This morning we all had to be up earlier for our service project, but we did have a late start because it was so early all of us slept through our alarms and a lot of us were leaving with an empty stomach. Our service project was helping in a small local garden called Harry Holmes Healthy Harvest Community Garden. The work we had to do was thankfully not very laborious and it wasn’t stressful, it was only pulling the weeds in the beds. Even though it wasn’t much we all had a lot of fun and it was a good time to get to know the city a little bit more. There were three very sweet old ladies that we got to know and we had some great discussions with them, they talked about the hurricane last year which was very interesting. When lunch came we all were very exited for some food and enjoyed the tasty local sandwiches. Later we went to the service party and got to wonder off in groups and enjoy the activities set up, there were some familiar games like Gaga ball, nine-square in the air, and four-square. They also had a whole room with blow-up obstacle courses and some really interesting active games. Waiting in the line before the Mass Gathering was hard because of the extremely hot weather and all the body heat surrounding all of us wasn’t helping much. Tonights Mass Gathering was personally my favorite so far, we had good seats, we were more energetic and all the speakers and performances were awesome tonight. I can not pick a favorite thing from tonight.

“You are magnificently imperfect.”-Nadia Boltz-Weber

“There’s Grace for that.”-the Rev. Will Starkweather

“It makes no sense, but this is God’s grace”-Michaela Shelley

“You matter, you are loved, and there is no limit to God’s grace.”-Elizabeth Peter

-Madelyn Wambolt, Redeemer Lutheran

photos from the leaders