Faith E. Free Daily Update 7/20/11

Today after breakfast we went to our morning rally session.  Half of our team participated in a poverty simulation yesterday and the rest completed it today.  The simulation split us into different families and we received a certain amount of money and had to make through a month by visiting many different stations such as: transportation, housing, healthcare, and childcare.  It was a very eye-opening experience to see how a family has to live in our modern world with a total income of less then $3000 per month.  Immediately after lunch at the cafeteria, we left for Faith E. Free to do some landscaping projects around the community.  We went to a woman's house and completely weeded out overgrown flowerbeds and a driveway, and even cut down some trees.  It was nice and hot with 100+ degree weather but no one was complaining and everyone was having a great time working together to improve the community.  After that, a couple members from the Pella team went with Pastor Tom, who is the pastor of Faith E. Free, to a nursing home and sang hymns and shared a message with a small group of disabled elderly.  The rest of our "Pomaha" team (Pella + Omaha) hung out in the AC at a local McDonalds.  We all returned to church for another great homemade meal and then the kids began to pour in for the VBS.  We had three visitors tonight and they had a great time.  The people who brought visitors were rewarded by cutting off the hair of Omaha student Jesse.  We are amazed at how the children are asking questions upon questions about God and continuing to memorize verses daily.  God is definitely working here and He is tugging on the heartstrings of the children. 

Blog by Matt Blom
Photos by Shelby Pfitzenmaier