Rain or Shine Clean Up Crew At Your Service

6:50am - meet in lobby with breakfast from the lobby on your own before then

Sick Count - the sore throat virus is spreading rapidly through the group.  It currently has a pretty good hold on Shaye, Shuppy, Amber, Kasey, Justin, PJ, Dave, Bri, Dawson, Jon, Maya, Annelise, Logan, and Sami.  That would be 14/23.  Pastor Jami has started her own pharmacy and is no longer allowed to buy Claritin in the state of Michigan because she has reached her limit.  The rest of us are thinking about investing in face masks.

Amber's illness has progressed and Caleb is not any better, so PJ opted to stay back from this day of the gathering with her two children and take them to the clinic to have them checked out.  They spent the day sleeping and then in the emergency room at the local hospital since the clinic would not see them due to not having our health forms notorized.  Surprise!  Most of the staff at the hospital thought Amber and Caleb were PJs twins.  They were in the ER for 4 hours and were discharged around 4:00pm.  Each has a viral sore throat and the doctor warned that since we are in such close proximity it is very possible that others will get it too... too late, doc.

7:25am - load bus from hotel to Cobo Center in the pouring rain

7:50am - arrive at Cobo Center and head for Hart Plaza.

Hart Plaza is where you must gather and wait for your "launch time" on your service day.  Unfortunately for us, Hart Plaza is outside.  Double unfortunately for us, it was still pouring.  However gathering events are rain or shine, so we all donned our beautiful ponchos and walked outside to the plaza.

8:20am - Arrive at Hart Plaza.

So glad we all brought our ponchos!!!!

Don't worry... that creeper in the background is just Stacey

Thanks for making me a poncho, Mom!!

Staying out of the rain

  The plaza is filled with approximately 5,000 youth all waiting for their service day project.  There are signs with bus numbers being held up and we looked for bus 6.  There were over 60 buses but luckily they were somewhat in order.  Once we found our bus, we had to stand in the rain and wait for everyone else (all 5,000 youth) to arrive.  We were being entertained by a man playing songs to dance to and showing us videos.

9:15am - Launch to our site!  Lucky for us... the rain stopped just as we were getting on our bus for our launch.  No rain for us today!

We boarded our bus with Joy, our servant companion who was there to help us, and about 20 other youth and their leaders.  We had the most kids in our group by far!  The other groups on our bus had between 2 -8 kids in their groups.  Once we were driving away from Hart Plaza, Joy told us where we would be going and what we would be doing.  Up until this point we had NO idea what our service project would be.

Our job was to clean up alleys in a neighborhood.  We were told the alleys were overgrown and full of garbage.  Everyone chatted happily on the 10 minute drive.  PJ had ordered us an extra bagged lunch for this day so some ate lunch #1 on the way.  When we arrived in the neighborhood where we would be working, a hush fell over the entire bus.  Hardly anyone spoke as they looked around at the broken and battered area.  Almost every other house was boarded up and the ones that were not had awnings hanging off, busted windows, burned out houses, and vacant lots.  It didn't look like many people lived there at all.  Everyone stared out their windows in disbelief.  How can there be neighborhoods like this that people live in??

9:30am - Arrive at the alley

Joy introduced us to George.  George works for a group called 360 Detroit.  This organization works to better Detroit by working with the citizens of the neighborhoods.  The neighborhood that we were working in used to be a thriving area with primarily Jewish people living there.  Most of the houses were very large!  Henry Ford used to live a few blocks from where we were working.  He provided directions on what to do with each type (well almost each type) of item that we may find.  The kids grabbed tools from the pile and set to work!

The whole crew from our bus!

There was a wheelbarrow, rakes, clippers, saws, thrashers, brooms, and shovels.  We walked to the alley and it didn't look so bad!  It was a little overgrown with weeds sticking out the sides and some growing between the cracks.  There were small trees along the edge and lots and lots of garbage.

Our youth jumped right in clipping down trees and branches that were in the way, hauling mattresses and concrete pieces out of the alley, thrashing down tall weeds, bagging everything, and hauling it away to the curb or the very large dumpster.  Some of the kids found some interesting treasures and all in all we had a great morning!  It looked like we were making progress.

A dirty old mattress found in some trees

12:30pm - lunch time!

The ELCA provided lunches today which consisted of a sandwich, chips, an apple, and water.  We all sat under a tree and ate the lunches... with the ants!  Luckily they didn't show up until we were nearly done.

1:15pm - Back to work!

One of the other adult leaders in the group pulled us aside to talk about "the big challenge ahead."  We didn't really know what she was talking about since we were at the back of the work train in the alley, but we soon saw.  The next section of the alley was the real problem.  A car would not be able to drive down that portion of the alley. The trees had grown thick and the road was so covered with dirt, weeds, garbage, and moss that you could barely see the asphalt.

She thought they were pretty!

Carrying a bucket filled with concrete pieces

Although tired from the morning session, the youth took on the huge challenge and hoped to get it all done before we had to leave at 3:00pm.  We were moving along great until...

Joy came to tell us that we had to stop what we were doing and leave the area because George had a special assignment for us.  We looked at her with blank expressions and asked if we could finish what we were working on.  Then George came and told us to drop everything we were holding, bring our tools, and leave the area immediately.  Little did we know that Maya had just discovered a garbage bag with a large bone and lip gloss inside.  The bone was too large for a dog bone, so the police had to be called.

Maya was called over for questioning, but all the hubbub died down when the police identified it as a cow bone.  We were called back in to finish the job we were working on and then board up the bus to go back.

Proud of our mud stained gloves

2:40pm - Take bus back to Cobo Center (not the hotel where we would have loved to go.  We had to go the rest of the day dirty and smelly.  We were wearing our smell with honor!)

3:00pm - Lie down on the Cobo Floor right in front of Bobby Siegfried who played in the Cobo Center for a few hours.  Boy we were super sleepy today!

Watching Bobby play

He played so well he put them to sleep

5:30pm - Dinner at Niki's Pizza in Greektown

A favorite meal choice!

Grape leaves stuffed with beef and rice

Hey!  Who ate Morgan's food?

7:30pm - Mass Gathering at Ford Field

Tonight included  a hiphop group, a speaker on a mission trip to Jerusalem, a preacher from a church for Christians and Muslims, a woman who created a dinner church where members eat together at tables with discussion, and a pastor who lost a 13-year-old youth member to racism.  The evening also included a special Motown Group there to entertain us.  Johnny Barber was the first one on his feet clapping when they announced that the group consisted of 1 Miracle, 1 Contour, and 2 Temptations.  The music was amazing and everyone was dancing and singing to songs like Shout, My Girl, Do You Love Me, and ABC.

the Motown group :)

The night ended with Rachel Kurtz and some young kids singing about building bridges to love others.  Volunteers came from all over Ford Field with lit up beach balls and red glow sticks.  The beachballs formed crosses on the stadium floor and the red glow sticks made hearts based on where they were sitting.

Can you see the red heart formation?  These were all over the stadium seats.  The white lights are cell phone lights

10:00 - leave Ford Field

11:30 pm - board the bus back to our hotel

12:00am - final 15 and bedtime!

Highs: finding out the human bones were cow bones, picking up trash in the alley, leaving the hospital, NIki’s Pizza, Motown Singers (the Temptations), getting out of the parking lot before midnight!, following Stacey, hearing the speakers, cleaning up the alley/pulling out mattresses, the light up crosses tonight, staying dry in port-a-potties, Ford Field, swinging from a tree branch, listening to Bobby play, taking pictures of Caleb in the hospital bed, friendly hospital with heated blankets while you wait, Rachel Kurtz’s song, hearing the stories from the service day

Lows:  being told I found human bones, spilling water on myself at dinner, bussing, waking up late, breakfast, the barking dogs at the alley, first poncho ripped, being bit by bugs, being dirty all day because of service day, waiting in the rain, massive headache, still feeling sick, waking up sick, the orange shirts (it was hard to stay with our group because so many others were wearing orange), not getting to participate in service day

 


We all would like to thank PJ for arranging later transportation for us tomorrow so we all get to sleep in a bit.  We are very tired and dragging this week.