Thursday leaving Nashville

Wednesday was a simple day. It wasn't short, and there weren't multiple site visits. We had devotions at 8am and we talked about Ash Wednesday. Then we headed out to Feed the Children. We opened boxes so that when the next group comes this weekend, the assembly line will go faster. We started at 9am and didn't stop until noon. The other volunteers turned on some music so there was plenty of dancing and that made time go by faster (there are pictures).

We stopped by the housing site before heading downtown for our "Urban Exposure". We split up into two groups. Sami had Coleen, Stephanie, John and Amelia. I had Josh, Bernard and Jen. We had a list of things to do and people to find. We were supposed to talk to someone who was selling the Contributor, a tourist, and someone who is native to Nashville. We had questions to ask them about homelessness in Nashville. We also had to find a musician on Broadway or 2nd Avenue. We also had to find a symbol that we thought represented Nashville. We also had to go to the Library, once there we had to use the public computers and get online. We had to find three facts about homelessness in Nashville. We also had to go to the highest floor of the downtown parking garage, find a police officer, go to the park across from the Library and find someone that we could share our lunch with (each group packed an extra lunch). Our group met a lot of interesting people who were very willing to share something. Our group completed every task. They were awesome, Team Awesome. We were even back five minutes early.

We came back to the housing site and watched a dvd on Race and Culture. It was very interesting and thought provoking. We finished our discussion and had ten minutes before we needed to leave for the Ash Wednesday Service. We went back to Community Care for the service. It was one of the best Ash Wednesday services I have ever been to! The culmination of the words spoken, the people in attendance and our group made it wonderful. The Bible verses were all the ones we used in Devotions, that was amazing.

From there we went to a Greek restaurant and had another delicious dinner. Shruti had falafel and she shared some with each of us. We had chicken, lamb, rice and something that looked like parsley (a lot of it). There was some dressing and pitas, so I ate mine by piling it all into the center of the pita and I topped it with the dressing. Then Shruti surprised Sami and me with Baklava. More deliciousness.

We came back to the housing site, we set of the alarm, and while I write this the group is playing Apples to Apples. It's crazy. (This is when you can tell it's late at night, it's 11:22pm as I write this.) I encouraged everyone to comment and add their stories.

And now it's to share what is going on it the Apples to Apples game. No one can remember how to say Shruti's name, no one can pay attention long enough to remember the green card, and no one is remembering to hand over their red card. I'm amused.

Thursday we will be leaving at 7am (local time) to drive home.