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Our last day in Texas! We spent the first half of the day doing service for a very nice woman named Phyllis. We did a full gut on her house, and she was super grateful and kind to us. Then, we had a quick lunch and headed to Galveston Island for a beach day! We had a great day laying in the sun and sand and splashing around in the water. Then we had a nice dinner at Fish Tales, and took our two-hour drive back. On the way there and back, we took the ferry and drove our car onto it which was a cool experience. We also took a wrong turn on our drive home and were telling ghost stories, which was a creepy way to end our last night here. Tomorrow we will be up early and out, heading to the airport and eventually returning home. Thanks for an amazing and inspiring week, Texas. Until next time.

#gif #Texas #ASB #alternative spring break #Galveston #Beaumont #photos #drexel

Day 4 of service, our last full day! Tomorrow we do a half day of service and head into Galveston for the second part of the day for our free time. Today was our last day with Sheri and Micah on our compassion project, tomorrow we will be reassigned. We had a really productive as well as fun day. We cleared the last room of the house and boxed all of Sheri’s belongings, our goal from the beginning. There is a before and after of the last room, her bedroom, where you couldn’t walk into it or see the floor, and an after where we could all stand comfortable and dance and sing in her room above. At lunchtime, she took us over to Juju’s, her favorite crawfish place! (Today Rachel and I became pescatarians instead of strictly vegetarians, it was a big step for us. Nothing I would have rather transitioned with than some good ol’ Texas crawfish!) We had so much fun with Sheri and taking her out was a good move- she had so much fun and was in great spirits after getting away for a bit. Then we came back and cleaned up, transported a lot of her stuff to her store where she stores her belongings, and wrapped up our loose ends. It was very tough to say goodbye to this project, and more importantly Sheri today. It was incredibly emotional and you could blatantly see the change and impact we had on Sheri as well as the impact she had on us. During our farewell, she told us “with the other groups I cried for my son, because he was loosing people out of his life. But this time it’s different, I’m crying for me. It’s selfish but I’m crying for myself.” We grew very attached to this project and hope to be able to raise money with bake sales or go fund me pages in the future, and are already planning our return visit to see our lovely Texas family.

#day 4 #Texas #Beaumont #photos #journal #crawfish #pescatarian #farewell #operation blessing #alternative spring break #ASB

Day three! We had a very productive morning with Sheri and moved a lot of her stuff to her storage place. There was a tornado warning in effect so we were all a bit nervous driving around and working. Tomorrow is our last full day of work with Sheri, which is going to be really bittersweet. We had an early dinner because church service was commencing and spent the night bonding as a group and playing a bunch of games and watching the Demi Lovato documentary. On to tomorrow!

#day three #operation blessing #photos #gif #moving #Demi Lovato #game night #one more day

Day two of working with our compassion project was really inspiring and successful! We made a lot of emotional progress with our family and packed up everything we wanted to pack up today. We also had some playtime and loving with Sheri’s two pups, Dane and Pimp. After we finished working for the day, we came back for dinner and they finally had a vegetarian option for us! Then, after we reflected on our days, we headed over to the South Texas State Fair! Even though it rained, we had tons of fun walking around and seeing all the rides and animals, and we ate all kinds of exciting Texas-esque food! We had tornado potatoes, jalapeño nachos, fried cannoli, fried cinnamon buns, fried cookie dough, churros, and some people even had gator on a stick. We had a really great time working and hanging out as a group.

#day 2 #Texas #Beaumont #hurricane harvey #disaster relief #ASB #alternative spring break #compassion project

First full day in Texas was a success! Our group of 5 volunteers took on a compassion project, working with a woman and her 10-year old son on life support. Sheri and Micah are currently living in a trailer on their front lawn while their house is full of damage and all their belongings are hoarded in there. We worked with them all day to organize and pack up their belongings as well as removing trash. We will be staying with this compassion project this whole week, and we are excited to make progress with this family and make a difference. When we got back to the church, we took our showers, had dinner, and sat together and played games and got to know each other before having a reflection. Yesterday was a full travel day! Really looking forward to the rest of this week!

#ASB #alternative spring break #Beaumont Texas #disaster Relief #day 1 #photos #journal #e-journal