Journal+2-+Sneeze

The memo came up at snowcamp in february of 2009. The summer missions trip would be held in Michigan and it would cost $440. My friend Brandon and I felt our hearts skip a beat. $440? That was way too much money! But luckily, his grandparents paid for him and I spent the whole summer mowing. The missions trip would be in June, so while my parents paid for most of the trip, I had to keep mowing even after the trip. We got to my church at 11 o'clock, 2 hours before we would depart on the charter bus for Michigan.

My friend and I got the only non-broken reclining seats in the bus, and with our church group, whom with I am very close to them all, we set out. It was a long 12 hours, but luckily I got a few hours of sleep before we stopped at the McDonalds right on front of Cedar Point. It was so grueling to see 17 coasters looming in the distance, without being able to ride them, but we set out again and I soon forgot.

When we got to the 18th century church that would be housing us for the week, I was in awe. It was huge! The church was a bit creepy, because below the sanctuary was catacombs in which a homeless person was found living and was removed only 3 days before we arrived. Eventually, we got to explore the catacombs with a guide later on. The pizza that was delivered to all the different church groups in the cafeteria was local, and it tasted really good. At least there was one business that was surviving Bay City's turmoil.

We were there to help fix and repair homes that cannot be managed, because disabled people live there. The area was hit rally hard by the economy because the regional Pontiac Plant was just shut down, leaving thousands out of work. My group, which was my friend Sarah and I combined with other members of different churches from across America, worked in a trailer park helping build a wheelchair ramp for a man that had blood clots in his legs. We also fixed their leaking roof that needed to be painted with liquid aluminum. And guess who got assigned that job! As I soon found, painting with liquid aluminum on a hot roof in Michigan in the middle of June is not exactly the most attractive job, but luckily I had a partner up there with me to help, to keep me from going crazy or to call for help if I stepped in the extremely slippery wet aluminum and fell to my death.

Overall it was a great trip bonding more with my friends from church and making new friends from all over the country, in which I now keep in touch with via Facebook.