Our day officially began with breakfast and devotions led by David's family group. They shared about unity and being one body in Christ.
We sang "Pass it On" and when we got to the point in the song where we sang "we'll shout it from the mountain tops, Praise God!" and David made sure that we stopped long enough to hear the echo of our praises to God ringing through in the distance.
After the devotions, we were about to begin a game when our final youth arrived. Everyone was really excited to see Rosemary join the group and she definitely met her hug quota for the day. We took the opportunity to take a group picture now that we were all together!
After getting together in a circle we had a group prayer where we said thank you and "goodbye" to our Voices Coordinator, Rachel Hundley. She will not be traveling with us to Mississippi but will join up with us again for some of the Virginia tour. We also said hello to our bus driver for the third year in a row, Ed Richards, and headed off to Georgia.
On the bus we watched a couple of films and played a group bonding game where we would switch seats and get to know the rest of the youth on the trip like choosing between two items (i.e. Pepsi or Coke) or other questions.
We occasionally stopped for restroom and lunch breaks and overall the time flew as we enjoyed the fellowship of our new friends. While en route to Georgia, some phone calls were made and we soon realized that we would not be able to go to the planned laser/ firework show at Stone Mountain due to the park filling up at 4 p.m. So we had to change our plans and be flexible! It turns out that would not be our only challenge of the day. The hotel we were supposed to stay in did not have proper bus access and parking. At first we thought about working around it but after a while, we decided not to take the risky measures needed to stay there (Driving over the curb or leaving the bus overnight in the mall parking lot).
In order to keep us somewhat on track, we decided to eat dinner at the nearby Applebees while Jordan tried to rearrange the hotel accommodations. After a few tries, we were able to book rooms in Stockbridge, GA (just 18 miles south). We sang our blessing, which was quite an experience and in it self was a way to share our faith with others. We had a great meal and we were also lucky enough to have one of the best waitresses in Georgia! Most servers would hate having a bus load of people come in but Helena did a fantastic job and was extremely nice in the process. All of our waiters were very friendly and were able to accommodate us all. After dinner, we headed to our Comfort Inn in Stockbridge, GA. It wasn't too far and there is where we met a very amicable concierge who assisted us with the long check-in process and helped with suggestions in order to see some fireworks. She suggested we go to a local park to watch the fireworks display. We made it just in time! It was a spectacular showing where there was a huge amount of people. We learned a valuable lesson today, not only about unity but also about God's provision. He always has a purpose, reason and plan for whatever happens and I am glad that he gave us a detour to this park. It was a much better detour than what the GPS gave me on the way to Ferrum. We are off to Mississippi tomorrow, till then.Happy Fourth of July!
David and Jordan, Voices of Youth Blogmasters
P.S. Don't forget to check out our website at: www.voicesofyouth-va.org
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