Day 1 (Sunday) - Gloversville, Here We Are!

Hey, my name is Stephen Fitch, and I am the youth blogger here on the trip. It will be my pleasure, privilege, and duty to write a blog post nightly to update you on our struggles, lessons, revelations, daily events, and maybe even comedic fun bits. I wish I could inform all of you on every event that occurs, but unfortunately, I will merely attempt to summarize the day's stories to the best of my ability.

After a somewhat tiring, yet funny, quick, yet enjoyable, and crammed, yet fun 13 hour van trip from Matthews, North Carolina to Gloversville, New York, we have arrived. Gloversville, here we come!

Tyler Lynn particularly enjoyed using the Walkie-Talkie device as a medium for comedy- Tisk Tisk Tyler. Tyler evened hollered over at Grant Harris' van, asking Peyton Holmquist to wake him up to tell him a joke about bean sauce. He told jokes (pshhh, when doesn't he) and Dyon Vega commented on how there were "trees on the left" (this was the truth the whole trip). Phillip Daniels, Aaron Cobb, Aaron Barber, others and I threw some frisbee at our early lunch at about 10:30.  The mountains, which we followed almost the whole way here, were very beautiful.  Once we reached about Virginia, we saw many farms and cows in our periphery, to which the guys made many cow jokes (Tyler mostly).  Aaron Cobb and I recited some lines from Crush, the "surfer-dude" sea turtle from "Finding Nemo." Kirk Denny jumped in front of a seemingly familiar van at a gas station stop with a big smile, just to recognize the silhouette of a full family with their dog (funny times).  Jeff Hall and I fondly reminisced about the Atlanta Mission senior high Mission Trip on our van ride.  I was very punctual this morning, pulling into the church parking lot 30 minutes after 5:00am due to an alarm clock issue. Quinn Holmquist retorted in our van, "I'm third into New York" as he stretched his foot out toward the driver's seat when we passed the border into New York. Steven Denny is excitingly checking out the antique books in the bookshelf next to this computer such as: The Scarlet Letter, and The Origin of Species. Our last stop before reaching Donn's Inlaws' house (Our host house) was Wendy's, where we met our beloved Donn Truax. Now, as I pick my brain to come up with this clunky summary (sorry!), over a score of eager and loving teammates swarm around me as I type this with food, supplies, fixing an air matress, and of course: Tyler Lynn playing piano and guitar in the other room.   

Our theme verse for this week is: "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27

We picked this verse because it shows God's desire for us to look after and love those in need. The crucial perspective shift we need to understand on this trip is that we, just like those we will attempt to seek out, are constantly in dire need of more love, peace, hope and comfort from Jesus Christ also.  We (or at least I) tend to have a connotation that need is material or hunger based, but we will learn that the most widespread and deep need is that of Love.  The Living God created all of us to have faith, worship, and desire a god.  The question on this trip for ourselves and others we meet is who are we worshipping, who is our God, and what is our faith based on.  As we all discover those answers, the Holy Spirit will teach us some of what it really means to "look after orphans and widows" and to "keep oneself from being polluted by the world." 

We would ask you to continue to pray for all of our personal relationships with Jesus Christ firstly, and that it will allow each of us to be of one communal mind to serve and learn from our community. Pray also for us to be Spirit Filled and to become one with Our Creator, and that He would move in our community and friends we meet here.

Team Gloversville, at Dark O'Clock AM Sunday Morning, Day 1