Thursday

I’m glad this week has been going by slowly. we have been having such a wonderful time serving people in the community, serving each other and bonding with the other two youth groups.
Our morning started after breakfast with a bang, we all worked together and set up for the produce give away for the community. The room was filled to capacity with produce, and bread. The teens set up tables and separated it all out. It looked like a Costco in the the fellowship hall. The church gets produce that it is taken off the shelves from grocery stores and other places . then it’s delivered to the church, then the church opens it’s doors, after each person registera,the people can come in and get produced for their families.
Then two groups stayed to help hand out tthe food, carry boxes for people and to clean up. Other groups went to My Brothers Keeper, to the local nursing home and my group went to the Samaritan Woman. This place is a safe haven for women who have come out of sex trafficking. The property is 23 acres and it has a working farm on it where the women learn how to grow food. The food is then harvested by them and used in their kitchen, where the women can be trained for the culinary arts. The women go through a 2yr program with the goal of rest abolishing them back into society. This is a faith based organization that has only been around for a few years but is doing amazing things for these women. For some of our teens it was the first time to hear about sex trafficking and how it happens, how girls are pulled into it and what happens to these women. It’s sad that things like is happen to young girls between the ages of 11-14. I would encourage you to look around on their website to learn more about what they do. We have an organization in Bridgewater, NJ that just started a couple of years ago that it striving to do similar things for women of NJ that are trying to come out of sex trafficking, Love-true.
Yesterday afternoon, we did service projects to bless the community and the church. A couple groups went a few blocks up the road to pick up trash and other groups stayed at the chutch and cleaned. The groups that went out into the community to pick up trash were not greeted very kindly. One of the groups was being cussed at, yelled at, and basically harassed by the men that were hanging around outside. The group that staxed at church cleaned bathrooms, swept, mopped and cleaned wherever the church needed it. Plus one group cleaned up outside the church as well.
At the end of each night we have a debriefing time to talk about the days events and happenings. We also have a time where we affirm each other and encourage one another. These are awesome times! Listening to kids affirm each other is such a great thing to have teens practice to do. We have been having all of gropus meet together for these times and it has been a great blessing to me and to the teens. This group of teens from Ohio, Staten Island, and our NJ kids have bonded so well together that we arent three separate groups but we are ONE group united in Christ to serve God and the community.


~ Eric Couch