Day 2 - First Day on Route

Today was our first full day that we spent in Atlanta. Waking up around 7:30 all the boys went together down stairs and brushed our teeth and got ready for the day. It’s difficult using one toilet and one sink for 7 high school boys. After we were dressed, Mr. and Mrs. Hendrikse got back from the grocery store with our breakfast which consisted of cereal, fruit and other healthy snacks. When I had finished eating my lucky charms and Honey Nut Cheerios, men leaders came into the basement of the church we were staying at and we all stood in a circle and recited scripture and prayers. These are not just any scriptures or prayer reciting. The men loudly proclaimed these prayers and verses and we were able to join them. Following the affirmations we moved on to making lunches. Usually the group makes around 250-300 lunches but, for some reason today we made 500 lunches. I started off opening packages of chicken and dumping them into a bowl with a group of boys, after we dumped 4 big bowls worth of chicken into the bowls we all put them into bags with biscuits. Once all the chicken was bagged we had 10 tables that we lined up with 30 groups of food, totaling 300 meals at once. Each meal had 1 water, 5 guacamole containers, 1 chicken/biscuit bag, 3 bags of Craisins, and 1/2 of a big muffin.  Once all the meals were put into plastic bags and loaded into the vans we gathered outside with all of the leaders. We prayed, went over rules, and rolled out. Each stop we got out of our vans and stood in a circle holding hands, three people would stand in the middle back to back facing the others and pray about what we were doing. After we prayed we would go to the vans and grab bags of meals, sometimes blankets and clothing and a hygiene  kit. We would go to tents, under bridges, and beds praying to people and giving them lunches. Even if nobody was in the tent we would leave a lunch and pray over the tent. One man I met I asked what he wanted me to pray for and he stood there and didn’t say much, he was maybe a college student age or older and he just asked me to pray for recovery, there are many types of recovery he could have been asking for but even though I didn’t know what it was for sure I believe he knew that God knew what he was talking about. After handing out lunches from 12 to 3:30 we headed back. We cleaned up by showering and then the boys headed outside in the 40 ish degree weather and played 3 v 3 basketball until it got dark. Heading back inside we all ate together and shared stories of the day, afterwards me and all the guys and a group of girls went downstairs and played spoons and talked for a while until going upstairs to do devotions and talk about the day. It’s crazy how many people are going through things that we don’t realize. And I have learned that it is so easy to go to someone and ask if they want prayer. But yet at home I would never think about praying for someone on the side of a street. We just think someone else will step in and care for the person we see struggling on the side of the road. But why shouldn’t it be us who goes and prays for them. Such a little thing as prayer can impact yourself and the other person so much.

~ Jackson Kiel

 Today, the first person I talked to told me his name was Blue. I gave him a lunch, and then he asked for another for his friend. When I asked if he wanted prayer he said absolutely. I prayed for Blue, and I asked for God to provide protection, good health, and the strength to continue. Blue seemed very appreciative of my prayer, and told me that God loved me. I was so surprised of how appreciative and grateful he was, and it sort of gave me a new perspective on the homeless community. These people are human, just like us, just not as blessed. Another person that we ran into that changed my perspective was at the trailer park. He was about 30, and homeless and clearly didn’t live there. One of our leaders asked him if there were more homeless people where he was from, and the guy said about six others. Our leader then gave him a couple of lunches, and then a garbage bag with ten more lunches, and our leader (Charles), told him to give those out to the other homeless. I didn’t believe that the homeless man (I don’t know his name) would share with the others. But I saw in the lot across the street that he put the lunches in a shopping cart, and then allowed others to come and get some. This gave me a new view on the homeless community, and how they stand up for each other, and take care of each other. There was this one guy at a tent city that you could tell was sort of like the friendly neighbor, as he went around and invited other people out of their tents so we could pray with them and give them lunches. This just sort of showed me how these people love each other, and look out for others, while being super grateful at the same time. There were a lot of other people that were all super thankful for the lunches and loved it when I prayed with them. Again, it made me so happy when I saw how thankful they were, and how they loved being prayed for more than anything.

~ Conor DeRoos

One part of our route that impacted me today was our stop at the trailer park. It was amazing to see all the different families and communities that had formed there throughout the years. While we were there, a little girl named Carmen came up to us and started walking with us as we went throughout the trailer park, handing out lunches. She was super sweet and seemed to have this unspeakable joy. As I hung out with her and started learning different things about her like her favorite color, her age, her favorite animal, simple things that showed bits and pieces of her personality. It was a good reminder about how much we have in common with these kids. No matter the social or economic background we are all children of God.We continued to walk around handing lunches to kids and families. It was hard to communicate at times due to them speaking mostly Spanish, but we were able to communicate what was important. Still it was really cool to see how as we gave them the lunches they were seemed so grateful for something we often take for granted. The children were all running around playing, and all seemed like one big family. It was really cool to see how Carmen and other kids were so excited to see us and eager to form relationships with us. Even though they had never truly met us before.

~ Faith Tislau

After morning prayer, scripture reciting and morning affirmations - we received directions on how to prepare the lunches.

We had about 20 minutes between lunch prep and heading outside for our route - just enough time to play some cards

Heading out

Our first stop

Door-to-door prayer and handing out lunches

Addison and Maddie praying us in

Kim and Faith praying for someone after dropping off a lunch

A couple blocks from where we were handing out lunches

John (man on right) seemed to be one of the people living in the tent city that looked out for others.  He brought us around to others in the area to make sure they all got lunches. John was one of the men we met who wanted prayer but no lunch.

Willem, Jackson and Elliot praying for John

Elliot and BJ talking to one of the people we met

Noah offering prayer

Madelyne and Lupita

Faith and Carmen

Supper time!

After our meal and some hang-out time, we put our pajama pants on and gathered together in the pews to spend some time talking about our day and reflecting on some scriptures. We focused on Isaiah 58. We read the whole chapter for context and focused on verses 6-8. We talked about the importance of doing the work we are doing on this trip and we had some great share out / reflection time.  

Of course it was impossible to catch all the moments of the day in pictures, but hopefully you have a better understanding of what our day looked like.