Day 3--First Day of Work

Today on Hinton Hill in North Carolina we were busy with our first day of work. In the morning some kids got up early to watch the sunrise or take an early morning run, while others snored away. We then packed our lunches for the day and ate our morning vittles after an early morning dance lesson. There was an array of biscuits and gravy, eggs, hash browns, sausage, and grits. After we were finished gorging ourselves upon the bountiful feast, we split up to perform assorted tasks. The food manager packed all of the lunches, including ones for the homeowners, into a cooler and grabbed water; the tools manager gathered all of the needed tools and equipment for the day and packed them into the trucks and the clean-up person cleaned off tables after breakfast to make sure we were ready for the day. After all supplies were packed, we loaded up to ship off to our work sites. The “Blue Eyed Peas” went to work for the day after a seemingly forever long of a ride. They worked on painting a house for an elderly woman. But, today there was only paint scraping to be done on this work site because the current paint was peeling.  There are still many things to happen at this site (which you will learn about in another blog). At noon we all stopped for lunch and ate our sack lunches with the home owners. The relationship coordinators gave a lunch to the owner, and we all ate lunch together. After we were done eating lunch we had a quick devotion before going back to work again (religious things are not required). We worked for a long time and decided to call it quits for the day and head back to Hinton for the evening around 4:00. Once back at Hinton, many students (after returning tools to the shed and cleaning out coolers) went for a swim in the lovely Chatuge Lake at the base of the hill. After swimming, students met up at the hill at 5:45 to have a short meeting before our evening meal. After an amazing meal of assorted homemade pizzas (double yum!) there was some free time before a tense game of trivia at 7:00. The trivia game was close, but in the end Team 2 won. They were not very gracious and courteous winners. They were very boastful, but we weren’t exactly the best losers! After the game; the boys and girls returned to their cabins. The boys held a not-so-secret meeting about their new not-so-secret government. They refuse to give up any information about their secret organization even when thoroughly questioned. After the boys’ meeting (that doesn’t exist ;), because of the rain that moved in many gathered over in the upper level of the girls’ cabin to play games (while supervised). Overall, it was a productive, energetic, not-so-secret, amazing day at Hinton Hill in North Carolina!

Heather Hingst and Jacob Bockting

A few of the Blue-Eyed Peas busily scraping paint