 years ago, but because they didn't scrap it was already peeling. We ended up priming the front and the back of the house, but we'll have to finish the rest another mission indy week.
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