Saturday, July 9, 2011

Mission Chicken Part Two: A Photographic Tale

We flew in to Columbus, Ohio and picked up some vans to transport the students and the few of us leaders. Chicken quickly adapted to the new windshield and we were on the way to Indianopolis Presbyterian Church where we stayed the night on Greek Row of Ohio State University.

While Chicken slept, Brian and Tricie awoke early in the morning with a student who had neck pain due to the hard floor. As Brian walked past a window, he looked out and saw a body in the early sunlight. Seeing blood on man, they investigated, called an ambulance and, while the students slept, Police and Paramedics came and took the poor fellow to the hospital. We later found out that he had drank a considerable amount of alcohol at a frat party, passed out on the stone ledge of the church's stairwell, then fell off and cracked his skull. We figured if nothing else came of this trip, the fact that we were able to find the man and get him medical attention made it worth it.

The next day we drove out of Ohio into West Virginia and watched as the city turned to private unincorporated towns and finally into Logan. The downtown showed many dilapidated buildings, some actually falling apart.
We drove up to the New Life Fellowship building where YouthWorks has it's home and moved in to the 3rd floor with 2 other churches and a group of young men from inner city Akron. The church bought the buildings, which was once a middle school, from the city about 12 years prior for $10.



Each student and leader was assigned a locker in the old school hallway. They operated as makeshift mailboxes where notes of encouragement, quickly sketched drawings, papers of flirting, and the occasional phone number were exchanged. Chicken, while chaperoning the hallway, unfortunately received no mail.



Many happenings came about, which will be told in person or possibly later on this blog. On our way home, we had some good old turbulence.


We had a layover in Las Vegas, where the temperature was about 112 degrees. We chose to stay indoors during this time.

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