Welcome to our Canton update page!
.:check here for daily updates:.
Thursday blog // Thursday pictures
Friday blog // Friday pictures
Sunday - Tuesday update
Hello from far away Canton, Ohio!! The past 2.5 days have been busy, hot, tiring, fun, exciting and invigorating! We have done everything from paint playgrounds with unwashable paint (hope you parents are pumped to do that laundry...) to visiting a Monastery and learning from Nuns with silly bands to ziplineing at the Fossil Museum in Akron to seeing "Robin Hood" at the dollar theater to sweating all hydration that might be within us out onto the wood floors during SWEAT FEST 2010! Here are a few students to give their takes on the past two days:
Ariel: I love the funny conversations we have! The activities we have at night such as the movie, SWEAT FEST 2010 were fun. I'll never forget the Nun with Sillybands and a cell phone!! I have learned that poverty can really hurt people. I also liked spending time with the kids who were cute but not always so sweet!
Jackie: I have really enjoyed the past few days and being with the kids from The Lighthouse. At the Fossil Museum today, I went zip-lining for the first time! I was really scared the first time! I've learned that oil-based paint doesn't come out of your hair and that poverty affects many people- even in our hometown.
Katarina: I loved ziplining- that was pretty cool - I'm surprised I didn't scream!! But anyways, I liked going to the movie and hanging out with the kids. I learned that oil-based paint takes a while to get out of your skin unless you use paint thinner! I've learned that there are many ways to help people in poverty.
Caileigh: I've really enjoyed the past few nights here. The movie was really fun and so was SWEATFEST 2010. I also enjoyed hanging out with the kids because there are a lot of new people to meet. I've learned that poverty affects many families.
Rachel: I liked getting to know all the people who have come on the trip better. I liked being able to serve the families around here who are living in poverty and we can help serve. It's really hot in the church without air conditioning and our sleeping conditions aren't ideal but they'll do. I've learned that poverty affects so many more people than I had thought that it did and that being a church, we really need to reach out to the people that need help.
Courtney: I really liked meeting all the kid and getting to know the people in my community better. I didn't realize that poverty was pretty much living right next door to us and that you don't really have to go far to find people in need and that there have been people here from other states who come to Canton to serve. That tells you that we need to be serving our own community.
Laura: It has been such a blessing to get to know these 8th graders - I have genuinely learned so much from each one of them. Whether it is just joking around or sitting around discussing what serving "the least of these" looks like in their 8th grade lives. We have been having a blast and have been dealing with the heat as best as we can- honestly no one's complaining...I think humility has really taken over - especially when faced with what the majority of the world lives in. We are very lucky. Thank you for sharing your kids with us. You have all done such a good job raising young men and women with selfless, serving, and loving hearts!
Wednesday Blog
Today was quite an experience. We began the morning with breakfast and quiet time and then Darin, the director of Lighthouse Ministries, who's organized our week, explained that we'd be going on a journey through Canton understanding what it's like to eat when you're stuck in poverty. We divided up into two groups and used the SARTA bus system to get around all day. Each group had a grocery store to go to that's outside of the downtown area as well as Save-A-Lot, which is the only downtown grocery option. We compared prices between items as well as selection and quantity. It was very enlightening. For lunch, we went to the Canton Calvary Mission to eat their weekly hot lunch and then went through their grocery distribution system after lunch. You can get free groceries once a month from Canton Calvary Mission if you live within their area and are below a certain income level. However, it's probably only about enough groceries for a week. Lugging all these groceries around on the public busses and realizing how long it takes to get anywhere using public transportation was quite the learning experience.
After we got back from our food searching expedition this afternoon, we headed over to Anderson Creative Studio in the Arts District. Anderson Creative is run by Kevin Anderson and Craig Joseph, who work in the arts full time in Canton. They shared their story of how they ended up in the arts and how they integrate their faith into their work and life. It was a fascinating time.
Currently, the students are making dinner from the groceries we got today from the mission. Tonight we have another education session with Darin. Each day we've been watching some movie clips and Darin has been leading discussion about the connection between our faith in God and working with those in poverty.
Thanks for all your prayers. It's hard to believe we only have 2 days left!
Thursday Night
Just a brief update tonight. We had a great day, hanging out with the kids that are a part of the Lighthouse's summer program. We went to Portage Lakes and went on a hike and went swimming. We also learned more today about poverty issues and spent some time downtown talking to my friend, Jason Lantz, who is part of the leadership team for Love Canton, an outside-of-the-box church plant that connects people in Canton to ministries and non-Christians and community. Jason has an incredible love for people and knowledge of a huge variety of places to connect in the city. We also spent time talking about how being a Christian is really about the other 51 weeks of the year more than it is about the 1 week we go on a mission trip. We finished the night off with a prayer experience back at the Lighthouse that included 10 interactive stations helping us to think about and process what we had been up to throughout the week. It was a great close to the day. Tomorrow we pack up and clean up and then will be doing a variety of service projects around the Lighthouse before heading back to First Friends for FriendsFest in the evening. It's been a great week...thanks for playing a part!
