Sunday, Monday and Tuesday

Sunday was our first full day in Wisconsin! We went to church at Transformation City, a great church in downtown Milwaukee. The church has a great passion for inner city ministry that we would have the opportunity to help with on Monday. After church, we did team initiatives which help build teamwork and problem solving skills. We had a bit of silly fun after the team building. The kids had the opportunity to go to a thrift store and purchase very silly outfits that we all wore to the dollar theater where we watched The Lorax. They had so much fun and looked completely ridiculous.

On Monday, we had our very first workday but with an added challenge. The kids were given $2 each and told that that is what they had to buy food for the day. At first it was scary but then they realized that by combining funds they could purchase just enough to eat three meals. Later on, they split into two groups. One went to an inner city school to work with the kids at a summer program. The kids worked together to build a miniature golf course out of cardboard. It was very silly but everyone had tons of fun. The other group went to work at a community house affiliated with Transformation City. They got to paint, organize and clean the house and the people there were incredibly grateful.
That evening we played a scavenger hunt version of Romans and Christians. Many groups decided to have accents too which made it very funny. Taylor and Tyler were even required to sing and dance to I'm a little teapot to get out of jail. :)

Tuesday was a wonderful outdoor day. We went to devils lake, a beautiful lake with a mountain and park beside. We spent all day climbing, swimming, playing, and worshiping. The kids were asked to write letters to one another and have a period of silence to reflect on God in the beauty of nature. The time spent at devils lake was both relaxing and fun.

Today is still in process but we have been doing the same activities as Monday.

Great job serving others and praising God, SWBC!

Day two and a half!

Hello again!
Saturday was a super amazing day with SWBC. We started our day by learning about how Paul's Jewish culture and religion coincided with his Christian faith. To do this we attended a sabbath service at Or Haolam Messianic Jewish Church. The service and the people were incredible. Their love for Jesus and their culture spilled over to us as we joined them in worship, dance, and scripture.

As a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, the Rabbi allowed us to come forward after the service to view the Torah. Their church had two lamb skin scrolls, one, the Torah or first five books of the bible, and two, the first five books of the New Testament. The Torah was a such a blessing to see because it was originally from Poland and survived the Holocaust before making its way to the United States. It really was a wonderful experience to see such important history.

After meeting these wonderful people, we got on the vans and drove to our destination........... WISCONSIN!

Today, we attended church at Transformation city, a church dedicated to changing lives in inner city Milwaukee. Their passion and efforts to show God's love to the people in the city are infectious. I hope we all will take from their example and make a difference in this city while we serve here the next few days.

More updates tomorrow!

-Lauren

Day 1 with SWBC

I must say, day one was great success. We started off with a brief expectations chit-chat so the kids and leaders could talk about what they hoped for on the trip and what they may struggle with on the trip. Overall, the unknown portion of SPLAT was the most intimidating but SPLAT staff gave some great encouragement to ease all the fears (or some anyhow).

After, we had our first fun event, The Real Sim World, where kids got to plan, purchase, and build their own towns within a larger city. The groups had a lot of hardships and advantages that were not always fair. In the end, they found out that the game was rigged. Certain towns received much higher benefits while others were neglected by the city officials. The purpose of this game was to help them realize how difficult life can be, how diverse we all are, and how even if we are from different areas it is important to love and care for everyone.

In the later evening, we did a bit of group worship and devotional where we talked about our Bible character for this trip, Paul. The life of Paul is a long, adventurous tale that we will not be 'telling' to the group, we will be living it each day. We hope that the group will learn from experience on this SPLAT trip.

Then, we ate ice cream. :)

More to come,
Lauren

The Kick Off!

Greetings everybody! Today we kick off the SPLAT Season with our first trip. Summit Woods Baptist Church is going to have a great week. Be sure to check your packing lists and be at the church on time for registration. Don't forget your Bible!

More updates are coming soon, parents, so keep checking back.

- Lauren