DC - Day One

I finally have some access to be able to upload some pictures and give y'all an update. It has been an interesting trip, to say the least. But we are here and have hit the ground running.


Getting Here
In case you haven't heard, we had a bit of difficulty with our vehicles. When Jane and JT and several volunteers showed up at Budget to pick up our eight 12-passenger vans (five for DC and three for Milwaukee), they had exactly NONE of them. Awesome. After much finagling, they supplied us with eight SUV's for the DC trip which the volunteers brought back with them, and Budget also dropped off three 12-passenger vans for the Milwaukee team to use. They also agreed to pay for all of our gas, tolls, and parking for the trip for our troubles. I would prefer to have the 12s, but what can you do.

The trip itself wasn't exactly smooth either. Terry Ann's vehicle lost power twice. The car was still running, but nothing would happen when she pressed on the gas. So twice she had to pull over on the highway, and wait, and then try again. We called Budget from the road and told them we wanted them to bring us a new vehicle to I-64. They said they could, but we could wait anywhere from 90 minutes to 2 hours. So we chose to go to the Louisville Airport instead. We explained our situation to them, and they hooked us up with a new SUV...which wasn't going to fit our people and luggage. In the meantime, they took our other vehicle with all of our stuff in it. They weren't going to upgrade us to a larger vehicle because they said all of their large SUVs were not one-way rentals. I told them they needed to do something. They mentioned a minivan, which everyone agreed would fit our people and stuff, so off we went...after and hour and a half setback.


Huntington, WV
We spent the night in the gymnasium of the Twenty-Sixth St. Baptist Church in Huntington, WV. This is the town probably best known for two things: Marshall University and the Naked Chef, Jamie Oliver. The church was so hospitable to us, as they were so excited to start using their gym for something like this. Some of the ladies in the church made all of our people small goodie bags to take with us, including a bottle of water, tissues, candy, gum, and crackers. It was really sweet! We got on the road again at 7:20am the next morning after a not so great night's sleep.


DC
After a beautiful drive through the mountains of West Virginia and Maryland, we made it to our site a little before 4:00pm. The people of the church we are staying at were still meeting from their morning services - a little different than La Croix. The girls are staying on the third floor of this old church building, right down the hall from the "kitchen" and the showers (two showers for the girls - one for the guys); the guys are staying on the first floor (so we are getting our exercise going up and down the stairs). After a few minutes of hang time, it was off to dinner.


We ate dinner at Addis Ababa, an Ethiopian restaurant. This is one of my favorite parts of CSM trips - the students get to experience many different cultures in one week just by eating dinner at various ethnic restaurants. Dinner consisted of a platter of various things that we scooped up with this spongy bread and ate - no utensils or plates. Many of our crew walked away hungry because they were a little unsure, but I left stuffed. It was delicious! From there, we left for our prayer tour, which started at the National Cathedral (which, unfortunately, we couldn't go inside). This is also usually a highlight of CSM trips because you really get to learn about the city and the cultures and problems within it. However, the prayer tour was less-than effective this time around because they tried to keep us together in one big group, which was basically impossible. Eight vehicles in DC - yeah, not so much. Not to mention the fact that we were exhausted and sick of being in cars for the past two days solid. We followed Kristy's vehicle, and she had a host who was trying to give us the tour over the speakerphone, but we couldn't hear her well at all. So, although the prayer tour wasn't great for the prayer and learning aspect, one thing was true: we laughed an awful lot. Kenny is a very funny man, and we were slaphappy. When we finally hit the beds, we crashed hard.

This morning, our crews are at the sites doing various project. One team even left at 5:30am to serve breakfast at a shelter. More power to them! And now, I'm going to head off to join Kristy and Ken's group to pack some food and do some cleaning for an after school program. Before I go, please pray for a couple of things:

• Energy: Like I said, we are extremely tired, and it's only day one. This is making some of us a little raw.
• Jason and Jenn: They are going through a difficult time right now. Pray for comfort for them.

Thanks! More updates to come soon...like, tomorrow...