Tuesday

Tuesday, June 27th

After our first full day on the field, Chad summarizes the day {here}. As you can see below, we enjoyed an early breakfast out by the fountain near the entry of our hotel. For the rest of the week, we've decided to meet near the pool. It's a little more secluded, but still allows us to enjoy the cooler weather of the morning.

After breakfast, it's time for rehearsal and worship at the hotel. And then on to our work site for the week to get started. We've been assigned, along with Immanuel Baptist Church from Shreveport, Louisiana, to work with Grace of the Good Shepherd Baptist Church.

They are in the center of a run-down part of town with many low-income, immigrant families. These families have children who are eager to learn English as well as have nothing to do in the community they live.

The Austin Police have taken on the restoration of these communities. We're being supervised and guided by Officer Hellums and Officer Cooper as well as Pastor Santos. The immediate four-block area is home to more than 200 children who have no community park, activities, or positive and safe gathering area. It is the vision of the pastor, congregation and police force that the church can become just such a place.

Before we could interact with these children, we had to let them know we where there. So, some of our students went searching for children in the apartments adjacent to the church property. You can see a short video clip of their journey {here.}

We worked hard all day -- you should be extremely proud of our students. Never once did I see someone holding back or trying to fade into the background while others did all the work. They so naturally ran the "divide and conquor" in order to entertain the different age groups and get the manual labor done.

Before & After