Philly 2009 Blog

PHILLY URBAN MISSION TRIP 2009

TRIP BLOG
 
June 19, 2009
The Jr. OSSM Youth is heading to Philadelphia, PA on June 21st. We will spend 6 days working at different mission sites in the city. We want to thank the congregation for all their support as we raised money for our trip. We have met and exceeded our fundraising goal! 
We look forward to sharing our stories with you when we return. Now we ask for your prayers for our trip. Pray for the city of Philadelphia, especially the homeless, the poor and all who are struggling to make ends meet. Pray for the many ministries in the city that they will continue to find the funds and volunteers to keep important services available to those in need and that our group will be a part of that ministry in the best way we can. Also, pray for our group, for safety as we travel and work. If you would like to pray for the members of our group by name, here is a list of the trip participants: Dylan, Emily, Grace, McKenzie, Sarah, Cameron, Dan, Brandon, Paul, Les, and Teresa.
 
June 21, 2009
We have arrived safely.  :-)
We moved into the CSM site.  McKenzie was greeted with a big hug by Anthony, a neighborhood child.  The neighborhood children readily welcomed us.  We headed out to a dinner of India food.  The kids were very excited as their favorite meal on the DC trip was Taste of India.  We spent the rest of our evening on a prayer tour of Philly.  We all feel Philly is definitely different from DC.  We see there can be a sudden change in the city, beautiful part to destitute with out warning (Cameron).  The youth are now spending some time writing in their journals.  Each pair of youth will take a turn logging an entry in the blog this week.  The weather is good, thank you God. (Mr. Hambridge).  We are very excited for a fulfilling, a spirit filled trip.  Blessings to our family back at home.  Mrs. Powell. 
 
 

 

June 22, 2009
We began our day with devotions about surrendering ourselves to the work that God may give us to do. Our first ministry site was Simpson House which is an assisted living facility. They were having a Medicaid inspection so we were not able to visit with the residents. We were, however, able to pick up litter on the grounds. After a lunch at Belmont Plateau we had the Big Mouth Showdown and Lunch Bag football. Dylan won the Big Mouth Showdown. 
Our afternoon ministry site was at Traveler’s Aid which is an organization which provides help for the homeless, displaced, and new residents for up to one year.   Our job was to repaint the stairwell of a 4 level, hot, transitional house. One of the residents was very kind and lent us a fan. We were supposed to spend the next 2 days on that job but we finished it in 3 hours.   The handyman, Wayne, was very appreciative and impressed with our “mad skillz”.   Dan, McKenzie, Emily, and Tricia looked like they had aged 30 years then we realized it was just the paint (in their hair). 
We returned to the CSM housing site for showers and postcards and relaxation.   Dinner at Pho Hoa (Vietnamese food) was yummy. We did our debrief along the river. We reviewed what we saw, learned, and felt during the day.   We saw the need and learned we can accomplish a lot when we work together as a group. We felt proud at what we accomplished. Now we are hanging out with the neighborhood kids and relaxing. 
Written by Dan, Dylan, and Paul
 
 

 

June 23, 2009
We think we all slept very well last night after a tiring day, but at 7:00a.m. we awoke (or tried too) and got ready for the day ahead. After breakfast and lunch packing we went outside for devotions run by Paul, Dan, and Dylan and we learned from Mrs. Powell that the word of the day was “reflect.” In minutes we were on the road to meet our first task! We drove to Manna, an organization that provides food for those with HIV, AIDS, and terminal illnesses. There we prepared  740 meals in assembly line form. After a quick lunch break, we bagged large assortments of bread, and in what felt like minutes.
We were off to Traveler’s Aid where we split into 3 groups. An organizing the basement group, (Grace, Emily, and Tricia) were a group of amazing girls who cleaned the whole DUSTY maintenance room/basement. Now that’s the job we know the most about so we’ll try our best to describe the others. There was a touch-up/stair scrubbers group (McKenzie, Dylan, Paul, and Mrs. Powell) who worked their best to scrub the paint off the floors and touch up anything we missed yesterday. The final group was the moving furniture group. (Sarah, Dan, Cameron, Brandon, and Mr. Hambridge- aka Chief) They hauled box springs and mattresses to a warehouse with sweaty dusty hands. We all worked very hard and accomplished a lot in those hours. 
We then walked to Saads and ate falafels and schwarma. (yum) Then after a fabulous trip to Penn Station where Chief claimed they had AMAZING bathrooms (they weren’t that great) We went to a park to receive our debriefing where we wrote the haikus and received our letters from our parents which we are VERY thankful for. Then we got to play around in the open field with a great view of the city and headed back to the CSM site. God’s Blessings we love you all! J <3 Thank you to everyone for everything you have done to help us get to this trip.
~Emily and Grace

 

 

 

June 24, 2009

The word of the day was Hope.  We began our day a little bit later because of our "Wednesday Blahs"  We left around 9:30am to the Inglis House which houses abouth 300 people who are all in wheelchairs.  We split up into 3 groups to do various activites with the residents.  We spent several hours helping doing music therapy, touch therapy, games.  We had lunch on the grounds and met a gentleman, named Randy who knew every joke ever written.  After lunch we returned to the Traveler's Aid house for another round of sweeping, cleaning, and 3 more trips to the warehouse.  We said a fond farewell to our new friend Mr. Wayne, custodian of our Traveler's Aid house.  Tonight was our free night (without our host, Tricia).  We had to admit it had been a tough, long day and we were still in the "blahs".  Mr. H and Mrs. P surprised us with dinner at Chili's then we headed off to Logan Square for our debrief.  We shared our highs and lows for the day then had a barefoot prayer circle.  We walked over to the beautiful fountain in the middle of the square to read the sign painted at the bottom of the fountain.  (the photo below tells the rest of the story). Needless to say we washed away our Wednesday Blahs. 
by Cameron & Brandon

 

June 25, 2009

The word of the day is "faithfulness".  We started by taking a tour of Chinatown.  We learned about the history and tried some different foods.  The homeless rate in Chinatown is double that of the rest of the city and the average income is below the poverty level.  After our tour we headed to St. John's Hospice.  St. John's is a homeless shelter for men.  They fed us a yummy lunch and then we served almost 450 lunches to the area homeless men.  The hospice also houses 52 men and get them started on rebuilding their lives.  We all enjoyed it tremendously.   We spent our afternoon on a scavenger hunt of downtown, historic, Philly.  We found the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the Quaker House and lots more.  Our only unfound item was Constance the Constitutional Cow.  It appears Constance mooooooved about 3 years ago but CSM forgot to take her off the sheet.  We dined on World Famous Philly Cheese Steak at Jim's.  We all enjoyed it throughly.  We finished our night at King's Water Ice stand for a special Philly Style Birthday celebration for Paul.  Water Ice for EVERYONE!!!  We're all excited to be here but still miss our OSL family and friends.  Love to you all.    McKenzie & Sarah

June 26, 2009

     The word of the day is "thankful."  We started with devotions led by Sarah and McKenzie.  Then we headed out to "Ray of Hope."  This ministry beautifies neighborhoods and empty lots.  We met Ray Gant in an open field that once was occupied by buildings.  We were given gardening tools and began to trim, prune, pick up trash, sweep and rake.  It was hard, hot work, but in the end it looked better than before.  There is a neighborhood party planned for this site tomorrow.      We were tired by the time we arrived at our last ministry site for the week. ("I'm on my last leg" -Mrs. Powell)  Mary Jane Enrichment Center is a place that feeds and houses homeless men, women and families.  It's a mom and pop organization run by Edna Williams (mom) and her two sons John & Joe.  (Dad passed away last year.)  We were immediately smitten with this loving family and the work that they do.  We were soon making sandwiches, unloading food, setting out free clothing for the neighborhood, and serving several people who stopped by.  Mrs. Powell grew another set of legs.  The Williams calmly and lovingly oversaw the many tasks that were happening all around us.  We stayed an extra half hour and Edna had us all gather for a prayer of thanks before heading out.  We ended our mission work on a high note!     After a Jamacian dinner of "Jerk" chicken, we headed out for our final debrief by the art museum.  We talked about the many things we were thankful for on our trip.  The kids are thankful to you, the parents and people who supported this mission trip.  This wonderful week would not have been possible without you.     Finally we posed for a picture with "Rocky" and ran back to the van ahead of the rain for a final word from Trica and a closing prayer.    Back at the house we filled out evauation sheets and enjoyed our final time with Mister Softie.  Tomorrow we do our final act of serving -cleaning the house top to bottom.  See you tomorrow at 2:00pm.   -Mr. Hambridge

 

June 27, 2009

We began our journey surrendering our week, our plans and our hearts to God. We asked Him to guide our path and time.  We worked to reflect God’s love to each other and people like Mr. Wayne, Mrs. Williams, Ray, Squirt and the others we encountered on our journey.  We shared our hope in the changing power of the Holy Spirit with the special residents at Inglis House through touch, music and games. We strived to stay faithful to each other and the work God gave us to do in the city. During our stay in Philly we found that we have so many things to be thankful for: our families, our homes, our friends but also for all the many people who are willing to do the hard work of ministry in the city day in and day out.   Our final word of our trip is comfort. We are enjoying the comfort of seeing our families, and friends and the comfort of our own beds. 

We look forward to sharing our stories and thoughts about this wonderful trip. We will be processing all that we saw and experienced for quite some time to come. Thank you to the staff at CSM and all their ministry partners for doing the good work they do in the city, to our church family at Our Savior for supporting us financially but most importantly with your prayers,  to our families for making this experience a reality for us and lastly to Jesus for his protection, grace and mercy every day of our journey.