Tuesday in Detroit

Today was another full but blessed day in the Motor City. We left for work projects at 8 am. Today we were spread out over four streets in a community and we had to finish all of our work at 13 houses by 1 pm. Which our awesome youth and adults did - with time to spare. Have I mentioned how awesome our Refuge family is? :)

As far as types of projects, it is more of the same. Lots of painting, yard clean up, fence repair and even a few plumbing adventures.  

We ate lunch in some shade and then went to sing at a local senior care center - in our work grubbies, paint and all.  After that, we returned to the hotel to clean up and then sang an evening concert at another amazing church here in Detroit - the Pure Word Missionary Baptist Church. What an energetic and fun group of believers who encouraged, energized and loved on our youth. Plus, they fed us some cookies which is always a win. 

We returned to Rippling Hope for dinner, a devotion and Atta Awards (Attagirl and Attaboy). Each day youth nominate someone who deserves an atta girl or atta boy award for a specific reason of going above and beyond or showing Christlikeness to someone. And each night we honor 5 - 6 youth by presenting these fun awards.

It was also a hard night for our youth group. I shared with them that two of their classmates had died earlier today in a car crash in Holts Summit. This, along with the suicide of a 2016 senior four days ago, has really been a lot of them. There were a few tears tonight and a lot of conversations. Pray that we will get some good rest this evening and the sun tomorrow will shed new light and hope on the darkness of today. Pray for the friends and families of Caleb, Karlie, and Anthony.

We continue to ask your prayers for great weather. There is a chance of storms tomorrow and Thursday. We will do the best work we can regardless but it would help to be dry. At the same time, Detroit needs the rain.  So - we trust God with this and every aspect of the trip. He has done an excellent job already. :)