Important Information

Trip Itinerary

Day 5
6-25-08

Another breakfast in the dorms worked out well. The youth can came down any time between 7:00 and 7:30 to eat.. that staggered the eating times and was good for all.

The bus loaded at 7:45. We arrived at downtown Norfolk around 8:15 and walked around the piers for a while. At 8:45 boarding of the American Rover Sailing Ship began…a really cool looking boat. On board and chugging out on the motor got us into the harbor and the work began. The students were able to help hoist all three sails. After we were under sail for a while we are split into two groups. One group learned how to tie different kinds of knots that are used on sail boats. The other group actually steered the boat and learned about all of the navigational electronics. I won’t go into detail here, but make sure you ask the students about it when you have a chance. We did go wind power only for a little while, but the wind would not cooperate, so ¾ of the trip was under diesel power. Still it was very peaceful on the boat and very relaxing. The groups got to switch after everyone had their turn. Then everyone went down into the galley where it was air conditioned and learned a little history about boat making.

We got off of the boat around 11:00. We then went to the Hampton Roads Naval Museum. One of the things you could do at the museum was actually board a battleship. There were several naval veterans onboard the ship that could give first hand stories about the battle ship and some of the battles they had experienced. We could only walk around the deck, because this battle ship could actually be re-commissioned at anytime it is needed. Pretty Cool!

When finished with that, the youth ate at the restaurants and/or food court in the mall that was on the water front. It seemed like Ben and Jerry’s was a pretty popular wrap up to lunch. Several students talked with a musician playing a steel drum and were even able to take a turn playing it.

Leaving at 1:00 we went back to meet Pastor Stacy. Today we stood at several intersections and handed out bottles of water to cars as they stopped for the traffic signals. Each bottle had a sticker on it with the Church information on it. Several folks remarked that they had received a door hanger about the church and said they were interested in visiting it. One woman even turned around and came back to get more information. Pastor Stacy told us again that even more visits have been made to the church web page. And they are also getting some phone calls. Amazing!

We worked until 5:00 and boarded the bus again. Dave had stopped and picked up some barbeque sandwiches and we headed to the beach. We arrived at Little Island beach and spread out the sandwiches and ate then went to the beach to play in the sand and water. Of course a couple of people went out on the fishing pier!

The beach closed at 8:30 so we headed back to the dorm. Arriving at 9:30 we had group devotion and a little free time and had lights out at 11:15 again!!

We are a little past the half way point in our trip and I think we are seeing lots of fruit of our labor. Praise be to God.