DC Trip part 2

Day 2 - started with worship. The music was grand. The preaching was great. A good time was had by all. NBMC is an ethnically mixed congregation with a predominately African-American style of worship. Hence the great music.

Following worship we were oriented. Apparently orientation here is when they tell you about all of the trouble kids, what they do that will push your buttons, and why you need to be a big meanie. Oh, and make sure they don't push each other on the train tracks when taking the subway.

With such lovely thoughts dancing on our minds we went to see some of the Smithsonians. Natural History! Air and Space! THe National Gallery of Art (not actually a Smithsonian, but close enough)! Hooray for free stuff.

The evening ended with Pastor Darin singing some throwback David Lee Roth song about Paradise with the cashier at a 5 Guys and a Burger place.

Day 3 - The adventure really begins.
Today we met the kids. I think they were very smart because they arrived in small spurts; one, two, or three at a time. We had the wonderful opportunity to connect with them via card games, but nothing for money.

Breakfast, circle time, and then…chaos! Normally the kids go to the park in the morning but it was hot. Very, very hot. So we thought it might be better to bring them all into a big room and let them yell and scream and run and use our parachute. So far no fatalities so things were good.

After taking some kids to a different room to play soccer things settled down a bit and we were good until lunch.

Lunch - boxed government food. Need I say more?

Then frustration and an attempt in futility. Some of us were supposed to sing with the kids. Some were doing crafts. I was supposed to lead storytelling. But what happened was a lot of, "are you listening? Sit down. Stop calling her 'ugly.' Sit down. Are you listening?" and so on and so forth. Needless to say it was a little discouraging. But overall all, aside from the throwing of balls at us, the posturing and fighting between 5 year olds, and the random pouring of juice on the floor it was a pretty good day.

We got a wake up call telling us that this is not going to be anything like we thought. We were prepared for difficult, but need to amp up our game.

In the end, we still talked about Jesus. Told the kids that God loves them, and tried to get across the idea that there are other ways to live your life. Today we are going to try even harder to talk about Jesus, God's love, and the way of peace that we are called to walk. Everything else is secondary.