Painting, Building, Teaching, Driving and Painting

We awoke to a few showers in the morning, but for the most part it ended up being another beautiful sunny day in Aurora. Once again we were spread out throughout the town doing a variety of service activities. Volunteers went back to St. Rita's to work, but because of the moist weather they couldn't continue to glaze the windows, so instead they painted meticulously around the stained glass wall of windows on the outside of the chapel. They also painted a bit inside of the rectory. They highlight of the day though was not the work, but sitting and talking to a couple of the parishioners about their life stories.

Volunteers also went back to Hesed House, but this time there was painting to be done in two offices and assembling a crib for one of the families in the transitional housing unit. In the afternoon two of volunteers drove a HH client to a dental appointment a couple of towns over. The dental clinic provides dental services free of charge to many HH clients, a wonderful and much needed service.

The new activity for the day was sending a couple of volunteers to help with ESL classes that are being provided to refugees by World Relief. World Relief's goal is "to empower the local Church to serve the most vulnerable, and to see refugees, immigrants and members of their communities become fully-functioning, integrated participants in society." There were many nationalities represented in the two classes that the volunteers helped with, all eager to learn the language of their new home.

After a few obstacles, like not checking to see if there was propane for the grill ahead of time and having to go pick some up, we had a bit of a great meal: bratwurst, macaroni salad, green salad and potato chips. We really felt like we were eeking out the last bits of summer with this meal.

We had another wonderful reflection to wrap up the night. Tonight's reflection focused on the idea of seeing something or being made aware a something for the first time. We shared something from our day that we learned that really turned things up on end for us and opened our eyes in a new way.

Dan showing off taking a picture with a really old camera