Nashville-Children's Health

Greetings, y'all! 

We have a lot to catch up on! Yesterday, half of us started the day at Thistle Farms, which is the organization St. Augustine's (the church we are housed in) supports. All of us were very touched by the women being housed at Thistle Farms and their stories. Thistle Farms is a house in downtown Nashville that provides women previously involved in drug addiction and prostitution a safe haven for two years and a way to get on their feet to transition back to a healthy lifestyle. A few of the ladies there were kind enough to share their stories and gave us a lot to reflect on about our own lives and tragedies that we cannot even imagine experiencing. Thistle Farms is a wonderful organization taking a very proactive stance against this problem and we are looking forward to bringing back another group of Mizzou students in the near future. Even though our trip is a "children's health" trip, this gave us an understanding about how some of these problems take hold during childhood and can impact an entire life. We are very grateful that Thistle Farms and Becca Stevens allowed to have this experience! 

Visit Thistle Farms blog at: thistlefarms.blogspot.com and buy some of the wonderful healing products at thistlefarms.org to benefit this amazing organization.

Today was another busy day at Kindred Spirits! Things are definitely coming along! Fence: completed. Cleaning out the barn: completed. Poop: scooped. We're learning more and more about how much goes into these types of programs. There's so much work to be done every single day! We can only imagine how much work Alicia, Alice and Graham do on a daily basis on their own! Many of us are going to be sad leaving the simple life! Kristen even got over her fear of horses and bathed one today! And then he promptly rolled in the dirt...