Chester - Week One

Well I have been waiting to put some blogs up about my two week trip to Chester with the youth group hoping that I could get some pictures from some of the kids that went but I still haven't gotten any and it has been almost two weeks that I have been back now so I thought I should drop a few thoughts. There was a whole lot of stuff that happened over the two weeks so I thought I would break it down into first week and second week. Here goes...
The trip got off to an interesting start on Sunday, June 25th. For the first week we were staying at Frederick Douglas, the Christian school in Chester run by World Impact. Unfortunately someone apparently forgot that we were going to show up Sunday afternoon. So the 30-plus teens and their parents sat outside for a couple hours until we were able to get a hold of someone to open up the school for us. The conditions at Frederick Douglas weren't exactly the Ritz Carlton, or the Red Roof Inn for that matter, but it was better than a kick in the teeth. There was a room with bunks for the guys and a room for the girls. There were a few bug issues but on the bright side the late night cockroach crusades gave the guys something to do. It also reminded me of my freshman year in high school when I went to South Dakota with my youth group and we stayed in a school with a few cockroach issues.
We were joined in Chester by several kids from a youth group down in Florida that Tenth has some connections with. Thankfully the two groups blended very well, got along well, and worked together very well. The Florida team was a positive edition to the group.
World Impact was our very gracious host for the two weeks that we were there - lining up projects for us and helping us to understand the city better. World Impact's larger vision is to plant churches in Chester and to equip the residents of the community to be able to run them. They have already planted one church in Chester (Refuge In Christ) and are working on planting a second in the Highland Gardens neighborhood. Thankfully World Impact saw us as being able to be a part of their larger vision. Renee and Andrew were our patient teachers and gracious hosts who kept us informed and kept us busy.
Monday it rained for quite awhile so we couldn't run the kids program and the park. This was pretty disappointing but the youth group adapted pretty well and we were able to do some work at the school and in the area. Fortunately the rough start on Sunday and Monday were not indications of how the whole week would go.
Tuesday it rained again in the morning but a bit later in the afternoon we were able to run a portion of the kids program. We also started our cleanup project on the cut through, one of the dirtiest alleys I have ever seen. It is a pretty busy shortcut that a lot of people use to get to the local "convenience store". Apparently its also one of the big drug spots in the Garden - more on this later. We picked up trash for a few hours and weren't done so we would return on Wednesday to finish the job. Also on Tuesday a group of us went to the library with the homework club that W. I. runs.
Wednesday the weather cooperated a little more so we ran a full program with the kids and that went quite well. Then we went back to the cut through and finished cleaning up. It was interesting though. We started getting towards one end of the alley where there was a basketball hoop that had been tipped over. Next thing I know this kid comes flying up on his bike and starts digging around under the tipped over hoop. Of course my first naive thought was that this kid was gonna help us clean up. Well he was in a way I guess. He dug around till he found the several small baggies that he was looking for, scooped them up, and took off again. Apparently he was a little worried that we were going to clean up the drugs that he was keeping hidden under the basketball hoop. The nice thing about this project was that it was one suggested by one of the kids from the neighborhood and already the next day we were getting comments back from people who lived in the area and really appreciated the work and were connecting it to World Impact.
Wednesday night we watched "Invisible Children" As I have already mentioned this is an excellent and inspiring movie. One that I hope will change my life. I mentioned to one of the youth group members that night that the thing that really disturbed me about the movie is how easily we would all forget what we had seen within a week. So I am doing my best to make it a personal crusade not to forget what I saw and to allow it to affect my life (along these lines I am working on starting a new corporation/website . I will tell you more about this when I start to develop the idea a little more).
Thursday we ran the kids program and did some more yard work. Then in the evening the W. I. team invited us to play floor hockey with them. Apparently it is a weekly tradition of theirs to play every Thursday night. It was nice of them to invite us and we had a really good time. As an added bonus I only broke one hockey stick - oops. We also had a good time Thursday night of singing and discussing the movie from Wednesday.
Friday we started to wrap things up for the week with our final kids program. Then we went to the Family Bible Study the W. I. hosts. That was a nice time of getting to know a few people from the neighborhood. Saturday morning we wrapped things up early and made our way over to Cross World where we were able to spend some time relaxing in the pool and where the group for the second week would start their time.
Highlights from the week...
...hearing about the cockroaches in the morning.
...discovering how adaptable the kids from youth group were. There willingness to do anything was great.
...building relationships with some kids I sort of knew, but not all that well
...having my eyes opened to the terrors in Uganda
... knowing that we could be a small piece of a larger puzzle that has the potential to be a beautiful work when it is finished.