Kentucky, Virginia, and DC

Hello Everyone,

Slowly, but surely, Cross Fire has recovered from the robbery. After staying at Luke's house, we travelled on to Sayersville, Kentucky. It was a beautiful drive! We saw many trees with leaves that were changing colors (see pics in last post) and the Appalachian Mountains. We stayed at the Christian Appalachia Project (CAP)--which is a non-profit organization that provides many service to people in need. Our team led a devo and a song for a group of volunteers who were there (CAP has many volunteers; they were building houses). We toured the CAP office and led songs with preschoolers. It was interesting to learn about the program and the many services that they provide to people in the Appalachia area. After performing our puppet show for the preschoolers (see pic in last post), we got to play with the kids! We enjoyed hearing the southern twang accents that many of the kids had (I hadn't really heard it before).

Following our time in Kentucky, we had another beautiful drive through West Virginia on our way to Blacksburg, Virginia. Unfortunately, we hardly got to see the city because we got there at about 4:00 p.m., did our program at United Methodist Church, and left at 6:00 the next morning. It was our first program in a week and a half; so, it was interesting, but it went pretty well. We left Blacksburg early so that we could get to Newport News, Virginia by noon (on the other side of the state!). We were all pretty exhausted by the time we drove into Trinity Lutheran Church in Newport News. After enjoying our lunch, we did a program for 5th-8th graders at the church/school. It was a difficult performance because our contact didn't communicate her expectations very well, but we did well in spite of the surprises. I think that was our largest audience so far. It was nice to be in front of all youth; many of them had a lot of energy that showed during the songs. After the songs, they enjoyed asking us questions about Africa and about what we will be doing. Because we had such a long day, we had the rest of the afternoon and evening off, except for a potluck dinner.

Saturday morning, Sonja, Adrienne, and I got up early again. Even earlier!!! We got up at 4:00 to be at the church by 5:00 to be in D.C. by 9:00. We were invited to join several adults from the church and the acolytes to D.C. We all went to the Washington Cathedral in D.C. for a huge acolyte festival. The cathedral was packed. The service lasted about two hours, including an hour of prosessional for acolytes from many different places to prosess. It was long, but very neat to see. We sat in the balcony, which gave us a great view of the nave (see pic in last post). I really enjoyed hearing the organ and looking at the art in the building during the service. However, for me, the worship made God seem distant, instead of relational. Even though it was not my preferred style of worship, I really appreciated it. After the service, we ate lunch in the gardens outside of the cathedral. Next, we were led on a phenomenal tour by a pastor from another church (not a Washington Cathedral tour guide!) and it was amazing! He was great at explaing the architecture and its Gothic style; I especially enjoyed it because he compared it to some large churches in Europe that I have been to. He took us up the tower to see the city. Sonja really wanted to see the White House, so we took a brief drive around the National Mall, which was difficult because of extra traffic. It was another long day and we didn't get back until 9:30 p.m.

Sunday, we didn't have too much to do for worship. Lindsay led the children's sermon and Luke preached a sermon. Their messages were both great! We led some songs for Sunday School and sang a song for offering. We were all still tired and overwhelmed by the miscommunication of things, so we were ready to move on. Thankfully, we didn't have far to travel Sunday afternoon, so we relax before going to Hampton, Virginia. To relax, we went to the beach in Newport News on the James River (which looks like a lake or bay to me!). We enjoyed swimming and playing together before moving on to the next church. Sunday, we just did housing ministry, meaning that we just stayed with our host families.

Today, Monday, we went to Virginia Beach for our day off. It was really fun to be on the beach of the ocean! Being from South Dakota, oceans are a rare sight. I especially enjoyed calling my sister (who is almost a Californian, but is currently in South Dakota) to tell her that I was on the beach. On our way to the beach, we saw McCain's motorcade going north--we assume he was in there because of the many cops around the bus; it was brief, but still neat.

Tomorrow, we head on to North Carolina--a new state!! Hope you are all doing well. Keep in touch!!


Peace,

Tiffany