Birmingham, Day One

Well, today is officially the first day of the Birmingham mission trip. We traveled all day yesterday - and successfully turned a 6 1/2 hour trip into a full 10 hour trip:-) Whoever said it only takes 6 1/2 hours obviously has never done the trip with 29 people.
The trip down was awesome - a little rain early on - but then beautiful the rest of the drive. We stopped for lunch in Memphis and picked up Cody House there - we should have known there would 'timing' issues when we didn't leave Memphis until after 1:30p!
But seriously - we made it to the mission site in plenty of time. We would have been EXTREMELY early if our kiddos would have had bigger bladders.
The church that we were originally supposed to stay in this week had a fire a couple of weeks ago (that's maybe an understatement, it's no longer standing really), so we were blessed to be welcomed into an old school house next door that has taken in the church family as well and is allowing them to meet there while they rebuild.
It's quite warm down in these parts - and without a beach nearby - I think we are all realizing very quickly how spoiled we are!
After dinner, we had meetings to prep us for all that's going to be happening this week and the kids were divided into their work groups that they will stick with for the rest of the week.
Here are a few of the places we'll be working:
BEAT, Church of the Reconciler, Cornerstone School, and The Foundry.

The original plan was that I (Angel) would go from site to site taking pics, making sure everyone had what they needed, blogging for parents, etc. However, once we divided into teams, it was necessary that I lead a team with Tammy to keep two leaders per site. SOOOO, I'll be depending on the info I get from the other leaders and the pictures they take to keep you completely up to date on things.
My group (Sarah S, Rachael D, Alex E, Kelsi M, Meredith C) is at The Foundry for the next two days and we are totally pumped.
There's a group called Soles4Souls that donated 10,000 pairs of brand new shoes to The Foundry's thrift store. Today we are organizing boxes upon boxes of shoes by size and style and tomorrow we actually get to help distribute the shoes! What a REAL impact they are making on showing God's love to the people of Birmingham - and the fact that we get to participate in His big plan is amazing.

Last night we had an evening devotional to discuss our hopes and fears for the week. We had lots of sharing which was great...here a few of the hopes some of our students shared with us that they have for this week (my :shorthand" method of taking notes isn't great, so I'm sure I'll be paraphrasing a few of these):
Holly - that she experiences a real connection with God
Kelsi - that we will draw closer to others on this trip
Ashley - that she will know what it feels like to serve God outside of her comfort zone
Rachael - that we will learn to serve with a true servant's heart; serving when no one is looking
Larissa - that we influence the people we come in contact with and actually make a difference.
Ryan - that he will reconnect with God
Austin - that he will remember the week and actually put it into context in his life back home - he doesn't want to forget everything he learns this week
Meredith - that we would not judge people - that we would realize that they all come from different backgrounds and that they are deeper than what we see on the outside
Sarah - that she would do everything this week with a joyful heart and be as selfless as possible while always maintaining a positive attitude.

As you can see - our students have alot of hopes for the week! They don't just come up with this stuff on their own - you all (parents) have a lot to do with shaping their minds and environment - and you are apparently doing a great job:-)

At the end of the night, we had a little time with just our group (La Croix). JT reminded all of us that we aren't doing this to get attention, but to bring glory to God. We were encouraged to make friends with the other church we are serving alongside and to make it a point to interact with the people we come in contact with.

JT also encouraged the students to journal this week..."just like when you are a kid and your parents put you up against the wall every six months and marked your growth on the wall - journaling is a great way for us to measure our spiritual growth."

Well - as you might have guessed the Foundry does not have wi-fi, which means I am currently a block up the street sitting in a Krystal blogging to you, as my girls are working their tails off with Tammy. Thus, I'd better stop rambling. I am going to upload some pics of the trip down on the Flicker site (no pics from today yet - I'll do those tomorrow...no wi-fi where we are staying).
If you make any comments on the site, I'll relay them back to the group...
Thanks! Until tomorrow...