We Can Handle This…Wait…Did I Sign Up for This?

July 5, 2010
By: Ashley Gonzalez

It is the first day at Exodus, the organization we’re working with. Some of you may be wondering, “So what exactly is my daughter/son, loved one, friend, etc doing over there?”

Well we’re working with the children of the organization ranging from grades K-8 in the summer day care program. The majority of the children know each other and the tutors from the after school program held during the school year. So we have the sweetness of seeing everyone befriending someone, but the headache of finding and stepping into our roles here.

This place is like a family where everyone works together and everything is done for the primary goal of being a light and helping hand to the kids. When the kids get here we join in Assembly, basically attendance, separate into classes, the tutors teach on different topics, lunch, two hours in the park, come back to Exodus, all the kids have a snack, which is a small portion of an actual meal, and then creative time and praise time which is where all of our planning comes into play. We all drop in exhaustion, have a meeting with Ashley, our go-to gal, eat, clean, make our way back to the Hostel, have a team meeting, and then disperse for the night. By then its getting pretty dark and all we want is a shower.
It is tiring work and even though the schedule is repetitive, the experiences most definitely aren’t. When we went to go meet at the park, we were recruited in a detour to make almost 150 ham and cheese sandwiches for the Exodus branches in Washington Heights and in Endwood. And packed ours to take to the park. Its been a hot day and extremely stressful.

None of us really know what we expected, if anything, but nothing prepared us for the next generation filled with sass, pomp, and a defensive nature. We did our best and the day was in no way a waste, but we all agreed we need to revamp ourselves and our mission and try some new techniques.

These children threw us off compared to the kids we deal with back home or on other mission trips some of the team have been on. But with disciplined Spirits and pure hearts we are going to sleep to wake up to new opportunities tomorrow.