nashville mission trip report: part 2
| August 22nd, 2007Yesterday I posted about our groups experience with the Vine Hill Boys & Girls Club. Today I wanted to share about our work serving at the other ministry sites in Nashville.
Monday afternoon my group served at Project C.U.R.E., a “non-profit, humanitarian relief organization that collects medical supplies and equipment and donates it to developing countries.” After a brief story from Greg Cox, the Operations Director at the Nashville collection and distribution center, we took a tour of the massive warehouse completely filled with medical equipment that will eventually be shipped off to a developing country. You can see from the picture below how large it is.
We spent our time at Project C.U.R.E. sorting and organizing, cleaning and wrapping various equipment for shipment, along with cleaning the bathrooms for the many volunteers that serve there. It was quite amazing to see how this organization is taking the excess and out-of-date equipment, things us wealthy Americans typically throw away, and then send this over to a developing country who desperately needs quality medical resources. Definitely read through the Project C.U.R.E. website to understand the scope of what they do. It’s quite amazing!
Tuesday morning my group went over to Community Care, an interesting lightpost placed in the middle of the projects. Community Cafe offers the homeless and poor a safe place where they can get a shower while their clothes get cleaned, a meal at breakfast or lunch, an address where they can get their mail, hygiene items, as well as counseling and prayer. I was quite impressed with how God is using this place.
Our group helped prepare the lunch as well as clean the pantry area, the buildings windows, and the grounds of litter. We helped serve lunch once that was done, and when everyone had gone through the line, we each grabbed some food and sat down with the guests. I’ll save my thoughts on my conversations with the homeless for another post later this week. Suffice it to say, they were challenging.
Wednesday afternoon was designated as our “Urban Exposure” where we would see a different side of the city, a side that the tourists typically don’t see. This afternoon deserves a bit more space than a simple recap, so I will focus on this part of our trip in a separate post.
Thursday morning was unexpectedly enjoyable as we served at Adult Day Services, a senior citizen day care right down the road from Vanderbilt University. I had quite the time getting to know Wilbur and Joe as I sat between them and helped them play BINGO. These two guys were the sweetest guys you could ever meet. Though it took alot of concentration to understand what they were saying all the time! Our time with these wonderful people went by so fast playing BINGO, after which we helped serve them lunch. To cap it all off, Joe prayed for us when we left, which was quite touching.
We definitely got a good taste of the variety of ways one can serve and minister to the poor, the homeless, the elderly, and the forgotten through these various ministries. Look for my thoughts on the urban exposure tomorrow.
Great recap! Thanks for being the leader and getting us all down there… God did huge things through the Nashville trip, it will be neat to see the ripple effect of it here in Dayton (at least we can hope for a ripple :).