So, I asked a question today. Yes, I often ask questions, my kids would probably say too many. But Mrs. Hansen and I saw God answer a question for us...literally, within a few moments. Our kids have been working really hard cleaning up a couple of pocket parks.  You've all read about all the sweat and hard work that they are putting into our time here in Cleveland. The empty lot that we were assigned to this afternoon to cleanup was right across the street from one that we cleaned up yesterday.  As we parked the car, I noticed that there was trash scattered on the ground of the park we made beautiful yesterday.  My heart kinda sunk. The hard work that our kids put in for a few hours ... was it for naught? I asked Mrs. Hansen a series of questions;  What do people who are living here think of us? Are they thankful for us, glad that their community is being cleaned up? Do they look at

us as just some do-gooders, unwelcome in their neighborhoods? Do they notice that their parks are clean and weed free? Do they even notice us at all?
Within the next couple minutes, I had my answer. And I'm not exaggerating.  Truly, 2 minutes later, a really nice fellow in a pickup truck dropped off a couple a pizzas to show his appreciation.  I looked at Mrs. Hansen, "Oh my goodness, God is amazing!" Yes, God answered my question.  People in the community really do appreciate what we are doing! My heart was lifted!

Stacie

As I'm typing this at 10:13 at night, the kids are playing cards, laughing and carrying on! Slap-happy! Why, you may ask at this hour, after 3 days of working in both sunshine and rain are they not exhausted?!? Well, we thought it'd be a great idea to take them to Sweeties Candies after dinner. What?!? Who's idea was this? They shopped and bought .... Sugar. And more sugar.  And then we played Putt-Putt and had a lesson in a pavilion beside Sweeties. So, now we are back with 10 kids on a sugar high! Maybe I should ask God, when are they going to crash?!

Stacie (again)

P.S.
I beat Pastor Brett in Putt-Putt...by 5 whole strokes! ;)

BEFORE AND AFTER!

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON!

Heyyyyyy whats up everybody?!! Its your girls Gilli and Vic here back atcha. For the rest of the day, we worked on an empty lot, with a fence that was falling down. There was tall grass and weeds EVERYWHERE!!!! There was a house right next to it, so that part of the fence was just fixed up by

us, but the rest of the fence was torn down. It was awful and the before and after picture didn't do justice to how much work we had to do. We had a lot of fun doing it though. We got passing semi trucks to honk and a kind person even brought us pizza.  We did find a garter snake the two of us got attached to. We named him Service the snake. However, the weed hacker hit him on the head and when we found him he was already hit.  We buried him and gave him a cross and Jack made him an RIP tombstone. It was a very productive day and despite the rain, we had fun and got closer to God. Seeya tomorrow for our fun day! Whoop whoop!

                                                           -Gillian and Vicki

BEFORE AND AFTER!

WEDNESDAY MORNING!

Today the entire team went to the church today to finish up the work we had started yesterday. We ate lunch, came back here and now are playing cards until we are assigned to a new worksite. The work we did was trimming the bushes, cleaning the window wells and removing the big pile of sticks. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to do more work later today. We are currently waiting to go to an empty lot to clean it up and destroy a fence.

Jack