Last Day!

This week was a eye-opening adventure and a blast. Everybody got a taste of what it is like to give all and have nothing. We all take back our own memories and experiences from this trip. It felt great being able to help others and help UCOM.

Today was our "fun day" and we got to sleep in!! Then we all piled into the two vans and headed to the beach. Thats when we ran into the hurricane, and ended up going to the mall. Then once it cleared up we were on our way back to the beach where we stayed all day. The water was freezeing cold and we couldn't get Melissa to get in.  The rest of the day was a whole and wonderful way to end a wonderful week.

                                                                                                        ~ Buckeye King(John), Luke, Dakota

Youth pictures

Lineup

 Height lineup Thursday morning

Final Day of Work

Well, first of all our names are Danielle and Anna!We are blogging to you tonight because we had the role of providing our groups devotions tonight. Our devotions tonight was about trust and why is it important to trust somebody.*sigh* Earlier today we had finished our last day of volunteer work at UCOM:(  We are going to miss the friendly faces, and warm welcomes of the people at UCOM. Today we helped with the school kids. and Kevin, Vicki, and Danielle (I) finally finished scraping off the wallpaper in the upstairs bathroom! that seemingly took forever! Others helped unload a semi full of furniture for the furniture giveaway. That was hard work.We also finished cleaning up the basement and making it neater so people can actually walk around better.Some of the others also helped unload a truck full of food.We then had lunch(hot dogs,beans,chips,and watermelon.) We then started cleaning the upstairs apartment for the group that is staying there in 2 weeks.We had a ton of fun.After we finished the apartment we had dinner(chicken enchildas,noodles,chips and salsa.) After we finished at UCOM we went to a baseball game.It was the West Michigan WhiteCaps.vs.the Tin Caps.We left that during the 7th inning stretch.When we got back to the college we had 10 minutes before we did devotions and blog.Before we did devotions everyone played either foosball,ping-pong,or pool.We then did the devotions about trust.  After that we did the blog.

                                                                                                                                 Signed,
                                                                                                                                        Danielle and Anna

Pictures

Group at the rapids Wednesday evening 

 Melissa keeping the youth on task

 Heading into Grand Rapids

 Expanded Petting zoo

Some of us are a little "rough" in the morning

The Animals

Day Three--I bet you're wondering about our title, but we'll get to that later.  We drove to UCOM first thing this morning and they put us straight to work.  They split us into three groups.  Group one went back out to weed (weeding is not a fun job).  Group two went upstairs to remove bathroom wallpaper and some bagged plastic silverware.  Group three was sent back down to the basement to sort clothes.  After a five star lunch of chicken sandwiches and tators, we went to the John Ball Zoo!  We helped to chaperon the Summer School class.  The students and we enjoyed seeing the animals.  We stayed at the zoo a little longer and some of went on the high ropes course where we had to wear a harness and tackle a lot of obstacles like bridges and thin boards.  After we left the zoo, we went to Melissa's cousin's church in downtown Grand Rapids for dinner.  We toured the church and downtown area and saw many interesting things.  When we came back to our dorms, we played a game called "Fish Bowl".  One of the words was disestablishmentarianism and I would explain what it means but A: I forget B: I would probably give a false definition.  If Nathan and I had to judge this day, we would say it was pretty darn AMAZING! :)
Kevin and Nathan

Day Two!

Dear Congregation,

Today was day two of our trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan. The day started with wake up calls, cereal, and dishes. Then we were off to UCOM to  work with them again. We split up into several groups to tackle the various tasks UCOM had ready for us. One group made baby baskets for new mothers in need of diapers, bottles, blankets (actually they were hand made quilts), toys, and other baby items.  Another lucky group went outside and weed again, and mow with a good old-fashioned push mower. Others were doing odds and ends jobs such as scraping wall paper off a bathroom wall, and pouring concrete (we wrote TUCC-11 in it!) for a new step outside of the building. Some of us also worked with the children's summer school that UCOM hosts. The last big job that was tackled today was organizing, sorting, and cleaning a room full of women's and men's career clothes and toys. About halfway through we managed to uncover a table that we didn't know was there, under all the clothes and toys. We organized all the suits, jackets, and pants into all the proper places, which took practically forever. But at least we learned how to measure and size men's slacks and suit jackets. We aren't totally done with the room, but by tomorrow there should be a fully functional career clothes center that will also double as a room for watching children during free English classes that UCOM gives. We were fed an excellent dinner and lunch by some volunteers at UCOM, and after dinner we returned back to our dorms and played some kick ball, pool, and a group word game (fishbowl).
Thanks for reading our blog! Goodbye!

Group Pictures

 Group photo at Church right before we left

Group photo at Cabelas

first day of work

Well today was quite interesting but fun. We got to meet another group of youth. They were mostly from Canada and one from Iowa. We moved a shed from one end of the parking lot to the other end, so we could cover a sink hole that the city would not fix. The children also got to unload 1.5 tons of canned and boxed goods. That was quite a job. Next we had to sort the food into boxes we had to make. After that we ate lunch, it was so delicious. I am so glad that we got the break because we were working so hard. We were all sweating and feeling weak. By this time in the afternoon people brought there kids in for child watching. Oh Joy!!!!! It was very fun, we made silly animals out of clay. Next we cleaned up a messy basement. We put clothes on hangers and sized them up. Now it was time for dinner. It was a heck of a dinner. Then we left all tired and wasted from working so hard. We also pulled weeds!

Sincerely,

us kids

Day #1 - the Ride

  Hello congregation! For those who have tuned in this is Will and Vinny giving you the scoop on the exhausting events of the first day of the trip. It was a  fabulous, five-hour, air-conditioned van ride stopping only twice for lunch and gas. We took an exhilarating trip into Cabela's after eating lunch on their grounds. Thankfully the only casualty was Vinny's ankle, which was aggressively rear-ended by a shopping cart. We continued on our trek to Grand Rapids stopping in an undisclosed location between Lansing and Grand Rapids, Michigan. No injuries have been reported. Finally we arrived at our destination, not a moment too soon. We quickly discovered that our choice of an evening eatery, Popeye's Chicken, was located in the depths of the Grand Rapids ghetto. Although having had our hearts set on the precursor, we settled for Steak and Shake. It was a fantastic meal, riddled with angry grandparents, and their unruly grandchildren, not to mention quite a few milkshakes. We returned to the campus for some friendly b-ball and devotions, bringing us right here to this fantastic blog. Thank all of you again for your donations, continued support of our youth program, and all of our endeavors. 

T-shirts look great

Thanks Stephen for a great t-shirt design and to our sponsors.

Just getting started

The Sr. High Youth Group from Trinity UCC Wooster will be traveling to Grand Rapids for our Summer 2011 Mission trip.  14 Youth and 5 adults will be driving from Wooster to Grand Rapids in 2-15 passenger vans leaving Trinity Sunday morning 6/26/11 - returning Saturday afternoon 7/2/11. 

We hope to make a couple posts to this blog daily - so please follow us on our trip.