Atlanta Children

Today was the day of never ending fun.  When I say never ending, I mean alarm clocks going off at 5:30 am and heads hitting the pillow around 2 am the next day.  First stop of the day, Ronald Mcdonald House to cook breakfast.  The Ronald Mcdonald house was more than we could ever imagine.  From the immaculate kitchen of 6+ stoves and dishwashers, to the playroom with flat screen tvs, video games, and giant doll houses, we were overly impressed with the organization.  We cooked pancakes, eggs, and bacon for the families, children, and staff.  Next stop was the Children's Museum.  Though our work there was tedious, with filing papers and organizing closets, we were able to see this amazing and humble organization.  After a much needed power nap, we headed out to our last service site of the day.  This organization we are working with is called Cool Girls.  This organization is an after school program for inner city girls.  Today the group of girls we had over doubled in size from our group the day before.  Immediately we were bombarded by the girls who were dying to give us makeovers.   After about an hour of hair braiding and makeovers we were able to play games with the girls.  These girls that were so outgoing and outspoken we couldn't help but laugh and dance the entire time.  As we tried to leave at the end of the day the girls were running up to all of us asking for our phone numbers.  Though we were just there for a small period of time I feel like we really made an impact on these girls and they definitely made an impact on me.  They make me want to grow as a woman and reach out to help others in anyway I can.  After a long day of service it would be the logical thing for our group to head home, make dinner, and have a low-key early to bed kind of night.  That was not the case for our MAB group.  For starters I love to run.  I was able to even sucker two of my other group members into running with me in the dark and the rain after a long day.  Then, we had over another MAB group over for an amazing homemade Chinese dinner.  We were able to interact and play games with this other group and learn about their experiences so far this week.  After the other group parted we had our nightly "pillow talk".  This includes us reflecting with one another and playing a game called hot seat where we put two minutes on a timer and fire questions at one of the members in the group.  We have really learned a lot about each other from this game.  After this is all said and done we were ready for bed.  Unfortunately for me, a few of the lovely members of our group thought it would be funny to pull some pranks and scare me half to death while trying to go to sleep.  Between sneaking in my bed late at night and propping open the doors to the outside, I forced the group to let me sleep in the middle of everyone.  After my massive, petrified, melt-down we all finally hit the pillow around 2 am.  This was just day 2 of our week of service.​