Week 7: Our Lady Queen of Heaven & St. Joseph's - Wednesday

Today we served migrant families during our food bank. It was a very powerful and moving experience, and it was amazing to interact with the different family members. I especially loved being with a volunteer who has come up and helped with the food bank every week. He helped me with my Spanish so that I could interact with the different migrants, which made the experience much more meaningful to me, to know that they could understand me without having to ask for a translation. Today was a step into a culture that I was not familiar with, but we had an amazing time!


-Agape Youth

Today we served over 100 migrant family's at our food bank. It was amazing to see all the hard work we had put in on Tuesday  in action today. I loved the feeling of helping people and I felt like we had a big impact on the migrant community, for example all the kids loved their backpacks and were so proud to show them off. I also felt like I learned a lot about responsibilities for young migrant kids and improved my Spanish. 

-Aurora


We were able to serve 136 families today for this summer's last food bank! We'd like to thank everyone who could make this happen, including all the St. Joseph's and Our Lady Queen of Heaven communities! You are awesome!
- Agape staff :)

Week 7: Our Lady Queen of Heaven & St. Joseph's - Tuesday

Hello friends and family, I am Feliscia Dimayuga from Our Lady Queen of Heaven Parish. Today, the Agape group and I went to a blueberry farm here in Bellingham. During our time at the farm, we picked blueberries for around two hours. My experience with farm work taught me many things. First, an hour of work was already tiring for me, yet I thought of many things. Such as how migrant workers work everyday for several hours, not to mention the farm work is strenuous. I began to think about what the migrant farmers go through and how they receive such little pay for so much work they do. I really respect what migrant farmers do to make a living. Having small wages yet needing to pay for dinner for their family of two or ten. Also, buying dinner feels very limited and restricted. This ties into the beatitude we are focusing on today, which mentions how the meek will inherit the land. Migrant farm workers really express this beatitude, for they are incredibly humble with the amount of money they make in a day, in ratio to the amount of work they do in a day and what they spend their wages on. 

Hello friends and family, my name is Eva Scearce and I am from St. Joseph's Parish in Seattle. Today, my group and I went to Growing Veterans, a farm that works to help ease and heal the trauma of America's war veterans through the peaceful experience of cultivating land. During our time at the farm, we weeded the crops and harvested squash and cucumber. The squash and cucumber will eventually be sold to different buyers, so we also got to do a bit of sanitation too. It was really interesting to get a bit of an inside look in how fresh food first starts to be produced. When we were working on the farm, I started to think about how hot it was and how difficult the work was. It made me realize that migrant workers put in far more time and work into this sort of job and hardly ever complain, yet a mere few hours of work for me made me feel completely exhausted. Realizing this difference reminded me of the beatitude we focused on today, which was, "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land." Migrant workers, as I have come to learn, are far more humble than any one else I have ever met. Now that I've had the chance to learn more about the experiences of others, I feel like I better understand humanity and life as a whole.

Week 7: Our Lady Queen of Heaven & St. Joseph's - Monday

I'm Mariah from Our Lady Queen of Heaven. Today was amazing, after eating breakfast we did our Monday activity and we were learning about all the things that migrants and immigrants have to go through to come to the US. After that we got ready to go to a migrant farm and play with all the kids. It was so fun to play soccer and dodge ball with them. when we got home we changed into our Agape shirts and went to stores to ask for donations for the food bank that we are doing for the migrant families. It was such a fun experience to see all the people that were willing to give us the food or other items that were provided on a list. I really felt the grace of God moving through every interaction that I had today, and I can't wait for tomorrow to come. 

I'm Ayanna, from Saint Joseph School. Today was truly a day where I was pushed out of my comfort zone, to make the local migrant children happier, and to do and care for others. After breakfast, we were engaged in activities that allowed us to understand the process for an immigrant to become a citizen, create a bill of rights based on rights we believed every individual should have, and to understand the push and pull factors which cause people to leave their country. After that, we went to a migrant camp, and interacted and played with the kids. It was amazing how kids, even at the ages as young as six were taking full responsibility of their siblings while their parents were at work. They even sacrificed what they wanted to do to make their siblings happy. Once we left the farm, we collected food donations at different grocery stores for a food bank we are holding to support these kids. It was scorching hot outside but we persisted through it, and collected three cartfuls of food. We were really proud of that, and someone we didn't even know bought us all ice creams for our hard work. Overall, today was an AMAZING day, and  I really look forward to the rest of the week at Agape.

Thank you to everyone who were able to give contributions to our foodbank! Wether it be big or small, everything is greatly appreciated and it will be going towards a greater cause in helping our borthers and sisters in Christ in the migrant community. Come back on Thursday to see how many families we were able to serve from all of your generous donations! -The Agape staff

Week 7: Our Lady Queen of Heaven & St. Joseph's - Sunday

This is our final week of Agape for 2019!


When we arrived at camp the first thing we did was do activities like human-knot, Ultimate rock, paper, scissors and a name game, which were all very fun. Then later in the day we did an Ignation exercise where we listened to a story about Peter, Simon, and Jesus and got to reflect throughout the story. Finally we got our camp t-shirts and snack and went straight to free time! This day was super fun!

- Jonah, St. Joseph's

Day one of camp: Arrival. Before even leaving on the van to Sacred Heart I was very excited. though I had no idea what was in store for me or how God will work in my life I knew that He as a plan and that I will trust in Him. At first it started out a little rocky and I was kind of nervous but once we got going I remembered why I was going on this trip which was to show the love, acceptance, respect, and humbleness Jesus had shown and continues to show us everyday. On the drive here everybody in the car was sleeping, resting up not knowing what was in store for us when we arrived. Driving up to the church you look outside your window and see the beautiful water that is shining from the warm sun above. The parish itself is very beautiful and surrounding it was blossoming flowers of various colors. Pulling up to the side of the parish office we are greeted by excited staff members ready to share their knowledge and experience with us as well as learning new and unknown experiences. We unloaded the donations and it was amazing to see how much we had unloaded. So many backpacks not only filled with school supplies but filled with hope and excitement for the future these kids are able to have. After unloading we all gather around in a circle playing various games to get to know each other as well as our hopes and goals for this week. After being loud and playing games we were able to have a reflection time where we read the passage of Jesus and Simon Peter fishing for men. In this reflection we were asked to place ourselves there and reflect on how we felt in different situations and how are reactions were. It was a good reflection time and it was nice to be able to visualize how I would feel as a fishermen seeing this miracle of God working before my eyes and the desire of my heart to want to seek more of this truth and abundance of not only happiness and love that one would feel after being provided with this abundant bounty. Although it was only the first day, there were a lot of great things that had already been shown through the kids and staff making this a lot of fun and being very excited for whats to come and how God will show Himself in each of our lives.

- Destyne, Our Lady Queen of Heaven

Week 6: St. Andrew's - Thursday

Today as our last day of Agape we spent our time celebrating. After morning prayer we went to church to start our day, soon after the Agape youth headed down to a local public pool to swim and relax for a few hours. Finally to wrap up our day we went to a migrant camp for a barbecue and to play with the children there for one last time before we leave.

signing off now.

bye!

alright my turn now

so as she said today is our last day at agape so we decided to do something fun. we went to mass, the pool, and went to the migrant camp to have a barbecue and a water balloon fight. so she really explained what i was going to say so bye!

-Agape Youth

Week 6: St. Andrew's - Wednesday

In the morning after breakfast, we loaded the vans full of the food we brought with us and collected from tabling and donations. We drove to a field next to a church and spent 3 hours setting up the tables and items to make the migrants journey around our makeshift food pantry easier. A quick break for lunch was taken, then we opened the food section of the food pantry up to the migrants. Two adults took surveys from the people who went through the line as everyone else worked tirelessly in handing out the correct number of items to people. This continued for the next 4 hours serving the migrants until we finished with the last few stragglers in the line. Putting everything away was a struggle, especially the clothes that were laid out on tarps. Eventually it got so bad we just stuffed the clothes into the bag and threw them into the shed!

We all finished tired,but we all finished working really hard and brought joy to a lot of people by giving back. A lot of the migrants were very grateful for our very limited Spanish and how hard we tried to speak their native language. A few of the volunteers, like Nancy and Brandon, helped us with our Spanish and translating with the more complicated phrases.

Agape Out!

Sara and Brandon

We were able to serve 163 families today! That's roughly 815 people when the average family size is 5 members. Thank you so much for your support and donations, we couldn't have done it without your support.

Week 6: St. Andrew's- Tuesday

Hello friends and family,

Today we woke up around 5:15 to make it feel like we were actually migrant farm workers. We worked in the fields for about three hours but we did a lot. We were moving the weeds out from where the strawberries were. Some of us picked potatoes and the rest of us were weeding. There were a lot of points where we would feel like it was super hard. For some maybe even one of the hardest things they’d had to do outside. It took a lot of resistance not to eat the strawberries which were big, red and juicy; however farmer Sam took pity on us and let us eat a strawberry or two. We learned a lot about how hard the farm workers worked and then after this we learned just how much they would make for the work we did. This in turn was shown when we went to Grocery Outlet to buy dinner with the money that we made for that meal. $1.25 each. We were put into families with 3 – 4 people most people bought noodles and sauce, one group even bought eggs and chimichangas. We were given the refrigerator and the ability to use salt and pepper and the utensils in the kitchen so it was pretty fun. The cooking part was especially fun, even when about five of us kicked the rest out of the kitchen.  After dinner we went to many different migrant camps to pass out flyers to the families that lived there to let them know about the food bank that is happening tomorrow. Overall the day went pretty well and we ended on a good note at the health fair at Sunrise Migrant Worker Camp. Yesterday we went to Sunrise Migrant camp and played with the kids. We played a couple of field games with them and some of us did crafts. I have been playing with this little girl, she and I have been doing craft together, and we watched the circus together she sat in my lap. While playing with her I’m actually using a little of my Spanish.

              

  Molly & Miriam

Week 6: St. Andrew's - Monday

Hello Boys today at the mission trip me and Jantzen learned about illegal and legal immigration. We went to a migration camp and there we played dodge ball and scrum ball. We also did tabling for a food bank for the "fam" in needs, we collected lots of food and brought it back to the church. Some things that stood out is how many people donated and how they cared about people in need. No matter what bad things happened there were good things that came out of it! 

       -Raidon & Jantzen AAAAAAAAAAGAPE!!!!!

Thank you to the Bellingham and St. Andrew's community for all the donations! Check back in on Thursday to see how many families we are able to serve this week with your help!

- Agape Staff

Today's groups at Haggen:

Week 7: St. Andrew's - Sunday

Correa: I learned to have empathy for others and to show more in life, to show happiness and to show them to smile because it boosts up yourself and makes it easier to live.

Luke: Through a prayer that focused more on scripture and imagining ourselves as the characters in scripture, we are given the chance to imagine ourselves as other people, in different situations. This gives us the chance to think about how we can put ourselves in other's shoes, and how they might be different to us.

Week 5: St. Catherine of Sienna & Our Lady of the Lake - Thursday

Dear friends and family,

Today's beatitude was "Blessed are they who mourn for they will be comforted."This morning we watched a video about migrant workers immigrating and the reasons that they would come. The beatitude for today related a lot to the video we watched because so many people lost family on the way to the United States and they were some how blessed after. Breakfast was plentiful because they bought more cereal.We were going to go to mass today ,but there was a funeral so we prayed the rosary outside of the church in a field. After we prayed the rosary we went back to the church we were staying at and got ready to go to the pool. Then we went to the pool as a part of the end of the trip celebration. We left the pool to go to the barbecue for the migrant workers. Then we had a surprise ice cream party after reflection!

Week 5: St. Catherine of Siena & Our Lady of the Lake - Wednesday

It was very awesome today to serve people at the food bank. I enjoyed seeing the looks of pure joy on the peoples faces when we gave them the food, considering that's their food for the week. Another thing that was cool was that the children would line up in the toy line to wait for the toy that they had their eye on,  and then playing with them immediately after they got them. It was also heartwarming when the children were getting the food on their own, to support them and their families. It was also nice to see the kids from the migrant camps coming to the food banks with there families.

-Matthew from Our Lady of the Lake and Zach from St. Catherine School

We served 151 families today!
Thank you to all of our generous donors and supporters!
-The Agape Staff

Week 5: St. Catherine of Siena & Our Lady of the Lake- Tuesday

hey family and friends,

      Today we woke up at 5 am and went to a farm to work like the migrant workers. Once we were done we then WE SHOWERED!! After that we went to the grocery store to buy food for dinner. We came back to the church where we are staying and we cooked what we bought. Later in the day we went to migrant farm worker camps and handed out flyers for our food drive tomorrow and then headed back to the migrant camp to play with the kids! Overall it was a super fun experience and a great day!

-Chase (Our Lady of the Lake)


Good evening readers,

      Today we woke up at 5 am and went to Growing Veterans, a beautiful farm that supports local veterans and local food banks. We worked for 4 hour out in the squash patch today. It was so fun because we were all singing while we worked. After that we showered!!! Finally! Once we were clean again we went to Grocery Outlet to gather dinner for tonight. Everyone was separated into different groups. Each group received around 5 dollars for food. leaving one dollar for every person. It was hard to find food to accommodate every ones personal restrictions but in the end we made it through. After that we went to migrant camps spreading word about the food bank tomorrow. After that we went to a different migrant camp to play with migrant children. It was so fun. Lots of people got beautiful makeovers. All, in All, it was an incredible day filled with happiness and a lingering feeling of fulfillment. 

-Alinea (st. catherines)

Week 5: St. Catherine of Sienna & Our Lady of the Lake - Monday

Hi friends and family! It was our first full day at Agape and we're already working hard. This morning we did some activities to help us better understand the injustices in our country's immigration system. We learned that the process of becoming a citizen is very long and complex. In the afternoon we had some fun playing with the children and a migrant camp. Weather you were making friendship bracelets or playing dodge ball we all got plenty dusty while having a great time. Our evening was spent tabling at local grocery stores. We asked for donations for our food bank that we will host on Wednesday for the migrant community. Of course everyone was not willing to donate so when people did and generally gave to us, it felt really good. By the end of the night we were very tired and ready to enjoy some dinner.

St. Catherine Parish 

Thank you for your donations today! Check back here on Wednesday to see how many families we were able to serve with your help!

Week 5: St. Catherine of Sienna & Our Lady of the Lake - Sunday

The long drive was worth the rewarding pizza. We enjoyed the beautiful scenery that Western Washington has to offer. As we get accustomed to a week of Solidarity we started off with prayer Circle and get-to-know-each-other games. We are looking forward to the full week ahead.

-Elizabeth F. and Abbey

Week 4 St John the Baptist - Thursday

Blogger #1: I am only human. God made me to be incomplete without His love, but he also made me in  ways that let me spread the same kind of love that he infinitely gives, Agape. I never had a great childhood, so to give these kids a chance at something I lacked was so emotional. Leaving these kids made my heartache and everyone in our group would agree that these kids left a mark in our hearts that will last forever, even if we forget their faces, but we also left something with them that I hope they never forget. Happiness and joy in days that are tough for kids that are so young to have to experience. I hope that we were able to relieve their troubles for the few hours we got to know them. Love, 

St. John the Baptist family

Blogger #2: "Blessed are they who mourn for they will be comforted". If this is true, then I need a lot of comforting right about now. This week has been long, awkward, difficult, fun, and most of all, memorable. I am without a doubt mourning the end of this week and the fact that we are leaving our dear friends we have made, but we will be comforted. Through the thought that we have made in impact in not only the kids we played with, but in the people we served through the food bank and in other ways. The thought that we have given people hope in some way, shape or form. I am grateful for this week at Agape. The staff, my peers, and the people we served. Thank you for this wonderful week of serving not only the people of this community, but God up above. It will be difficult to leave, but at least we know that we have made an everlasting impact on many people.

Thank you,

St. John the Baptist - Agape Volunteers

Week 4: St John the Baptist - Wednesday

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO today was the food bank and honestly it was a great time and experience to experience, people were very nice and happy when they were receiving the donations that they needed to be able to make it another day. Seeing the kids run around with their new toys was very nice to see and when the kids were getting their own items they were thinking about their whole family and not just thinking of their own stuff. I really liked it and I wouldn't probably do it again to be honest but if i had to I would enjoy it again. TONY FLORES


So today we had the food bank and it was really fun.  I felt like everybody bonded and became closer together.  I felt really happy serving people that don't really have much.  I think that everybody had fun serving all of the people and the people had fun being served.  Chad Forczek.

Week 4: St. John the Baptist - Tuesday

Hi! So today we worked on a farm. We harvested potatoes, verdo larga, and picked weeds. The potatoes and verdo larga will be going to our food bank tomorrow. Some of us got to drive a tractor and some got stung by wasps. It was great. Then we had a challenge. The challenge was that based on the scenarios given to us, we had 15 minutes to buy our dinner for the night. All the youth groups got $3.75.  The adults got $5. 00. After going around to different migrant camps and passing out flyers for the food bank, we went and hung out with some kids at one of the camps. 

-Sarah and Josh  

Week 4: St. John the Baptist-Monday

Today we the agape group went to the migrant camps to play with the kiddos that were there. At the camps we ate sandwiches and oranges along with a chocolate cookie too. It was very interesting to see the younger kids look up to us as if we were like super cool and awesome (because we were). At the tabling, there were so many humans who donate bags chocked full of cans and baby stuff. that really made my day and i had such an awesome time doing so. i cant wait to see what we do tomorrow!

today I learned that the immigrants that immigrate to the U.S. make a bigger difference that I thought. I also went tabling, while we were there I saw more people that had kindness in their hearts than I thought. last is that at the camp i saw many kids that had to leave their original home just for work. now I cant wait for tomorrow!

Today I learned that everyone can't help w/ everything. I LOVED going Tabling and playing w/ the kids. :)

-Agape youth

Thank you all so much for all the donations! Between the donations from these parish communities and the donations from tabling at the grocery stores, we will be able to serve many individuals and families! Check back in on Thursday to see how many families we have the privilege to serve!

-Agape staff

Week 4: St. John the Baptist - Sunday

Arriving at AGAPE, our St. John's group came with excitement. We did not know exactly what to expect, but we were all welcomed with the friendly staff. We unloaded our personal belongings from the cars, as well as the donations. There were plenty of donations, from toys, clothes, and useful items that we all dropped off in the storage. Afterwards, we all met in the parish hall, and got the chance to get comfortable and meet one another. We formed small groups, and had bonding activities in which this helped us all get to know each other. We all jumped into prayer, and had time to reflect upon it. As of the first day, it was already an enjoyable experience, and I am personally looking forward to spending the next five days with this amazing group of people and staff.

-  Zach Ziska

Week 3: St. Anthony & St. Theresa- Thursday

Today started with a wonderful breakfast that was made for us. Then we went to church. After church we went swimming and took a shower. Later on we went to the migrant camp, had a barbeque, and played with the children that we bonded with throughout the week.

Today was celebration day. We woke up to a beautiful pancake breakfast that the adults made for us. After we were done with chores we went to church. Later to celebrate all our success this week we went to the pool for a few hours. Once we were done showering we headed to Sunrise to have a party with our kids. To end the day we had a talent show.

Week 3: St. Anthony & St. Theresa- Wednesday

We started our day off with adoration then split into two groups to either set up with food bank or go out and get other supplies. Once we all finished setting up we had our lunch and began serving families. We are very proud and blessed to be here to serve so many people and lead others by an example. 

 We reflected on ourselves during adoration and really got time to meditate, a thing we rarely get to have these days. During the food bank, everyone was happy and making each other happy when we were on break time. We all had moments in our time that made us really dig deep inside ourselves to compare our lives from theirs. In the end, we all finished our jobs at the food bank happy that we got to serve all of these families. 

We served 158 families today! Thank you for your generous support and donations. We love our community. Thank you for making it all possible!

Week 3 St. Anthony & St. Theresa - Tuesday

In the morning we woke up at 5, very early. Today was migrant immersion day so we split up into two groups and headed out to different farms, one being a blueberry farm and another being a veteran farm. At the blueberry farm we were asked to weed under the trees and we were introduced to 4 different types of blueberries! We were allowed to try out some of the blueberries and as we weeded we picked some as well. At the veteran farm, four of us were picked to spread out compost into a small part of the field, while the rest of us went into the squash area where we picked out weeds for three hours. After our three hours worth of farm work, we all went to the YMCA to go and take a nice refreshing shower. We then went to grocery outlet where we were separated into families to go and buy our ingredients with a budget depending on our scenarios. Then we went back to Sacred Heart where we all took the ingredients we bought and cooked up our families dinner. Afterwards we we split back into our car groups to go and give out flyers at different migrant camp, advertising for the food bank, where it then leaded to us going out to a migrant camp to go and play with the children. We just finished reflection and are now all ready to go to sleep.

Week 3 St. Anthony and St. Theresa - Monday

Today we learned what causes people to immigrate and that immigration can take many years. Then we went to a migrant farm camp and hung out with the families. We saw that their life was very different from ours and I realized I am very lucky compared to them. Then we split into groups and went and recieved donations in front of stores. It was interesting seeing different people react to us asking for donations. I had fun and can't wait for tomorrow!-Max Gould St. Anthony


7/8/19
Today we learned about the beatitude of, Blessesd are the peace makers, for they will be called children of God. We were peacemakers for others by firstly playing with, and spending time with kids who immigrated into the US- or have family who immigrated. We spent time with them by doing crafts, playing at the big toy, soccer, bubbles, etc,. After that, we came back to Sacred Heart and split into different groups and grocery stores to do "Grocery store tabling." We would set up at a store and ask if customers would be willing to donate for the immigrants by shopping and dropping off products, food, and money for us to help others. We saw Jesus through the people that donated for us and others. We were all peacemakers by being happy and joyful with those around us and showing our love and care. -Maya Kjos (from St. Threasa's)

We want to thank everyone who donated for our foodbank! Your dponations are greatly appreciated and you can check back in our wednesday blog to see how many families we served during our foodbank! - Agape Staff