Day Three; or, It's Only Been Two Days?!

The day started with me waking up at 5:30 AM for kitchen ministry. I don't know why, but I thought someone had woken me up, so I got up, got dressed, and was ready to go down stairs when I looked at my cell and realized I did not have to be down for another hour. So I went back to bed and was woken again at a quarter after six by a fellow team member. Unfortunately, I went back to sleep again and was ten minutes late for work. I was devastated and felt terrible, but I moved on with the rest of the day, a day full of surprises.

The first thing we did after breakfast was get in the van to go to cerebral palsy outreach; or so we thought. Where we ended up was a community garden. Why were we there? To sift through fertilizer, of course! It was actually a lot of fun. I had a great time doing this because it reminded me of when I used to clean stalls for our horses.

When we went back to NYSUM, some us took a nap (myself included). Next we started planning our service for the Bowery Mission Chapel. I, for one, did not know that we would be leading a service, so I was somewhat nervous. But, as was the case with absolutely every activity we undertook, my nerves were put at ease as soon as we got there and after seeing my fully competent teammates in action. The service went relatively smoothly for something that had been planned an hour before.

One of the main things that struck me about this day was that it seemed to me that I had known each of my teammates for weeks. I was amazed how close we had all become. I also became aware that the time passed by rather slowly. I even referred to something we had done only that morning as what we had done "yesterday"! It really seemed to me that we had been there for a week already!