Solomon-Last night was pretty
fun. We started it off with a movie which I only watched about the
first half of before playing some Apples to Apples. The rest of the
night was karaoke and dancing. We also had a pretty intense limbo
competition. Then came the tearful goodbyes in the morning followed
by the very, very long car ride I am currently in.
James Spangler-I actually stayed
up all night for the all-nighter this year!! I thought I wasn’t
going to make it because I was so comfortable with my pillow and
laying there in my sleeping bag I fell asleep for about 20 minutes in
the begging of Pitch Perfect. Once the markers came out and people
started getting drawn on I decided it would be a good time to get up
and join the party, to save myself and cause some trouble. Ben not
only got his face drawn on but he also got a wonderful tramp stamp,
it was pretty legit. We started an intense karaoke session that
lasted at least an hour and a half, at least, which was followed by
limbo and a dance party that lasted the rest of the night, best
all-nighter ever.
Cecilia Bronsberg- Last night
after we had communion and washed each other’s feet the all-nighter
started. We started it off with 2 hours in the gym then went back to
the fellowship hall to watch Pitch Perfect. After that I was getting
pretty tired so a few of us decided to draw on the faces of the
people who had fallen asleep already. Then we sang karaoke for a
while and danced then before we knew it, it was time for us to leave.
That was hard, especially having to say goodbye to the people who
wouldn’t be back, it was very emotional. Then we started the trip
back home stopping at Cracker Barrel for lunch and DQ later on. I’m
really going to miss everyone.
JT- So today has been a very
long day of sitting in a van and sleeping! I think I would rather be
working a 10 hour shift of construction rather than do this. But
beggars can’t be choosers, so I will just deal with this 14 hour
drive we had back home! But other than that we all said good bye to
each other before we had to leave this morning! And there was a
decent amount of people that cried this year. It is almost like
un-natural to not cry lolz. But then I probably have slept like 4-6
hours’ worth of this car ride and then after that just the
wonderful snack we have had this ride was great! We are about an hour
out now and just about to fall asleep again! Lolz well good bye and
thank you congregation for allowing me to go this year once again!
Trish - I’m actually writing
this on the last leg of our trip home. Nikki said we could do one
more journal entry for ASE 2013. There was a story I forgot to
mention from yesterday so I’m glad I will get a chance to share it
now.
Let’s start the day off with the
ending of the 2013 ASE all-nighter. Nikki was able to pull that off
and stay up with those kiddos all night, although I think half the
time she was actually working. I however was able to squeeze in some
shut eye between loud roars of noise during different portions of the
night. I fell asleep to a movie, woke with very loud karaoke style
music to tunes from the 80s, and finally woke the last time during a
limbo contest. The last time I woke was at 6am by a youth letting me
know I had to get up because they had to get the room cleaned up and
it was time to finalize our packing and head out. And only about 20
minutes later I find Cecilla standing against a wall, SLEEPING. (I
got the pic to prove it).
It was a sad morning as tears were
flowing for the goodbyes to everyone we just spent ten days with and
those we worked so hard with at our sites. God truly works in
amazing and beautiful ways. This is an experience I will never
forget. I also will be pondering how I can use what I have learned
at home. This experience will always be with me and my prayer is
that I will be able to participate again. Either just as an adult
chaperone and/or with my remaining three children.
I got enough sleep to drive from
Asheville, NC to Independence, OH; only we had a major detour we had
to take in NC which added some time to our trip, I believe two hours.
That was interesting driving. It was extremely quiet in the van
full of teenagers because they were all sleeping. We had an
interesting pit stop though.
So to share what I forgot yesterday, I
had to run to the local hardware store to pick up a little more grass
seed as the front yard did get tore up a bit by a backhoe trying to
find the old tank that needed to be crushed in. (We never found a
tank but we did need to get it re-seeded.) Anyway I noticed a truck
parked outside the store which had a business title of “Jewish
Carpenter LLC”. The gentleman was in the store finishing his RTC
Root Beer and he struck up a conversation with me. I was able to
tell him all about ASE and what we do and what our group was
currently doing. He thought that was wonderful and he was happy to
hear that kids from all over where willing to come and help those
that needed it. We then made name introductions and his name was
Seth; what a wonderful Christian name he had. I told him that I
loved the name of his business and obviously he works in
construction. I just started talking about his business name and he
proceeded to tell me that he was actually raised Jewish but converted
to Christianity as an adult. I thought that was so wonderful. I had
always heard the stories of Jewish people converting to Christianity
but never had the opportunity to get to know one or meet one. It was
such a wonderful conversation with this person. It shows how God is
all around and works in mysterious ways. I thank God for letting
this individual cross my path to talk to. It gave me such joy to
know that he converted from the Jewish faith to the Christian faith.
God certainly showed him the truth, as he does many others (I just
got to meet this one).
I feel extremely blessed to have shared
and been a part of this experience with my son and the youth from our
congregation along with Nikki. She puts a lot of hard work into this
with the other organizers to make this happen every year. It was a
great to meet and get to know some new pastors and all the adults and
youth that came to this event. I made many new friends, many of are
the youth and it is so nice to have Facebook to keep up with
everyone. I am so grateful that I was given the gift of experiencing
this wonderful servant event and look forward to hopefully being able
to participate again.
Nikki - I am whipped, emotionally & physically.
It is always sad coming home from ASE. Don't misunderstand, I love my family & home and am grateful to see them when I return. However, there is nothing quite like twelve days of being steeped in service, God's Word, and christian fellowship 24/7 as you work, study, pray and live together. It is kind of a downer to come back to 'the real world'. Even though I work in the church and am surrounded by brothers and sisters in Christ, there is an intentionality and a shared purpose about ASE that can not be sustained in daily living. Everyone should be blessed to experience something like this.
Physically aside from doing outdoor work and activities like digging and rowing that I do not usually get to do behind my desk, I volunteered to stay up as a supervising adult for the all-nighter. It gave me the chance to spend some more time with the youth and also to catch up on my ASE paperwork, which I had sorely neglected. I did fine until about 4:30, when I found myself nodding off with my fingers on the keyboard. Time to join in the dance party for awhile on the line dances I knew! We had a lengthy detour this morning - a MOUNTAIN detour - that prevented me from sleeping in the car until about 10am. I did get several hours of sleep while Trish drove.
Thank you all for continuing to support Youth in Missions and the Appalachian Servant Event. Until next year - PEACE.
