DC 08 Day 2 - Tuesday March 25

Hi, Prayer Partners, Friends & Family! It was another full day in DC! We headed out at 8:00 to work the 9-12 shift with the DC Central Kitchen. This facility prepares over 4000 meals a day for the poor and needy in DC. It is located in the basement of the largest homeless shelter in DC which houses 1260 men, women and children each night. The DC Kitchen has a chef training and internship program for the homeless. Most of the graduates of the program go on to support themselves with full time culinary employment. Many of the chefs and kitchen staff that we worked with today are either in the program or have graduated from it. We worked with Chef Gregg, Chef Dot, and Chef James. After the shift, the kitchen staff served and fed us with some of the products of our labor. The corn and black-eyed pea salad was delicious. Brian & Jordan had mixed this up! After lunch we went to the Union Station Mall. It is an operating train station all dressed up! We even came face to face with the US Ambassador to India being dropped up by his limo at the train station! In the afternoon, we split up and worked two different ROJA after school program sites. We learned how to improvise and spent time just being with these kids from lower income families. They desparately need something to help them remain interested in school and stick with it. Only 20% of DC students actually graduate from high school in four years. We ate at the Mid-Atlantic Seafood & Soulfood Restraunt and then headed off for a two hour driving PRAYER tour of DC. We started with the Washington Monument, went passed government buildings, including congress and the Supreme Court and through neighborhoods - the rich Capitol Hill and the poorest of poor in Anacostia. We ended by going to hilltop overlooking the city to pray, driving passed foriegn embassys and standing in front of the National Cathedral. Our students have been amazing servants today! You might have noticed a new person in our pictures. This is Sheena - another CSM hostess for our group. Pray for us tomarrow - we will visit one site in the morning that we will have much more direct contact with the people that we are serving. We will need to leave our facility at 6:00am! Pray that as the students see the needs of the city, they will not be bothered so much that they despair - but that they will grieve enough to ask God to show them how he desires them to live in reponse. Pray that we will find the JOY of the LORD to be our strength tomarrow - all day long with others and among ourselves. Pray that we each can directly have a spiritual conversation with someone. If you are able, leave us a comment! Thank you so much!