Day 4 - Sunday

Today was our day off from the project site home and although it was a little sad not to see the little kids on Karen's birthday, the rest was very much appreciated. We began the day with breakfast at 9AM, all extremely fortunate to be able to sleep in for a little bit. It's Sunday, so we walked to the Caretta/War United Methodist Church, just down the street, for church service at 11AM. The service was held in a small church and I could almost count the number of people attending on my two hands. Something we all noticed in the church was that almost all of the congregation was senior citizens with exclusion to our large group of 17.

The service included hymns, joy and prayer concerns, offering and scripture lesson; but the culture and atmosphere of the church was different from the Windham Presbyterian Church. Back at the house for our group reflection, we discussed how it was almost a conversational type of prayer concerns and joys of gratefulness with the pastor. Also how the speakers added humor to make it interesting, while tying everything together and not straying too off topic. 

Yesterday, we all decided that we would go visit the coal museum exhibit and then head over to the lake in the local park. Craig had explained to us the background of the mountain that the town we are in, where a company came in and decided to create towns based on mining high demand coal. When the companies backed out, the many people were left without jobs and needing federal assistance. However, we never really understood what the coal miners had gone through working in the mines. When we got to the museum, we learned about the coal mining and how it has changed so drastically over time with technology. It is unbelievable the conditions and work that they needed to work in, sometimes crawling on their hands and knees, for such little wages. After we left the museum we headed to the lake where we took a hike around the lake (which was a lot longer than we expected), played frisbee, and took a swim in the local pool. Some of us even jumped into the pool fully clothed which still felt wonderful in the heat. While others went to the local grocery store that they are all kind of obsessed with. People who jumped into the pool dried off in the back of Barry's truck on our way back to the house. 

It was a really great day, but we're excited for another work day tomorrow and see what we can accomplish!

- Sarah Chau