Thursday and Friday

Hey everyone,
This is Ashley Klaasen. Yesterday (Thursday) was our last work day at each of our sites. We left at normal times for the most part and had a community cookout for dinner. A few of the families we served came to eat hotdogs with us. The weather was great and it was a nice time to hang out with the group. After that we went back to the housing site and took showers and hung out until worship time. Worship time was quite different last night and it was my favorite one. We still shared things that we were thankful for that day (yay God's) and we sang too. Then we went out to the parking lot and split up into our work site groups (crews). We each had a chance to wash another's feet and pray for the one getting washed. This was a really good experience because it was so cool to hear what your crew liked about each member. You could pray for whoever you wanted to and while someone was getting their feet washed, almost everyone put their hands on their shoulders. It made me feel loved and appreciated. After that, we came back inside and sung a few more songs. While we were singing, people put their arms around each other and eventually we formed a circle of everyone, with their arms around each other, swaying back and forth and singing. It was really cool to see the transformation from everyone being separated by church to everyone all mixed up right next to each other. The worship service ended around 10:20 so we only had 40 minutes of free time before lights out.
Today (Friday) we got an extra hour of sleep! They woke us up at 8:00 and we got ready like normal but instead of going to our work sites, we headed off to the beach. Some of us swam in the water (I was one of them) and even though it was really cold we were glad it was warmer than Lake Michigan. We had quite a bit of time to just hang out at the beach so in addition to swimming we sat on the sand, walked around, and played nuk'em. We ate pizza for lunch and shortly after that it was time to leave (1:00). We got back in the vans and headed off to a place where we played some games. I think some people were supposed to come and join us from the community but only two community members came. It was still fun. We left at 3:00 and came back to the housing site to take showers and tonight we're having a community worship night and preparing to leave.
Most of us are really excited for our day at Cedar Point tomorrow and we love and miss you all. Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers. We will see you all on Sunday (and some of you on Saturday)!