Journey

"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step."

-Lao Tzu

"Took the midnight train going anywhere..."

Jk

We took the 8 am minivans going to Missouri.

After five hours in the vans and fifty plus chicken nuggets we arrived in Kansas City, Missouri.

Our first stop in the city was a trip to the visitor's center of the Hallmark Corporation.

After Hallmark we got our first look at Lazarus Ministries, our home and base of operations for the next week. We spent the first night learning a little bit about the work Lazarus does, and doing a whole lot of team bonding. That night we turned in early, 5 AM was going to come soon.

Bright and early Sunday morning we got up to help prepare breakfast for the community. After breakfast we had a little time to ourselves before it was back to work to prepare for lunch.

After a hectic, but rewarding, morning of breakfast and lunch service we spent Saturday afternoon getting a little culture at the National World War I Museum. Unfortunately the tower was closed, but we still had a great time.

Monday and Tuesday were spent at various YMCA facilities working with children from aged six weeks to fifth grade. Some of the highlights included knockout tournaments with visiting basketball teams, testing out how many three-year-olds we could fit in our laps during story time, and reliving our grade school lunch room days. There was also a fair amount of holding hands, drying tears, and wiping runny noses.

We also visited an amazing local organization called Literacy KC and learned about the problems facing adults with low literacy and how communities combat low literacy rates.

Our final day of service (Wednesday) was spent at two different places. In the morning we helped sort and pack food donations at Harvesters, the Pantheon of food banks. We ended our time there with a simulation that illustrated the difficulties a low income family faces when trying to make ends meet.

After a quick sack lunch we headed to our second site, Avenue of Life. There we were joined by a group of local alumni who pitched in to help us sort and bag groceries that were to be given to the community members AoL served.

To cap off our time in Kansas City we headed to dinner with the alumni to watch our Hawkeyes play in the NIT Tournament (Hawks 87-75). Then it was back to Lazarus, for packing, and final thoughts before heading back to Iowa early Thursday morning.