Mission Trips and Dancing On Sunday evening, I was supposed to fly to Lexington, Kentucky. However, the flight oversold, and we had no back up plan for how I was going to get to Mission Trip. Then my mom quickly searched flights, and we decided we would fly to Atlanta, and drive overnight in order to get me there in time. So we ran from the American terminal across the airport to the Delta terminal, scheduled a rental car, and prayed everything would work out. Luckily, it did. We got first class to Atlanta, and hopped in a cute little Ford C-Max, and drove 7 hours to Chavies, Kentucky. We arrived at 7 A.M. in Chavies, Kentucky. But as we neared our final destination, we got lost. We drove to a near by gas station and asked or help, but they didn’t know where we were talking about. Finally, we got a hold of my youth …show more content…
minister, and he came down to the bottom of the hill, and led us to where we were staying. After a crazy 12 hours, I arrived at the Appalachian Service Project Center, and was greeted my all of my friends with hue smiles and hugs, which made all of the chaos worth it. I ran upstairs, found my bunk, put on my work clothes, packed a lunch, and was ready to go! And off we went to the work site. Here we met the homeowner, Mrs. Lillie, and assessed what we had to do. Our mission for the next three days was to replace the flooring in the dining room, put in a door, and build a platform and ramp off of the door. So off to work we went. The boys tackled the door, and the girls started with the floor. We measured, cut, and laid down the whole sub floor! I got to use a circular saw for the first time, and luckily did not injure myself in any way. While we did that, the boys succeeded in cutting out a hole for the door, and somehow managing to fit the 83 inch door into a 82 inch hole! After we left the work site, we headed back to the ASP Center for some free time, dinner, and worship. The next morning, we were up at 7 to start again! After a delicious breakfast of pancakes and sausage, we headed back out to Mrs. Lillie’s. But instead of going to work on the floor, I decided that I wanted to help build the platform. I spent about an hour digging a 12x12x24 post hole, and let me tell you, it is a lot harder then it sounds. After me and the boys dug a total of four holes, it was time to put in the posts and secure the frame for the platform. It was a challenge to keep all four post straight up will trying to screw in the frame, but we succeeded, and the broke for lunch. All the while, the rest of the group was beginning to lay down the tile in the dining room. After lunch, I went back to the platform. We put in joists, then laid down the decking, and voila, we had a platform. It was so rewarding to see it finished after so much work! Shortly after, the tile group reached a half way point, and we headed back for another evening of free time, dinner, and worship. Wednesday consisted of the same routine. Once we arrived at the site, the tile group went to work on the rest of the room, and we headed towards the deck. But then we ran into a problem, Mrs. Lillie didn’t like the way we were going to do the ramp, so we waited for the ASP worker to come out and help us. It turned out we didn’t have the materials or the time to do it the way she wanted, so we left the ramp for the next crew. Then, my friend Jordan and I decided to fix up the bedroom where we put in the door. We put up dry wall, and even some nice trim. Then we went and put up drywall int he dining room. However, this one proved to be more of a challenge. Jordan is not the most gentle guy, and he ended up breaking the dry wall if half. Because I am a perfectionist, this made me very stressed. After another mishap, I told him thatI would finish the drywall and he could go help outside. In the end it all workout well! The drywall was up, the platform was built, and the tile was done. We had completed our mission, and we couldn’t have been happier. We cleaned the house, packed up our things, and again headed back to the ASP center for a night filled with free time, dinner, and worship. Thursday marked our last day in Chavies.
We got up early, had breakfast, packed up all of our things, and cleaned the whole center. Then we headed out to the site for the last time to say goodbye to our homeowner and give them a bible, in which we all marked our favorite verses. After this, we headed back to the center, loaded up our bags on the buses, and headed back for Flower Mound. 18 hours later, we arrived in Flower Mound at 7 A.M. Friday morning, and that marked the end of my mission trip. This experience is truly one that I cherish so much, and this week is one of my fondest memories every year. Not only because I learn construction skills and get to share the gospel, but because I learn lessons that apply to my everyday life, including my dancing. One of these lessons is work-ethic. Throughout the week, I have to push through each task, not moving on until I finish. This principle applies to my dancing, because day in and day out, I have to continue to push my technique in order to advance. This work-ethic is very important because it shows my teachers and choreographers that I am willing to work for what I want, or what they
want. Another similar lesson I learned is working with people you don’t necessarily like, or get along with. This year, I got lucky and ended up with a small group whose company I enjoyed. However, in past years, I have had people in my group that tend to push my buttons. I had to learn how to work with them to get the task done, despite how I felt about them personally. This is also a lesson I can apply to my dancing. There are many instances in the dance world where you will have to work with people you don’t necessarily get along with, or you will lose your job. Overall, this experience has taught me so many lessons that can apply to all aspects of my life, and I cannot wait to return to Chavies next year to serve another family.
For example, dressing appropriately in public knowing that certain things we wear attract sexual attention. This shows that the lesson of sexual attention being dangerous can be applied to our lives. Sexual attention is dangerous, especially for teens and little kids, and it is this lesson that will save them from being sexually assaulted. In addition, to keep studying in college/school even if you feel like you do not belong. This shows how the lesson of to keep keeping could be applied to our lives. There has been studies that college freshmen drop out of college because they feel like they do not belong there, but with this lesson and a little perseverance the college freshmen would be on their way to reach their goals. Also, for example, to not take first impressions for granted or to not judge a book by its cover. This shows how to apply the lesson of not everything you see is what you expect. Whenever someone new is introduced into your life, you always make a first impression of them, no doubt about it. Whether it be a good impression or bad impression, there is always something stopping you from talking to them or getting to know them because of one silly assumption we made, but who's to say that assumption is correct? With this lesson we would still make our silly assumptions about this person, but knowing this
After the two groups went back and fourth for a couple of hours it was finally time to say goodbye. The dallas council did the famous grito en honor of Mexico's idependence hitting the bell 3 times to announce our independence. It was an amazing experience to be able to be part of such
My youth pastor pulled out of our church parking lot at three am in the morning loaded down with a bus full of twenty four teenagers including me. We were off at last head to Colorado Spring Colorado, little did I know, our bus was going to fall apart this very day.
Once I woke up I called Alavee to make sure he was awake. I'm glad he was because he saved me some time by calling Priya and Rigo to make sure they were getting ready to go. About an hour and a half later we all met up in the school parking lot at about the same time. The exception was Priya who had to take extra time to bring the camper which we hardly used in the end, but it was still better than trying to cram into one car to sleep. Anthony brought his new jeep so we thought it would be a good idea to hook the pop-up camper to the jeep and take the jeep on our journey. Now that we were ready and had double-checked everything, we were ready to begin our journey. First, we were well stocked with food and gas we were underway for our trip. We headed toward the interstate, and turned left on I-90 west.
As the day started to dwindle down, we got annoyed with all the little kids running around and trying to outrun each other and parents yelling at them, we thought we would call it a day. Before we would go back to the hotel we decided to expand our looking of the city and take in all the sights and smells of Tennessee. We thought we would go above and beyond of what we did a couple days ago and we got to see much more and also some very charming houses. My father asked my sister and I some questions on the way
we got there put on my boots and got the soccer ball out. We kept on playing for hours
I did not want to leave. I had been here for ten days and I had established relationships and friendships with people from everywhere and all sorts of backgrounds. We all sat in the car preparing to leave. Every single one of us, my parents, brother and me, sitting in silence. Wanting to cry, waiting for someone to say the first word. Each of us had learned something that trip. For me, this experience had taught me what gratefulness was, the impact a good attitude has, what a servant looks like, and really how the relationships we make with our life is the most important aspect about life.
Dance has been apart of my life since I was three. Being a military brat I was never around long enough to establish roots especially in the dance community. Once I turned 10 we moved to Clarksville tennessee for the second time and decided that I would get to stay until I graduated. Meaning I also got to find a dance studio and be on a competition team. Everything starts with an audition.
We then turned off the driveway, making sure to roll down our windows, so we can breathe the fresh mountain air, at least until the next time we come back, and once again start the bumpy road home.
I had my first dance recital on the day I turned four. Now I don’t remember anything from that day, but I believe that that day is when I learned I loved to perform. I’ve been taking dance lessons since then, and many things that I do now involve performing in some type of way.
I guess I should start at the very beginning which would be getting up at 6:45 in order to make lunches for the students going on the trip. I had agreed to help Brenda make sandwiches, but neither of us got the key for the dining hall so we had to break into the dining hall with a clothes hanger, we are now professional picks locks because we finally got it open on the 30th try. At any rate we had fun making bagged lunches and pick on each other in the process. Then all the mission students piled into the vehicles to ride to New Tribes Mission, I always thoroughly enjoy the rides on these trips because we frequently have some lively discussions and this trip was no exception. Upon arriving at New Tribes the only thing on the outside property
As I started falling to the ground during my bad leg side leap, I remembered what my sister had told me when we first learned our dance.
I swung my hips to the front of the stage with as much sass and energy that I could give and started to turn on the highest releve that I could bare, but as soon as I transfered all of my weight turning on my toes, I felt the sharpest pain running up and down through my body almost making me pass out, but I wasn’t giving up that easy. I’m not sure how I kept the smile on my face and body still perfectly balanced. But I did. Almost like someone else was dancing for me.
We were going to leave around 12:00 p.m and get there around 10:00 p.m. After all the days of waiting we were locking up the house and getting into the car. I had a bag of stuff to do to keep me busy in the car. We got on the road around 1:00 p.m. and started our 10 hour journey. We were into the drive about two hours and the dog was sleeping and was surprisingly was a great traveler. I knew i still had a long drive left so I tried not to think of that but to think about what a good time I would have. It was 5:00 p.m and we were all getting hungry and decided to go to Taco Bell to get some food to keep us filled up for the rest of the way. We hit the road again for around five or six more hours. Around 8:00 p.m I woke up from a nap I had and I realized that there was only two more hours
Early Saturday morning, we drive half way to meet my coach out in Ashland. We meet up at a gas station were we had got food and drinks to hold us over until we got to Penn