The Leffel Report

Ah... sitting at a baseball game where the underdogs are wining!! Seattle Mariners-1, Chicago White Sox-5.

But lets start at the beginning. The bus ride up was fine with no major glitches. Once we got to Montecello, the people there welcomed us into their church and homes with love, enthusiasm, and joy. We had dinner with them, which they graciously prepared. Once we had done a run through of the show, they broke us up into groups to go to our host homes. I can speak for the whole group when I say that these people we overly kind to have all 70 of us in their personal homes.

The next morning we got up to go to church and worshiped with and led the congregation of Calvary Baptist Church. Once the service was over the FBC youth group and the Calvary Baptist youth, who served us dinner the night before, went to the Lincoln Memorial Museum. It presented Lincoln’s life in a systematic, clean, neat, and fun way. They incorporated all of the senses into the museum with visuals, smells, objects to touch, and sound effects along they way. When we were through at the museum we went back to Calvary and did a concert for the church congregation. Then we had a POOL PARTY!!! It was so much fun :) They had a high dive, low dive and slide, and it was hilarious to see people jump of the diving boards and hurt themselves :) like Garrett doing a belly flop, to Mitch attempting to dive.

On Monday we were served breakfast again by the youth. Then it was time. We loaded the bus to go to CHICAGO!!! We finally arrived and went straight to the Nave Pier. We rode ferris wheels, swings and some of us girls got henna tattoos... my mother was less than happy! After the Navy Pier we went to our first mission trip site, called Catholic Charities. The choir sang, and the people who were not in the choir served the homeless who had gathered in the dining hall to receive a free hot meal. Finally, we got back on the bus and drove to our new home, the Chicago Youth Hostel.