i had actually never been to the campus before and was in love with the waterfront and the nearby bridge...
inside, we met up with many familiar faces of other youth groups that we know well and other church members who were already there to help out with the sound system or performing with the worship band.
chris, our youth minister, led worship along with aaron (one of our seniors) and jordan (our worship leader at church.) i didn't know the drummer. sorry :)
we had some amazing worship (see the post below) and listened to a great devotional. then we brought in our stuff to the dorm rooms where we'd be staying and ended up hanging out in the student lounge for the rest of the night. lucky for me--my girls were ready to head back to the dorms a little before 10 and were asleep just after 11. i heard the boys were up until 2 am playing capture the flag in the dorms. i love chaperoning girls...the next morning, we woke up ready and refreshed. granted, my almost 27-year old back wasn't prepared for the 6 inch foam mattress from the dorms.
after a few last minute changes in plans, we figured out that we'd be staying on campus to help with their service project. we had planned on going up into norfolk, but they ended up having enough work to be done with the university's service project.
(love the motto here: MLK day of service--make it a day on, not a day off.)we were packaging food to be sent to haiti--a project that was chosen many many months ago before the earthquake last week. there was an assembly line set up around the gym floor with several different stations, each helping to package a dinner of rice, dehydrated vegetables and soy protein fiber.
(the only picture of me i'm including ^--just the top of my head--i was working the sealing station!)the other part of my sealing table--this lovely lady at the end is sara--she helped me with one of our girls retreats a couple of years ago and i'm trying to find a way to get her to move closer to us after she graduates :)
chris strikes a pose (by the way, i obviously didn't take these pictures. just sent my camera around with other people.)
the organization we were working with...
and even some of the youngest church members came to help out--molly accompanied her mama amanda to work that day and helped pack up boxes of food. such a cutie!
we worked for about 4 hours that morning until 61,000 meals were packaged for haiti. so awesome!then it was time for a lunch at pizza hut (where we left our intern joe by mistake--whoops) and then packing up the van and then on back home, where i continued to get ready for my week with laundry, grocery shopping, and preparing for a short work week (but lots of appointments and busy busy days.)
i think the whole experience was best summed up in my facebook status that i posed on the way home:
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