Wednesday, June 18 - “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.” Matthew 20: 16

Hey, it’s Olivia Smith and Austin Dickson. Today we did a variaty of different projects, from dry-walling to packing bags for the food pantry and we got to hear about the life of migrant and seasonal farmworkers. The first activity that we did in the morning was Sister Sarah, a physician’s assistant, came and talked to us about the conditions that farmworkers have to deal with and about how little they get payed for a lot of work. Sister Sarah told us that for a bucket of twenty pounds of tomatoes, the farmworkers would get payed less than fifty cents. If you were working in the food pantry you got to place cans of food such as pears, dried cherries, raisins, juice concentrate, carrots, vegetable soup, and salmon. After a few minutes of confusion, we figured out that the best way to make sure that every bag got the necessary foods was to create an assembly line and pass the bags down a table. While we were working in the food pantry we got to meet three kids that helped us double bag the grocery bags and lift the full bags onto the carts. After a few hours of placing cans into bags, we finished with the bags and filled the entire room and all the racks with bags full of food that were ready to be handed out at the next food bank. If you helped out with the dry-walling today, you helped finish it! We were able to get up the last boards of dry-wall and plaster the places that needed plastering. Hopefully tomorrow we can paint the rooms. After we got done, we helped out with other necessities that needed to be done. In our free-time in the afternoon, Austin, Dylan, Hank, Jeff, and Luis, a boy that we met in the food pantry, played a three-on-two basketball game that the adults, Hank and Jeff, won. Other people played card games during our free-time. Today we experienced a lot of different types of food. In the morning the cook, Maria, prepared pancakes for us. At lunch we had tostadas that had refried beans, rice, chicken, and lettuce on them. For dinner our cooking team prepared grilled cheese. We wrapped up our day with devotions where we talked about how God’s grace extends to everyone and how He treats everyone equally. After devotions we played a fun game of balderdash. Today is our last night at Beth-El. Tomorrow we will work a half day and then leave here after lunch. We will spend the afternoon at a beach in nearby Clearwater, and then crash on the floor of a local church. Friday we’ll be up early for our drive back to Roanoke!