Thursday-our last work day

Zeke working hard in the sun

Enjoying our meal with the Orlando team at Versaille

Today was our last day of work. My group went to Neat Stuff. It's a store that gives brand new clothing to foster children that need it. Other stores and companies donate their extra clothes to Neat Stuff. When we first got there we took clothes off hangers and folded them. The pile looked like it would have taken us forever, but it really diddn't take that long. We had to fold them a certain way. If we didn't, we were showed the correct way to fold it. Over and over! After we finished that we had to pack backpacks with school clothes. We had to put 3 shirts and 2 pants in the backpacks. 800 kids come to Neat Stuff and get clothes and backpacks for school completely free. It was really hectic trying to put all those backpacks together. Renee (our group leader) went and got her and I coffee. After that I was so ready to get all of those backpacks ready. Later all of us worked on backpacks. Then we took our lunch break and stopped at the coffee shop and got more coffee! When we came back had to get pants ready and hang them up. It took us while to get them all ready because they had to be folded just right. After that we came back to the church. We have somethinng special every night we are here. Tonight we are going to an all praise worship service that is geared for young people. I was really glad today was our last day of work, but I know i'm really going to miss this place and all the other places we went. What I'm going to miss the most of all is seeing the look on the peoples faces when they know that we are helping them.

-Sammie Cragun

It's finally thursday!!!!! But before our last day of work, we had a free night last night. That basically means that instead of staying at the church for the night, we went out. For dinner, we abandoned our normal "american" food and went to a ery nice cuban resturuant called Versaille. It was a little different but i think we all enjoyed the change. After that, we did a little shopping cause it was late. Now, for our last day working for the community, me and some of the boys went to a school in downtown miami. This was called the Yvonne learning center an this was for pre-school and kindergarden kids who were on the verge or they had basically nothing. All we did was mulch flower beds and pulled weeds. All day long... It wasnt my favorite but it looked good when we were done. It went by fast cause everyone was cooperating and we got done eary!!!!!!

~Katie Cragun^^

Wednesday-Our time here is half over

Cleaning the floors at Missionaries of Charity

Cameron Looking ready to serve

This is wedsnday, well you should know that by now. Also, this is my first missions trip. My name is Cameron Yeakle writing my first blog(woohoo)! I am going to tell you what has happend today. First, we did the usual travel to the site. After that, we arrived to our destination. The place was called Missionaries of Charity, which was first started by Mother Teresa. The people here serve lunch there day after day for the homless. Our job today was to cut up the ingredients to make todays lunch. After we accompolished that(which took a while), the workers had us serve the food to the the 300 or so people there. For a minute, I thought that it was going to be crazy. But, as always, I was wrong. Everybody was kind(well, most of them) and enjoyed it, I suppose they do everyday. I cleaned the dishes and served the people there. Thankfully, the people in my group were there to help me(and the people already working there as well). I am still ready what the next day brings me and ready to do anything. Well that is about it for todays blog. I hope you enjoyed wish us luck for our last two days here at DOOR. See you Sunday. Bye.

-Cameron Yeakle

Tuesday-Serving in new places

Waiting on the train at the station

Miami HEAT Arena view from the train

Working in the thrift store at Miami Rescue Mission

More work at rescue mission

what we did today was, we traveled to a place called Cph#1. What that stands for is Community Partnership for the Homless 1st location. The place is for families that need help services, shelter, day care, and offer classes and jobs. what i helped them do there is clean there property. Tye Lance and me went outside to sweep and pick up all trash from the sidewalks, bushes and and everywhere else on the two block property. The two girls in our group got to watch kids that were in daycare. There were 39 kids from 3-15 yrs old and one teacher. the room that the day care was in had air condition and was really loud. That is what we pretty much did for the day.

-Matt Bernaix

The morning started early for our group. We fixed breakfast this morning for everyone. The menu was Pancakes and cereal. Katie slightly over slept and she was a little late getting to breakfast but it was ok. Our group went to the Miami Rescue Mission today and helped out. We met Cheryl. She ran the Bargin Barn part of the mission. We sorted clothes and hangers and helped arrange the store. The Bargin Barn is kind of like the Helping Hand in Upland. After that we went and ate lunch at the mission with the residents there. The food was actually really good, or at least I thhought so. We went on tour of the Mission with one of the residents, Billy, he had been there for 5 months and was entering the upper part of the program. He was a really cool guy. The Mission consists of 4 main buildings. A cafeteria with living quarters, a clothing warehouse which contains the Bargin barn, a community sheter with a basketball court and tv's and games, and a Medical Clinic for the residents. Everything the Mission has is completly donated. The work we did today was not hard but we still got a lot from the experience. It was really an amazing exerience to see what all people can do just through donations and people's support.

-Brad Banter

-Brad Banter

Monday- time to get our hands dirty

Tye, Brad, Matt hanging out in front of church

SWAT gathering for or evening devotional

Tammy and Lance cleaning up after lunch at Chamillus House

Before this blog gets underway i will explane to the best of my abbillities on how D.O.O.R opperates. On the day of ariaval our SWAT was seperated into two teams. The people in team #1 are Tye, Lance, Matt, Sammie, and Tammy. The people in team #2 are Zeke, Katie, Brady, Brad, Cameron, and Zach. With two teams we will have a smaller group so that we could have a better experience individually. I was with Team two. We went to the Easter Seals nursing home. Once our group got there we found out that we would be doing something that we werent going to do in the first place but we were ok with that. Our group went around the entire comlplex picking up garbage, sticks and leaves and prepping an area to be painted. We got to Easter Seals around 9:30 and rode the city bus back and forth, which isnt terrible

-Brady Bosely

Today was the first day we were able to interact with people. My team, team 1 went to a homless/drug rehabilitation center called Chamillus house. We road an above ground subway thing to and from the shelter, that was pretty cool. When we got to the shelter there were homless people sitting on benches before you get to the kitchen. They were all nice and saying hello and everything, but it was just different. When we got to the kitchen they immediately put us to work. We washed tables, cut 6 boxes of canlope and cut a ton of government meat, put the desserts and drinks out and got things ready for when they served lunch. The first group that we served was only homless people. The second group lived at the shelter and were in a drug rehab program. Lance and Matt served drinks, and Tammy and I passed out desserts. For the first group the workers there told Tammy and I to just hand them the food that was in our hand. They said they are not allowed to pick what they want. They said that they will get mad, but just stand your ground. I looked at Tye like "What are you making me do?!" It went ok for the most part. Tammy held the tray and I gave them their food. Some of them kept pushing for what they wanted, but I stood my ground. I was even cursed at by one man. It made me a little angry. Not because he was cursing at me but because, the people at the shelter were giving them food. they didnt' have too but they were, and that man was mad because he got a cookie instead of a cupcake. Other than that, all of the people were really nice. We got to know a couple of them. Over all, today was a really good experience .

-Sammie Cragun

Sunday-we FINALLY made it

Anole lizard on tree at church

Brady, Matt, Lance, and Zach approaching front door

At Bass Pro Shop just killing time before check-in

Sweating in the morning HEAT of Miami

didn't get much sleep last night, but we got to the beach early Sunday morning. we were going to go to one of the Miami beaches but we decided to go to Fort Lauderdale. It had a very nice calm beach. we had a great time at the beach, especially when we tried to see who would go out the farthest. After we went to the beach, we stopped at the Outdoor world. We ate at Mcdonalds then we went to the church.

-Lance Hoch

We arrived at the church today at 4:45 it is a nice church. we settled into to our room one for guys one for girls. there are 18 guys in one small room. altogether there are 35 people here counting DOOR leaders. we met the other church groups they are really cool people and funny. our DOOR leaders are nice people to. we played some games, learned rules, did skits, settled down then went to bed.

-Zack Handshoe

Saturday:Driving Day

Sorry the blog didn't start until today, had issues using McDonald's WiFi due to system errors at McD's.

So being in a van for 24 hours with 10 other people doesn't sound very fun but i asure you that we made the best of it. We cranked up the radio and rocked out to some good music, some songs that Tye knew very well and like he would sing and simi dance to and that was very fun to watch. We also played some stupid but fun games to pass the time. And the only other thing we could do was sleep witch we did some of but most of us were up all night but i guess the importent thing is we didn't kill each other.

-Tammy Morris

Already Friday-man its gone fast

Zeke was invited to participate in a dance
Tye and Brady try their hand at a traditional blowgun

Chief Benson and the new Choctaw princess

Choctaw royal court

Josh Gracin

Ceremonial dancer and his young son

Having a ball at the Clay Walker show

Another exciting game of stickball

Well this was a very exciting week I guess. Lots of eventful things seemed to keep happening. Out of all the days I guess today, Friday, may have been the most exciting. Over all it was a great week and the expectations of our group was surpassed I think. Well Saturday was the most uneventful day of all. The drive up was super boring but I did finish my star wars book. It made meh happy. Then we watch fireworks which compared to ours was an explosion of super awesomeness and made marions display look like a bottle rocket that took way too long to light and when it finally did…it turned out to be a dud. Yeah, it was that good. Sunday was a better day because we got to attend two different churches and we also got to pick our own hymns. It was very nice and I liked the way the churches were. They seemed simple and very relaxing to be in. Sunday night was when all the shenanigans begun. Shenanigan # 1 was “Duct Tape”. Brady sometimes likes to be an escape artist. He thought it would be simple to get out of his duct tape rapped hands. But as he was twisting to separate the hands that been duct taped behind him, a sudden spinning motion was forced upon him as he helplessly was rolled up in duct tape trapping his arms to his body. As the spinning stopped he was slammed against the wall where his mouth was covered by duct tape as well as his eyes leaving him speechless and blind. He could feel as others picked him off the floor to stick him in a more open area where they could push him around to confuse and dizzy him before finally rapping u his feet and leaving him helpless on the ground with no hope of escape. This was the duct tapping of Brady. Shenanigan # 2 was much simpler and done on the same night. A sleeping bag was hung off the second bunk in a way that a person in the fetal position could be stuffed inside. Volunteering for this stunt was Brady. After a couple minutes of struggle he was finally inside and moments later there was a rip as he fell out of the bag as the zipper failed to keep the bag intact. This concluded the second night at the camp.
Monday was the official start of our working projects. Dumpsters were demolished and new ones began to appear. As the day went on we work until about the time that the Choctaw Indian princess contest began. We witnessed the showing of talents in which some were good and others were way off key. After the contest was all done with we went back to the dorm where shenanigan # 3 and 4 began. # 3 was a failing gravity test in which Brady plummeted from the second bunk onto a pool floaty on the floor. # 4 was a lot more fun though. It was a game that we made up which consisted of dodge ball like rules, a plastic hospital pillow, and two beds. The goal was to use the pillow to knock your foes off the bed with blunt force. If that wasn’t possible then just hitting them with it sufficed. Feet were also to be locked in place and if you moved them you were out. Bradley took the worst fall as an unexpected pillow slammed into his body. The force of the pillow made him stumble backwards where he slammed into a wall. As he hit the wall he then lost his balance which caused him to hit the bed and then smash into the floor with a thump. It was hilarious. It almost looked slow mo and it also almost didn’t cause him any pain. What a fun night.
Tuesday we visited an Indian burial mound, a stickball game, and Bradley’s’ unaware affection. In the van he fell asleep and his head slowly weebled and wobbled until finding a resting place on the shoulder of another. It didn’t last long because our laughing woke him up. Luckily I got some videos so it was all good. Sadly to say there were no shenanigans.
Wednesday was the day we first visited the Indian fair. We got to see the museum and all the amazing doo dads they had inside. Baskets clothing and even the steps to make the tools necessary to play stick ball were in there. It would have been a perfect day but during lunch, many of us decided to eat some spices in a cabinet we had found. They were spicy spices. The beginning taste wasn’t bad but as it was swallowed, an intense burning sensation hit you and peaked to pain. It was bad enough that water couldn’t dowse the burning acid like sensation. This was shenanigan # 5. # 6 was a total fail do to unexpected circumstances. We had found out early in the day that a boy and his mother would be staying in the dorms with us. I came up with the brilliant idea to create a plan that would scare him for our amusement. The plan was simple and would have worked to. Everyone was going to sit up in bed and scream as if they had a sleeping disorder just like the guy in bedtime stories (if you have ever seen the movie you probably know what I’m talking about). It would have been affective because of the threat that we laid down in which any man who did not scream would get kidney shots by everyone who did participate. The plan went totally wrong when their car pulled up and an older gentleman who looked like the boy’s father came out. We decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to scare the father as well so the plan was aborted. The next day we found out that the man was not his father and I still regret not trying to scare the kid.
Thursday we finished our second project which was placing two doors in rooms to make them more accessible. Everything else is kinda hazy. I don’t remember mush of that day but I’m sure something exciting happened. We did go out to eat at a restaurant in which the food was very good.
Friday was a glorious day. It started out with a day of sleeping in followed by a breakfast that I cooked almost completely myself with the help of the others who poured batter or mixed it up for me while I flipped and cooked the fabulous meal of pancakes and French toast. After that we went to the pawn shops in search for stickball equipment and we did find them. We then went to the fair and watched the different Indian dances. It was very cool and I got to participate in one of them. Tye and Brady had the privilege of shooting blow dart at targets which is also pretty cool. I got to see a creepy robot today also. I spent most of my time hiding and would rather not talk about it. After the fair I had the chance to pay with my stickball equipment and the game is much harder than it looks to be. After that we ate lunch where shenanigan # 7 began. Brady and Matt were both given the chance to win twenty dollars. This would have been achieved by the consumption of one full gallon of water and ten laps around the outside of the gym. Matt and Brady both completed half their gallons and the ten laps. Matt didn’t get much further but Brady Came very close to finishing but sadly lost when his stomach refused to hold anymore more water and decided to spew it all over the ground outside. Yes it was hilarious and totally his fault. After that, Me, Sammie, Bradley and Tye went to watch Josh Gracin and Clay Walker play live at the Choctaw Indian fair. For as lame as I think country can be, this concert was surprisingly awesome. I enjoyed it eminsely and can’t wait to see another live concert. Hopefully that will be sooner than later. After that we watched the stickball semi-final game. It was much more brutal than the previous ones we watched. I even believe that someone may have dislocated or even broken their arm. It wasn’t the prettiest sight to see since the arm kinda dangled as if it wasn’t usable by the owner. That was the end of my very long day getting me to bed about 1:00 to 1:30. Today was very exhausting but oh so very fun. This was pretty much a recap and if you read all this I thank you. We may see you soon. After all we leave tomorrow after playing at their water park.

-Zeke Brewer