Yakima Day 1

Yesterday, we wrapped up our first full day of service in Yakima. Half of our group were the hands and feet of Christ to a member of the Yakama community by doing a work project and the other half worked with the children of a nearby town, Wapato, in the Youthworks Kids Club. We also had an evening activity where we learned about the history of the Yakama Nation. For each of these parts of our day, I have a youth who has written a little bit about their experience. All these were written last night right before lights out, so I had to wait until the morning to post this blog entry.

Work Projects -- Lily Stephens
Today, "Team Love" had work projects. We got to meet an awesome lady named Debbie and learned about Yakama Indian culture. We are very tired but got lots of work done! We scraped paint off of Debbie's house with our new awesome friends from Olympia!
~Lily
(note from Taryn: It's important to note a little bit about Debbie. She is a math teacher at a school in the area with a true passion for kids. She has experienced a lot of hardship in her time in Yakima, in that old neighbors were constantly tagging her home with graffiti. Youthworks group over the summer will be helping this incredible woman paint her house. She told us that she once tried to turn an old rehab facility into a safe haven for at-risk youth. She unfortunately had to give up on the project, and one of the many reasons why was because she was not Native American, and the facility is on the reservation.)

Kids Club -- Heather Cornish
Kids club was okay. I didn't really have a good day. Some of the kids that came to kids club got in a fight with each other, saying it had something to do with gangs in the area. Also, I was in a group with other youthworks people to sing songs for the kids, and they booed us! That kinda made me mad because I felt like they didn't appreciate us doing that. Also, 3 boys brought their dogs and they were kind of mistreating them.
~Heather
(Note from Taryn: though unfortunate, these events aren't necessarily uncommon. I believe that by experiencing this, our youth are able to understand how to work with these kind of circumstances. Jon was with the youth at kids club and said we did a great job!)

Evening activity -- Maggie Thunselle
Tonight we went to a very inspirational and thought-provoking meeting. Corey, a reservation local, spoke to us about living on the reservation. We also learned about the modern and older relationships between the natives and other races. Also, the way the Native Americans were affected by the coming of Christianity. The things he had to say really made you think and maybe even change your perspective on a few things.
~Maggie
(note from Taryn: Cory was a very direct speaker, who sometimes said some things that seemed a little harsh. It was a hard pill to swallow at times during the presentation, but the main message was to love everyone and care for them in the same we we would want to be cared for, if the roles were reversed. Mission trips have a weird stigma, so Cory said we should go into them as "service trips", rather than "mission trips", and I think that is great advice.)

We are ready to go for day 2! We will have three more kids write about the various aspects of the day.

Blessings!