Youth Mission Trip - Thursday, part 2

Hello again, I don't have much time but here are some thoughts from Emily Jeske:

Good afternoon Winston-Salem, and whoever else is reading this. Well, I guess good afternoon, I’m not really sure when this will be posted, but as I am writing this it is 11:15. So, not really afternoon. It’s definitely hot enough to be 3 or 4 o’ clock. I’m taking an extended water break from our worksite so that I can fill you guys in on all the fun that we’ve been having since the last post.
Erin has already given you the information about what is going on in the back of the worksite we’re at, but there’s not too much that has been said about the beautification of the house. For the first two days, The Collective Emily (myself and Emily Miller) and Erin scrubbed the siding of the house, and even went up on the roof to get the higher spots. On Tuesday, The Collective Emily decided that it would make the whole process more rewarding if we repainted the picket fence in front of the house. The paint was ridiculously chipped off, and it looked pretty bad in front of a house that had just been scrubbed for 3 hours. However, we didn’t know that in order to paint the fence, we would have to scrub that, peel off the paint (so much fun, spending 7 hours picking off nasty old paint with my fingernails), and THEN finally put the first coat on. First out of two. Not exactly what we had planned on doing for three days. But yesterday we got the first coat of paint on! Success! It looked absolutely phenomenal, and was definitely worth all the hard scrubbing and peeling we did. Seeing the fruits of our labor from two days of hot work in the blazing sun was such a great feeling. We just finished the final coat and touch ups about half an hour ago, and have since been helping on the wheelchair ramp, which looks fantastic and very professional. Good work all around.

Last night, the church that we’re staying in had a church service, so we had to go eat in the park by the beach for dinner. Pizzas from Hungry Howie’s were ordered, and we got to chill on the playground and eat. Ice cream sandwiches followed. We did some more major bonding with the group from South Carolina, which is never bad. After dinner we walked into the Gulf, which you can go out forever in, and it still hardly gets over knee-deep. There were a zillion hermit crabs and shells, and I got a few. I think Kristena got like, 5 thousand, but I wasn’t as lucky. Unfortunately, the awesome shell I found on Monday had a crab in it, and was creeping around the room last night. Just my luck, jeez.

This morning we were out the door at 6:30 (am—lots of sleepy teenagers today) and went on a group jog/run around downtown Port St. Joe. As a member of the jogging group (yes, I actually jogged), it was surprisingly fun and most of us kept up. We ended our jog at the gazebo/pier and sat out there for a while and watched the sun finish rising. This is pretty long, so I’m going to go back and do some work!

Just to fill you in on the rest of the day, we finished ALL the work on the second site. The wheelchair ramp was finished and then we went to the beach for an hour and a half (we drove to Mexico Beach, about 10 mintues away). We just got back to the church we are staying at and are geting ready to drive to the showers.

It has been a good week so far. In many ways its hard to believe that today is already Thursday. Only one more full day down here in Florida and then we drive back home on Saturday. Look for one mroe post after this. There are a few more youth who want to share their experiences, and I'll post a few more pictures. Till then...

Blessings,
~ David