Friday

This will be the last update for this trip. All that is planned tomorrow is the water park and travel to Muskogee where we will sing Sunday morning and then head home. But there is much to speak of today... We started the day at the Shepherd Nursing Home where your students walked the halls singing and inviting the residents to the living room where we would be singing some hymns with them. It was nice to see doors open to the students just because the residents heard the beautiful music and wanted to hear more. The invitations were readily accepted! Miss Edna was reluctant to join us in the gathering place because she had just gotten up, but some of your girls offered to help her with her slippers and to brush her hair so that she would feel more presentable. They were so sweet with her. One man remarked to several of us that these students surely make you think that the there is much hope for the future with students like these making a difference in the world. After our little hymn-sing this morning we headed out to various work projects. There was still much to be accomplished at our host church here, and your students WORKED VERY HARD! They did a marvelous job cleaning up the courtyard, painting a children's area, re-mulching the play ground and cleaning up various other areas in the church. These were not small tasks and they were finished with excellence in EVERY case! Another group of students went back out to the Regional Food Bank to continue helping to sort and box up canned goods for distribution across most of Oklahoma. Over the FOUR hours total that your students worked at the food bank, they sorted and boxed over 20,000 lbs of canned goods amounting to 15,477 meals! Don't let them tell you they can't clean their rooms...the cover is BLOWN! They have worked hard and we are very proud of them. The students who have led devotions have been very well prepared and have challenged us all. This is another part of tour that is so special...to see them lead out in that way. They walk around singing different lines from their tour music...they will lean on those words as they learn to lean more and more on Him. They will remember what they have learned here for a long time. Tonight we went to an Oklahoma Redhawks game and that was a lot of fun. One of our studets caught a foul ball, and another one was chosen to accompany the entire ball park on cowbell to a rousing redition of Oklahoma...the title song from the musical by the same name. We had a great time and got to the vans just before the rain hit. Your students have worked hard and have pleased our work cite managers, and they have pleased their BIONICs, but most of all they have pleased their MAKER!

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