Tuesday was the second day that our group had an opportunity to work at two different sites. But in addition to similar work in different locations, this time we had a chance to experience two entirely different ministries.
Of course, we returned to the Lincoln Heights community, which has been our constant throughout this week. We’ll talk about one fantastic part of our day there. That’s the “Flowers” part, and we’ll get to that later.
But in addition to Lincoln Heights, we also had a chance to visit the Cherrydale Health and Rehabilitation Center in Arlington, VA. We’ll talk about that first.
Our group split in half today, with the first half headed to Cherrydale in the morning and Lincoln Heights in the afternoon, and the other half doing the opposite.
The first group at Cherrydale was also split in half: the “food” half and the “fun” half. The “food” half (which turned out to be the girls: Mary, Molly, Pricilla and leader Alex) worked with some residents of the center to bake a “tie-dyed” birthday cake for Betsy. Betsy, who was one of the more colorful residents, was a self-proclaimed “hippie” who was still living the lifestyle. While her short-term memory was a little suspect, she had many stories about the sixties that she loved to tell. And she loved to explain how those experiences shaped her faith. We all had fun talking with the ladies as we mixed the batter and put the cakes in the oven, and were only disappointed that we had to leave before they came out.
The other group at Cherrydale was in charge of the “fun”. (This turned out to be the boys in the group: Christian, Peter, Jamison, Ryan, Vincent and leader Curt.) We helped the staff run an activity they call the “Shooting Range.” Don’t worry, no live ammo was used! Instead, the residents took turns at target practice with Nerf pistols aimed at plastic balls perched atop of soda cans. We helped the residents load the guns, aim and fire. We rolled the targets around from resident to resident so they had a clear shot. Some of the residents had substantial physical impairments, but everyone still enjoyed the game. One resident, Ms. Kim, could not speak but was always smiling. Her motor skills were not all that good either, but her smile got bigger every time her turn came around because, even with the limited use she had of her hands, she managed to aim the Nerf gun not at the targets, but at Jamison.
After visiting Cherrydale, this first group headed over to Lincoln Heights for lunch, and then an afternoon of work with the DC Housing Authority staff and the neighborhood kids. This is the “flowers” part of the day. On the way there, we passed a street vendor selling small bouquets of flowers at a not-so-nice intersection in the blazing heat of the sun just past a highway overpass. Pricilla shouted out “Hey, let’s get some flowers!” So we did! This in spite of a fear that we’d back up traffic (which we also did), but miraculously, people were patient with us as we made our purchase. Turned out that this young lady selling flowers had only sold two bouquets so far by that time, so she only had ten dollars to make change of a twenty. So we wound up with two bouquets instead. What to do with them? Never fear, Pricilla and Molly had that covered. Even though Vincent and Jamison wanted the bouquets for themselves, the girls decided it would be nicer to give them to two of the women with whom we had been working at Lincoln Heights: Ms. Olivia and Ms. Washington. (We had to re-make the one bouquet with the rose rescued from between Vincent’s teeth.) When we arrived at Lincoln Heights, the girls met our friends and gave them the flowers, which were clearly an unexpected and very much appreciated surprise.
The rest of the work at Lincoln Heights was similar to other days – helping improve the quality of life for the residents there by working on property maintenance projects that the short-staffed crew at the site was not able to tackle alone. We weed-whacked several hills, cleaned up piles of mowed grass and the trash it collects, and pruned more weeds than probably exist in all of Jenkintown. But even more kids joined Rashad and Jamal in helping us today, and we had lots of fun playing with them as we worked.
The other half of our group had the reverse of this day… visiting Lincoln Heights in the morning and Cherrydale in the afternoon. Turns out, the staff at Lincoln Heights had brought in donuts for them in the morning — all of which that group ate with great appreciation. And in the afternoon, that group, along with the residents, iced the cakes that were baked in the morning. And then they ate the cakes with the residents as well, also with great appreciation of the first group who had so lovingly baked them earlier in the day.
After dinner in the evening, we had an opportunity to worship at an outdoor chapel in the woods behind the church where we were staying. After that, we came inside and a number of the students and leaders stayed behind for a long and deep discussion on exactly what it takes to believe in Jesus Christ. Amazing!
So while that second group got to have lots of good snacks today, our first group got to tell you our story of food, fun, flowers and faith.
