Nashville Mission Trip: Day 4

Today I was back with Ann Mosby’s team.  I got to go with the girls back to the Boys and Girls Club and hang out with many of the kids I met on the first day.  We had a lot of fun.  These kids are so nice and friendly.  We played all kinds of games such as basketball, carpetball, ping-pong, etc.  The girls were all great in how they would play hard with the kids and have a lot of fun.  We got a giant game of Knockout going in the gym.  Katie, one of our girls, beat everyone in one of the rounds.  She was very proud not only that she won the whole thing but that she was responsible for specifically taking me out of the game too. 

For the afternoon we ended up doing an “Urban Challenge”. This is one of the specific things that are uniquely CSM.  They send us out into the city in small teams to perform a bunch of tasks to understand the city and the homeless more.  It is an awesome activity.  I had Katie and Kelsey for my team.  We ventured off to find the people we needed to find in order to complete our tasks.  The first one was to find someone to share a lunch with and spend time talking with them.  The two most talkative girls were a little apprehensive about initiating a conversation with a stranger so I lead the way and we found a guy on a bench.  We spent about 30 minutes with him talking about Nashville, homelessness, church, Jesus, football, jobs, etc.  It was a great conversation.  After that we talked with several others including homeless, the police, tourists, Nashville residents, and librarians.  We discovered who founded Nashville, what the 3 stars mean in their state flag (and Titans football helmet), what Fort Nashbourgh was all about, and much, much more.  It was a great activity to experience the town with a “scavenger hunt” type task that helped us to understand the area better.  As the girls and I were finishing up our tasks they expressed the need for Starbucks.  They caught me at a weak point and I thought a delicious cold drink sounded really well after walking several miles all over Nashville.  So I swore them to secrecy and made them promise me to not tell the rest of our group, especially Ann!  As irony would have it, we found out the next day that Ann did the exact same thing with her girls and we all had one big laugh.  When we met back up with our CSM leaders they took our group to debrief down at the fountains in one of the parks.  Most of us brought our swimsuits so we got soaked.  Aerin and Ann wanted to just get their feet wet but the other girls felt that that was not enough.  And I can honestly say I did not instigate this at all!  Really!  I was having too much fun jumping around in the water fountains but I did look up long enough to see Aerin and Ann get thrown in.  I was proud of my girls.    

That night we had Mexican food catered in at the mission site.  It was simply amazing.  One of the best tasting Mexican dinners I have ever had.  And ohhhh the salsa.  I could just drink is as a beverage it was so good.  After dinner we had a worship experience that all the teens really got into.  It started with some music as we sang together.  And then they were released to go between 4 different worship stations that involved journaling, painting, posting prays on a board, and prayer and Scripture reading.  It was a great experience.  The teens really soaked it all up.  The artwork was amazing and everything they did was so heartfelt.  We did a quick Walmart run and then went to bed.  It has been interesting that the girls going to bed has been easy.  It is making the boys be quiet and go to sleep.  They have endless energy.