The day for the guys started with a symphony of alarms going off at 6:30 am, the girls no idea. We ate a nice hardy breakfast right after we made our lunches for the day. After breakfast we piled into our vans and headed out to The Garden run by a group called 7 Bridges. 7 Bridges is a ministry in Atlanta that ministers to the homeless. Every morning they wake up and make about 525 lunches, with the help of youth groups and other volunteers, and then go out to deliver them to various homeless people ranging from children to elderly. We arrived at The Garden and we met in the church there and was greeted by a lady named Melissa. Melissa taught us to respond to the question, "How are you doing?" with "Blessed and highly favored!" She told us about the pastor who started 7 Bridges and his background - how he was caught by the FBI and how he found Jesus in solitary confinement. He now refers to himself as Pastor 7, he doesn't want a name to go by. So after we went through orintation we went down in the basement to construct 525 lunches to give out. We made the lunches, packed up and got in a giant circle. For a little fun we did this wave with everybody to try and get a fast time. We ended up with a time of 3.5 seconds. After we where done we prayed and headed off to our first stop to hand out lunches.
- Andrew Roerdink
At the first stop we were able to meet a few people and hand out lunches to them. We met a man named Alanzo who was very open with us and was so thankful for what we gave him. I was going into this mission trip not really knowing what to expect but I figured that we would be ministering to all these people but as the day went on I was able to learn more about God from these different people were speaking to us. After this first stop we headed to an apartment complex. As we pulled up the van that had been leading us for the day honked a few times and within minutes kids came flowing out into the courtyard. They were so excited to see us and immediately a little boy named Corey ran up to me and asked if he could go on my shoulders. I put him up there and a huge smile appeared on his face which was very contagious. Once he was on he didn't want to come down and didn't until we gave him his lunch. My heart melted when he was telling me about his family and how him and his little brother set aside food because they knew their mother would like it. We had a time of singing different songs with all the kids and I had a great time watching all these little kids do the actions to the songs singing every single word along with it. Here we handed out 170 lunches to these little kids and any of the parents that wanted one. As we left Corey came up to me and gave me a huge hug and it took him a while to let go (partly cause he didn't want us to leave, and partly showing me how strong he was.) Then we moved and went under a bridge where around ten different homeless people lived and we prayed with the couple that were there and gave them lunches and for those who weren't there we prayed over their beds and left them lunches. One of the coolest things I noticed was when we would be driving along the road and when we would see someone who looked in need we would stop in the middle of the road and hand them a lunch. Today was great and I'm excited to see what God has in store for us the rest of the week.
-Noah Hendrikse
Our awesome day had to come to an end, but not in a bad way. We had chapel and so we sang, had fun and had a little devotion. One of the Team Effort leaders, named TJ, lead. It was about how brokenness is not a bad thing its a blessing from God. Brokenness is a way that God interferes and points us in the right direction. So then after chapel was done our youth group on its own had our devotions. We were talking about our day and how it impacted us. One thing that impacted me was that 7 Bridges does what it does every day - going out to people who don't have a home and giving them a free lunch and an a prayer, and they build a relationship with a lot of people they meet and they don't just refer to them as those people or that homeless person, but actually know them by name and give them a chance to tell their stories.
-Jacob Heinen
He must become greater, and I must become less. John 3:30
We can only do his work when we get out of the way and let Him take over.
Making our sandwiches for the day
The church in which we stay
Go Jesus Go Jesus Go, Mo Jesus Mo Jesus Mo (captions on the vans)
Waiting for other groups at The Garden for orientation
Melissa (training us for the field)
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| Devin :) |
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| Andrew and Noah helping out with orientation |
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| Preparing to make lunches |
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| Making lunches with the other churches |
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| Now that's a lot of bologna!!!! Allison and Jenny making some of the 525 sandwiches |
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| Praying over the lunches and our day |
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| Hanging out with the kids! |
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| Going under the bridges to give lunches and prayer to those living there |
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| Debriefing and sharing our experiences |
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| Michael, Andrew, Jenny and Devin closing our group in prayer |
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