This post was actually written by Catie Goetter but posted via a Trip leader account due to tech problems.
Today was day 2 in Dallas and day 1 of service. It was a very long but very good day.
We started the day at Vogel Alcove, a non profit organization that serves the homeless population of Dallas Texas in every aspect possible. At Vogel we started with a tour and learned what they do which is everything and anything that a family facing homeless situations might need such as medical, children’s clothing, early childhood education, and sooo much more. After our tour we were supposed to help with their field trip across the street at the Dallas Heritage Village but due to rain we moved inside and did a lot of fun activities with all of the kiddos there. Let me tell you: mixing paint, bubbles, and 2 year olds is a very messy idea.
After this experience, we debriefed and then went back to our housing site for lunch.
Our next stop was the Wesley- Rankin Community Center in West Dallas, where we will be serving by putting on an “EduCamp” for the K-5 students that are currently on spring break in the neighborhood. I don’t know what else to say about Wesley-Rankin besides wow. That place is absolutely incredible. They serve all ages possible. For small children they have a preschool/Montessori, they have an after school program for K-12, classes for adults such as gardening and GED, and they also have a senior center which is like the “go to” hangout for the older folks in the neighborhood. We took a tour of their facilities and then sat down to finalize our plans for the week. After at least 2 hours of finalizing plans, we think that we have a really solid game plan for the kiddos we will be serving this week.
Car drives in themselves are also an adventure. Today I rode in the vehicle driven by Jimi from Admissions, also known as Mr. Wonderful and the Calculator (because we can count on him), and the entire drive home from West Dallas he tried to close the sunroof on our rented SUV and as we thought it was closed it would bounce back open. It was quite the entertaining experience.
That was a long day of service. Our “home life” is a lot of fun though. We are staying in a home that is owned by Casa View church that they use for bible studies through the week and they are so amazing to let us use this place. We have a lot of fun in our downtime though. We have funny conversations that can be anything from completely random (we have started a wall of the best quotes from the trip) to educating our advisors about the world of dating apps such as tinder. Tonight for dinner was chicken and waffles. We have learned that it is harder to use an oven without a working internal thermometer than it would seem. We have to look through the glass to watch what the temperature is actually at and then just watch our food anyway. Needless to say, cooking times on packages have gone out the window and we have found it to be easiest to sit in front of the oven while our frozen pizza and frozen chicken strips cook. In the evenings, after dinner, we have reflections which is really fun to see how other people have internally responded to the day. That’s about all I can think of to tell y’all about today. Maybe I will get the chance to update again this week.