Thursday, March 19

On Thursday we woke up and made our PB&J’s for lunch. Then we ate a breakfast of potatoes, egg bake, yogurt, and cereal. We only worked half of the day and had fun in the afternoon.

A group of us went to a local church called Asheville Nazarene and helped shovel, move, and spread dirt and mulch. We put the dirt in an area where this church is starting a “Food Forrest”. The Food Forrest has a goal of helping feed the community that Asheville Nazarene is surrounded by. We also cleaned up the yard by raking leaves and pouring mulch by their garden beds that our group helped start last year! It was really fun to be able to help the church.

Another group of us went to the Blessing Barn. At the Blessing Barn we first brought food for the meal they served today. We brought water, chips, and condiments. After they finished serving the meal, we prayed over all of the people at the Blessing Barn and helped them feel God’s love. To end our time here, we helped spread gravel that was donated to make a better path for cars that bring donations, as well as a better parking lot for the volunteers.

Once our morning of work was over, our groups met back to the YMCA and ate our sack lunches. After that we all got in the vans and headed to the Catawba Falls. There we hiked a 3.5-mile hike. We saw lots of waterfalls that were really cool to see! We could see God’s creativity in His creation. All the high schoolers also had fun climbing on the rocks and going in the waterfall. After we finished the hike, we went to Taka A Hike Outfitters and went shopping for souvenirs. Then we drove by the fence that the Asheville team worked on last year before heading to dinner at Good Company Pizza. At the restaurant we saw someone wearing a Pella Windows shirt so a few of us went and talked to him - he lives around here but works for Pella Windows and thought it was so cool that we were here, so we took a group photo with him. Josh ate 7 giant pieces of pizza. It was very impressive. Kaesy was also paid to eat more pizza. The pizza was really good, and we were all super stuffed. After supper we headed back to the YMCA, and we played volleyball in the gym all night.

We can’t believe tomorrow is our last day here. The week has flown by!

- Written by Alaina Wiersma & Blake Nikkel