saraland umc

so, we had our first group this week. and seriously, i don't think we could have asked for a better group. it was awesome! the group was great, they were such hard workers, and the staff had such a great time getting to know everyone. it was a perfect group to ask for for our first week.

saraland was made up of a group of nine, 7 youth and 2 adults. their youth pastor had only been with them for four days before the trip, but you couldn't even tell because they had already grown so close. and our other adult, charlie, was so much help on the work site and definitely taught us some cool things.

our project for this week was to build a front and back porch for a woman named ms. spates. her back steps had fallen, so she had no access to the back of her house, and her front steps were just rotting away. so, we set this team to complete both by the end of the week.

honestly, we were a little worried about the time frame and having just one group working on both porches, but they totally blew us away and finished on thursday. they worked so hard to get both of them done, and they look awesome! i am so proud to have finished our first project with such a motivated group!

here are the porches!:

i'm so proud of our team for them!
we were definitely still working out a few loose ends as construction coordinators, but this group definitely helped us get ready for the bigger groups to come.

aside from the work aspect, there were a lot of kids we interacted with at our site. they weren't like the kids we are all used to playing with, and it definitely taught me a lot about patience and how these kids just need someone to show them love and guide them in life. sometimes, the kids weren't so nice, and would say things that some of us were astounded to hear a little kid say. but we all had to realize in the end it wasn't really their fault. they were raised in a much different situation than a lot of us are, and we can't blame them for that. we can only hope and help them to better their futures.
but, aside from that, the kids at our site were so happy with the little that they did have. and given their circumstances, could have acted a lot worse.
i don't want it to sound like the kids were terrible at all. because our team did have a fun time playing and interacting with them. it just definitely showed all of us another side of things.

anyways,
since we finished early we were able to start demolition on ms. allie brown's house in order to prepare for teams to get started on all of her projects. i am so excited to be able to get things started with her, because she is just the sweetest woman and has the sweetest family, and she has been waiting seven years for someone to help her fix her house. i am honored to be able to work with her and give her the things she definitely deserves.

after we did that, we were able to go to day camp swim day, which was a lot of fun (even though we all got some sick sunburns. haha)

but, it was definitely a good last day for the group!

all week the programming went awesome as well! i think the group got a lot from our discussions about poverty and our experiences this week, and i have all the confidence in the world that this group will continue their service once they get back home.

i was joking around with the group telling them that they've been the best so far. but, honestly, i think the other groups already have a big competition :)