Sunday, July 12- Knoxville or Bust!

At approximately 7 am this morning 10 youth and 4 adult leaders  departed the JMPC parking lot towards the great state of Tennessee

Stephanie led us in a prayer with the students, leaders, and parents, and we loaded our Mercedes 15 passenger sprinter van and headed out with Steve at the helm towards Knoxville.

Our West Virginia total drive time rounded to a solid 3 hours after which we sailed on through Virginia and finally into Tennessee. The trip totaled to about 8 hours with 4-5 stops.

We hit a bit of a torrential downpour the last couple hours  of the trip, but at the end of it  enjoyed passing through the actual city of Knoxville, where we saw a large globe in a tower that we identified as the Sunsphere. It will be a cool city to explore and discover more about!

We arrived at the church that will be our home for the week  and were greeted warmly by the Next Steps Ministries team. They led us to our rooms, very typical Sunday school rooms, where we pumped  up our air mattresses and played some real life Tetris to squeeze in so everyone was comfortable. We are sharing the church spaces with a group from North Dakota and Wisconsin this week.

We learned our church will split into  2 groups this week to serve at KARM (Knoxville Area Rescue Mission) and Family Promise this week. Each organization assists with homelessness and emergency housing on the community. They informed us there are over 2,000 homeless people in the city of Knoxville. Each group will do hands on work serving at their ministry sites this week. More to come on their experiences as they unfolded.

We ended the night in the sanctuary with introductions of the staff, and worship led by the staff band. They encouraged the youth to run, jump, and sing loud in worship together.

Both  in the van and at the church , the youth have been engaged in playing games together from imposter, to various board games, a wild game of giant connect four, and ending in the classic Uno game. It has been a been a rainy night but all youth have stepped up to engage and be in community together.

God is  at work within our JMPC youth community here in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Please keep us all  in your prayers this week!

Violet

James

Gigi

Julia

Emma

Owen

Connall

Alex

Ella

Zachary

Steve

Stephanie

Megan

Caitlin

Foods & Drinks of the day - McDonald’s fries, Burgers, snack wraps, energy drinks, candy salad, Pulled Pork sandwiches and Mac n cheese.

Songs/Sounds- Country Roads, Rain, Snoring, laughter, Rattlin’ Bog, & Glorious Day

Challenges Met- MVP Steve once again driving  the 15 passenger beast through 4 states, the youth keeping  the van clean/cleaning up after themselves, finally making it to Knoxville after many months of anticipation, staying dry,  and  Building new relationships as a group.