Day 2 - First Day on Route!

When I first signed up for the Atlanta mission trip, I only knew a little bit about the mission and how everything would go.  I really did not know what to expect entirely and when we first went out on route, I was extremely nervous. However, as the day went on, I could tell the Lord was at work and He had calmed my nerves. It was actually amazing and by the time I prayed over the second person, I just felt at peace and it all felt right. 

Our first day started off by waking up early to get ready for route, and then packing lunches to hand out to the homeless. We packed about 200 lunches, and the goal is always to give them all away. Our first stop was the apartments in the bluffs. We were in the city and first and I thought to myself “wow, this is actually a pretty nice area!” until we turned the corner and wow… I had never seen apartments so rundown and broken. There were beer bottles everywhere in the patches of yard. The first friend I made was Bernard. He was such a sweet man and so thankful for the lunches and prayers. We then proceeded to knock on several apartment doors, and finally this little girl named Heaven answered. Madde, Greta and I were all kind of shocked to see such a cute little girl answer the door to strangers all alone. We prayed with her and gave her a lunch and then her sister (Keri) came to the door, also asking for prayer and a lunch. It was the cutest thing, and both girls were so sweet and probably about 5. Our next stop was a neighborhood. We walked around a couple of blocks and on the way we met with many, many new people. Some were huddled in corners by stores and others got out of their cars to grab a lunch. After walking further into the neighborhood we started knocking on the doors of homes. One man answered his door and his name was Earl R. Smith. He was the sweetest guy I had met all day. We asked if we could pray with him and he responded with, “Who do y’all pray to?” We told him that we pray to Jesus Christ and immediately he said, “Ahhh yes, the son of the Living God.” It was really neat to talk deeply about Jesus with Earl. He showed a clear understanding of who Jesus was, but just didn’t recognize the Lord to be His Savior. Mr. Hendrikse was able to explain to him why Jesus died on the cross, and it was a really eye opening experience. During our prayer with him, he kept saying things like “Thank you Jesus” or “Yes Lord!”. I thought that was really neat. Our last stop was what some call “tent city” under the highway bridges. This was by far the most eye opening thing I had seen all day. I expected a couple tents here and there, but no. The whole area was FILLED with tents and people lying left and right. It was so impactful to see and really made me realize how much I have, and yet I constantly catch myself with such an  ungrateful heart. The Lord has given me so much that I don’t deserve, and I know that so many people would do anything to just at least have a roof over their heads.  It really opens up a new perspective that you don’t get to see at home. Now that we have finished day 1, I just can’t wait to go back out there tomorrow and share the Good News with more and more people!! It’s amazing to see how God is working through this ministry. 

~Lilly Grasse

 I had no idea what to expect going into today, but all I knew was that I was super excited and extremely nervous at the same time. We started the day off by doing some morning devotions and packing lunches, around 200. We had prayer and gathering with the men that minister here, and then we were off to the routes. We started off in the bluffs, which are neighborhoods in rough situations, and I’ve never seen so much trash and so many broken homes. The first person I went to was named Bernard, I was nervous but the second I started to talk to him it just felt natural, like God was working in my heart telling me this is the right thing to do, and all my nerves went away and I was excited to go talk to even more people, it almost felt like a race because I was so eager to talk to these people. Bernard was super enthusiastic and open to prayer, and he was  a great person to start with to calm my nerves. After going to multiple different people in the first route, we ended up at an apartment with two little girls that entered the door. It was so sad knowing that kids so little and innocent had to be in such unfair conditions, we ended up praying over them and even though they were confused, they had smiles on their faces. We moved onto the second route which was another neighborhood (bluff) we walked the streets and went to doors of houses that seemed to have people in them. Some people were upset, some people were joyful, but no matter how people reacted it felt good to be able to pray for them whether they heard/were there for it or not. We met this man named Rodney, he was so enthusiastic and open to hearing about the Lord and praising him. It’s so eye opening to see how the people we met have their hearts so open to the Lord regardless of the circumstances they are in, which just shows that I should be so grateful for what I have, and praise God just the same as they do, with the same enthusiasm and heart. The last person we talked to on the second route was named Earl R Smith. He had food, didn’t want a lunch, but when we asked him if he wanted prayer it sparked a conversation. Mr Hendricks and a few of us asked him if he knew the Lord, and even though he didn’t seem to have a deep understanding, he believed that Jesus died for us. We talked about the Bible and so many other things, including what candy was in our lunch bags, and sharing our middle names with eachother. The last route we went on I think was the most eye opening, we went to the bridges. Most of the leaders and the Hendricks talked about how it was the most dirty it had been compared to other years, it almost seemed like a tent town. The second we stepped out there was a lot of new things to take in, but people immediately started coming to us. I met this sweet young lady named April who had no hesitation coming to us with a smile ready for prayer. As we kept walking through the bridge there was one individual who stuck out to me a ton. His name was Slim, at first he seemed so unsure of prayer and really wanted to be left alone. Me, Greta, and Luke came up with our hands around him and a circle and prayed, and his face started to light up in the middle of prayer and he started to murmur little things after we said something. Once the prayer was done, it seemed like he was a whole new person, and he was grateful for our prayer. He pointed to me and kept saying “that’s a good one” and it made me realize how powerful God is. We prayed for wisdom in the words we say and asked for guidance from God. I felt like God was speaking to me telling me the right things to say. Just from a prayer God worked in his heart and his face lit up. Which shows how quick and how in control our God is, and how when hearts are willing to be open to Him, He rejoices. After we finished the routes I felt so happy and excited for tomorrow, I’ve never felt so eager to help and talk to more people. After we ate lunches and talked about our experience at a park, then went back to the church to shower and grab some groceries After that we got back to the church and started to help bag up lunches and donations for tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll ever eat cookies again after bagging around 2,000 bags of cookies, but the cause was definitely worth it. After tons of sorting and getting to know the men that worked there me and some friends went out to have some fun and play basketball which was so enjoyable and relaxing, and even our new friend Sterling who is a man that works in the ministry also joined in for a few shots. Shortly we ate dinner and had good conversation and just talked about life and grew a bond with one another. That’s when we decided it’s time for a Walmart run. We all went to Walmart to grab some snacks and just to have some fun. By our surprise we ran into two men trying to raise money for a hotel, and they were amazing singers and ukulele players. So that was definitely worth $5. After we got back to the church and played some hide n seek and ate ice-cream. This is when I realized how much God has brought our group together and how much fun we were having with one another and the connection we were building. We had devotions and as weird as this sounded after we got stress balls stuck to the ceiling so we had a fun time trying to get those down. Overall today was an amazing first day, and i definitely wrote too much. But im so grateful for this opportunity and so eager to go out tomorrow and help people in need. God is showing me so much through this, and is working in my heart by the hour. I can’t wait for what tomorrow brings.

~ Madelyn Van Denend

Today in the morning we woke up, we had breakfast consisting of cereal, eggs, yogurt, and granola. We then got ready for the day and went downstairs for our morning worship. we joined them in worship and did call and response with them. We then heard about pastor seventh story and how this ministry came to be. AJ then showed us how to make 200 lunches. We gave them each a water bottle chips, candy cookies, and a sandwich. We packed them all and got in the vans to go hand them out. we started at a small little intersection where there were a few apartments and found a couple people on the streets there that we were able to hand out lunches and pray over. Then we moved to a bigger housing complex where we went door-to-door asking if they would like some food, we walked around a couple of blocks and went to different houses, met lots of people and prayed over them. After that, we went in the vans again and went under a bridge where there were a bunch of tents set up, underneath the bridge they were close to 75 tents all scattered around with a couple of fireplaces, set up around. We met many nice people there and were able to bless all of them with food and prayer if they wanted it. This will stick with me for a long time because of all of the faces and people that I met. They were all also suffering immensely from not havinig food and a house to live in. One man that I met that really stuck out to me was Earl R Smith, he was in an apartment and we were asking him if he would want some food, but he did not want any food because he had some, he then came outside and talk to us for a good five minutes all about Jesus and how he knew who he was and how he believed that he was a savior. That really stuck with me because I did not think that many people knew about Jesus, but lots of them did and wanted prayer over them. We ended the day with taking a trip to Walmart to get some food, drinks, and then buying a basketball, we then came back and played hide and seek in the church. We did devotions at 10:30 and then got to bed around 12:00.

~ Luke DeRoos

Opening the day with scripture and prayer

Starting to make lunches

Praying at our first stop before handing out lunches and talking to people.

Difficult to imagine living in these conditions

Debrief time

Eating some of the lunches we made this morning

A little journaling time before showers

Bagging chicken and biscuits to be used in making lunches tomorrow

Bagging cookies

The girls bagged nearly 800 cookies

Sorting loads of produce that came in this afternoon

Praying out before calling it quits for the day

Time for turkey sandwhiches!

The amount of time invested in getting these balls off the ceiling...We had fun, but as we sleep there is still one left on the ceiling:)