The Bell of Christ Church update day two

The Bells of Christ Church

Outreach Tour to Appalachia & the Carolinas

June 20-27, 2010

Day Two (June 21^st)

My first responsibility in the morning is to make sure all of the youth are up in the morning.  I have to set a wake up call, and then go knock on the hotel doors a few minutes before it is time for us to go.  I am very impressed with our youth because this job has been easy so far.  This morning I got up and knocked on a bunch of empty rooms.  All of the youth were already downstairs, eating breakfast with their bags packed. We'll see how things go tomorrow when wake up is 7am.

We started off our day by heading to the Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia.

Zoo Highlights

• My favorite is the gorilla.  Not much to say here, but it is a fact that "Gorillas are awesome."
• The Lorakeets  are so much fun.  We bought cups of nectar, and headed into the bird sanctuary.  The birds fly and land on you to drink the juice.  It's just fun to be able to touch wild animals.  It's more fun to watch a bird pee on your wife, HA! HA!
• Some of the girls went to see the giraffes.  You can by lettuce and the giraffes will come right up to you and eat out of your hand.  Hallie Worthington held the lettuce level with her face right in front of a huge giraffe.  Hallie did not see a problem with this until the giraffe's 8 inch tongue headed right toward the lettuce and her face.  Giraffe's are very forward animals.

After the zoo we headed to the food court of a mall so that youth would have many options of where they would like to eat.  98% of them chose Chic-fil-A.

After lunch, we drove to the Brooks-Howell Home in Ashville, NC.  Brooks-Howell is a Methodist retirement home for former missionaries.  It was a great group of people, and they were very receptive to the concert.  Sharon gave a phenomenal testimony about how bell ringing is mission.  During the concert, the rain began to pour.  I sat at the back of the room, and I could (once again) see the face of God through the ringers, but I was able to see the power of God when I looked out the window and saw the whipping wind, lightning flashing, and flickering lights.  The rain hit it's peak during "Sherekea Usafari," an african song which means "celebrate the journey."  The thunder and lightning were not distracting.  Not to be hokey here, but it was as if God was playing with the bells.  Thunder striking right in time, and hitting a deeper bass than the bells were capable of.  It was amazing to see God from the stage, out the window, and somehow together during the concert.

The evening ended with some swimming and card playing back at the hotel.