Mission Trip

Hey! I got back yesterday from a mission trip to Chicago. It was a really good experience but very different from last year. There were about 10 mission sites that YouthWorks goes to in Chicago, but the two that my crew went to were quite the challenge for me. In the mornings my crew went to Esperanza School, a school for mentally challenged kids ages 7-21. Then in the afternoons we volunteered with a group called Block Club that's working to make neighborhoods safer and cleaner and everything else. Our task was to clean garbage from the streets. Other groups in the past weeks planted little gardens or cleaned up alleys so that dealers would move out. A lot of Block Club's goal is to push dealers out and Maggy showed us quite a few of her success stories. ----Livvi'i

Cruising on the St Croix

On Sunday Maria, her parents and I all went on a cruise on the St Croix river.  We boarded in Stillwater for the 3 hour cruise (no we didn't end up on a deserted island with gilligan and the professor).  We cruised down until about Hudson.  While we motored we were served an all you can eat buffet of chicken, ribs, potatoes, bread and fruit.  It was a relaxing, and filling, afternoon. 

Here we are before disembarking.