Spring Break in Alabama!

Mischael Joseph, Engineering Sophomore traveled to Birmingham, Alabama for Spring Break.  Below he writes about his experiences.

So this year I spent my spring on a mission trip to Birmingham Alabama.  I am a part of the Navigators, which is a Christian ministry here at Penn State University Park campus and we as a group went to Alabama for our spring break.  This consisted of 120 students from Penn state and about a dozen caravans of at least 2 cars each. 

Day1: We left for our destination on Saturday at roughly 6am and began what was a 14+ hour car drive. Being in a car with other people for so long can be boring but we kept it interesting. We got to know each other a little better by just talking about ourselves. We played games, listened and sang together to music, listened to a sermon, slept and had deep conversations. This was a fantastic car ride and is often my favorite parts of trips.  My car was one of the last few to arrive at around 9:30 to where we would be staying for the week. For the week we were housed at a church and attached facilities, which the owners allowed us to use for the week. 

Day 2: The next day Sunday we went to the Church of one of the Navigator staff whose hometown this was. We sat separately as much as possible to meet the people of the church. I greatly enjoyed the service and especially the sermon. Then after service, the people of this church showed us what southern hospitality is all about. They provided us a catered lunch that was to die for and showed us what southern cooking was all about. Afterwards we cleaned up and took a group picture.  

After lunch we had some free time for a couple of hours and people did various things such as go shopping or site seeing in Birmingham. Some of us including myself played ultimate Frisbee and enjoyed the weather, which was not extremely warm (50-60 degrees) it was considerably better than State College.  After free time we divided into our small groups which comprised of students of different ages. For this first meeting we just spent time getting to know each other.  Afterwards we had dinner. After finishing our dinner we had our large group meeting where all 120 of us students and faculty met for group worship and to hear from a speaker. After the large group meeting we signed up for the work groups for the week at UCP. UCP(United Cerebral Palsy) is an organization created to support children and adults with disabilities.  A third of us, spent the week devoting quality time with the people from UCP and just showing them love and attention. Another third of us, spent the week as a maintenance crew helping the UCP staff with tasks across their campus. The last third of us worked on a garden project for a school for children with disabilities.

Day 3,4,6:  The days of Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday all went about the same way. The day started at 7:30 with breakfast until 8:15. Also in that time we had to make our packed lunches. After that we had had our TAWGs, which are our time alone with God in which we separate from distractions and seclude yourself and spend some quality time in the word and communicating with God.   At 8:40 we left for our service projects. UCP was actually located across the street from the church we were staying in and it was an easy walk over. I was part of the maintenance crew for these three days and I specifically worked on a project to improve the appearance and function of 2 tractor-trailers. Our task was to wash it, clean it, paint it, put fencing around it, clear out what was inside and in one of them reorganized what was stored, and in the other create useable storage space with shelves. In the end it turned out beautifully.

We would complete our work at 2:00pm. After work we had free time for 2 and a half hours. We did many fun activities that included Frisbee, jogging, insanity, volleyball and an assortment of other activities. Afterwards we got into our small groups.  After small groups we had dinner. Thursday the church who was hosting us served us southern barbecue which was delicious. After dinner was our usual large group meeting and after that was free time to do whatever but lights out was at 11pm.

Tuesday night and all of Wednesday was all free time to do whatever we wanted. Tuesday night almost all of us went to Alabama University to go to the NAV night that the Alabama navigators were having. NAV night is our large group meetings that we have every week. The one at Penn State is on Friday nights. It was an awesome time getting to know some of the Alabama navigators.

Day 5:  We spent this free day by first going back and spending some time on the Alabama campus. We began by going to the BAMA retail store where many of us purchased some Alabama memorabilia. And even met a woman who worked in the store who went to school at Penn State.  We then proceeded to take pictures around their campus and notably around the stadium.  We also hitch hiked on a tour group. We then had lunch at Rama Jama.  Rama Jama is a BAMA dedicated restaurant right across the street from the university.  After touring the campus we went back to Birmingham where we went to the civil rights museum. It was a very eye opening experience and remember the truth of segregation that existed in our country roughly 2 generations ago. We have since come a long way. After reliving the past  we had dinner and more delicious southern barbecue. After dinner went to get some delicious ice cream

Day 7: I spent my last day working at the Garden project site and helped as needed. I transported, shoveled, and leveled gravel. I also helped put up the fence while others worked on the plant boxes, the patio deck and the retainer wall. The project was not completed but we made great progress.

Day 8: We spent this day, Saturday, driving back to campus.