Day 9 - 12 Pallets & East to West

Today was a great sleep-in day (met at 8:20) and we gathered, all wearing our WHOLLY - DNOW shirts. It was time for the Food bank. This food bank was a central food hub that reaches out to several outreaches... food banks, senior food stations, family food stations, and homes. The bank is part of the Feed America network that is trying to end hunger around the country. We were there with another group. Thier job was goods inspection and we had the fun job...

packing the boxes of food. The assembly line started with creating boxes, then adding juices, various canned goods, rice and other dried goods and then finishing it by taping close the box, and putting it on a pallet. When we went in, our goal was 200 boxes of food. When we reached 93, we knew we needed to up our goals. New goal, 1000. We were at pallet 4, with 48 boxes/pallet... yes, maybe our goals were a touch ambitious, but we were pumpining out about a box a minute. We sadly had to take a break, and were jumpy from anticipation the entire time.

  

 

Production was interrupted with a scream when Marcie stumbled upon Jimmy...our beloved, 1inch cockroach. It was definately the biggest cockroach I had ever seen. We had reached leaving-time, and only 11 pallets done. We brought the pain on packing those boxes, and pumped out another pallet in only ten minutes. Our numbers were 12 pallets, 576 boxes, 16,000lbs of food & 13,125 meals. so awesome.

After a quick hand-wash break, we headed to the Hulen Mall. It wasn't as big as the first mall, but there was a Forever 21 so you know Hannah and I were happy. Lunch was relaxed, and some of the college kids went out to the seminary the Zach will be attending in the fall. Once back, we went to the Union Gospel Mission. We were doing full sets in a huge space, so we set up for everything. While crew worked out the kins, mimes discussed the flow of the sets.

The first set was women. I knew we were about to have some church; one woman came in praising, "thank you Lord, praise you Jesus." We had planned for women AND children, but we only had children... so the set changed last minute. They began and the women was truely, honestly worshipping. One swayed back and forth, one nodded her head while crying and one shouted praises after songs. During you were there, they started clapping long before the song was over.

None of us realized that Caroline's family had snuck until the sets were finished. We only had a few minutes to reset before until the next group came
in...the male residents. Theses guys came in all tough and rough. Tatt'ed up, joking and walking with thier chests puffed out, I really wasn't sure what we'd be dealing with. But as time went, the facades melted... they worshipped just as much - if not more than the the women. The mimes had picked songs that went so perfectly with what the situation was. One man lifted his hand in worship during Hold my Heart. Others finally silenced and watched so intently.

Afterwards, two men stayed to speak with David and another spoke with Ben.

It was another quick break. Ten minutes between until the final set, the general public. These were people straight off the street. We didn't know who was going to show, bdeleivers, non- beleievers, those with mental issues, addicts, drunks, what? We knew another person that showed up Lynna, who used to be part of our youth group.

These people were focused. Though not as vocal. You could tell some didn't want to hear it, they turned away (but kept turning back) others watched unblinking, and after every song, he stood to applaud. We didn't reach everyone; one man was actually reading a newspaper, but it didn't matter, as long as we reached one. Really with the lack of time we had, there is no way to tell. A lot of the mime's thought it was harder..they had to really dig. But they felt it was a better one than others.

We packed up quickly as the misson staff were on a tight schedule and needed to get the people out. We packed up (while joking about how the mimes are taking the roadies jobs) then after a quick fill up, we headed for dinner at Jason's Deli. Early night, lots of time for chill