Week 3: Sacred Heart Bellingham -Sunday

July 9th 2017

We all arrived at Sacred Heart at 6:00pm, 1 hour later we realized that only assumption church and sacred heart were going to be here this week so it would be a very small group of 6 kids. We all played games for a little bit and then we did an introduction and found our small groups. Then we practiced Ignatius prayer. Then we answered some questions in our packet and shared them in our small groups which later we joined together to share as a big group. Then we ended in a group prayer and we are all currently having a snack and playing games :)

Week 3: Volunteer Foodbank

Wednesday -  July 6th, 2017

Hello Everyone!

This week we did not have a group of youth come to do Agape. Although we did not have a group, we still had to serve the migrant community of Whatcom County. So we rounded up some friends and family from around Western Washington to help out and volunteer at the food bank. Our volunteers were wonderful and with their help we fed 119 migrant families today. They were speedy and kept their spirits bright even in the scorching heat. So I want to give a huge thanks to all of the people that came and worked all day in the sun at our food bank!

Lots of Agape Love
-Katie (Assistant Director)

PS. Stay tuned, we will be getting more kids in on Sunday for another exciting adventure!

Week 2: St. Louise & St. Theresa - Thursday

Thursday, June 6, 2017

          Today was celebration day! We first woke up, ate breakfast, had circle time, went to church, went to have lunch in sacred heart, went to swim in Bellingham aquatic center, Went to Sunrise farm to hang with the kids, and had to eat some barbecue! It was an amazing experience, this entire week, however, it was heartbreaking to leave the kids. To them, we were their best friends. On another bright note we got to have more fun and amazing experiences afterwards. We all got to have ice cream, and a talent show, and it was amazing.

                                             lots of love,
                                                 Alexandria W. & Adara M.

Week 2: St. Louise & St. Theresa - Wednesday

    We saw Jesus in everyone that we worked with and everyone that we served. We started off with three different groups. One that went to get toys, another that got produce, and one that packed the truck with all of the food that we collected. After, we all set up the food bank for the migrate workers. At first the workers all lined up with boxes to get food, drinks, etc. All the families went through the tables with items and food which they collected. We ended up serving 126 families which was about 400 people in total. We had such a fun time serving the migrate workers and gained a deeper connection with the migrate workers.  - John Rojas, Evie Aitken

Week 2: St. Louise & St. Theresa - Tuesday

Day 3, Tues. 27-

             Today was a great day! We started the day bright and early at 5:15 am to experience a day in the life of a migrant worker. St. T's went to a blueberry farm and STL went to Growing Veterans organic farm. We spent our morning weeding and picking up sticks, (no trees were harmed in this process.) Although the work was tiring and difficult it was really eye-opening, we still experienced only a fraction of what migrant workers have to do everyday. The hard job we were tasked with didn't phase our good attitudes because we knew what we were doing was for a good cause. Following our immersion experience, we were given the opportunity to take a lovely 5 minute shower;) It was short, but sweet, and we came out semi-clean! After our showers we were placed into families and transported to the fabulous, Grocery Outlet Bargain Market. Here, each ''family'' was given pay for their day's work. The totals ranged from $2.50 and $7.50, so we had a lot of wiggle room. The "families" we given 10 minutes to shop for our ACTUAL dinner. Following this we came back to Sacred Heart for free time where we played cards, mafia, had great conversations, and cooked our dinners. Then we headed backup to Sunrise Migrant camp where we played with our little friends living there. We met a particularly sweet girl named Alma who really brightened our day! It felt good to know we were sharing with these children some love, joy, and happiness despite the hard times they may be going through. It was sad to say goodbye, even though we will see them Thursday! When we returned home to Sacred Heart, we had evening circle time and wrote in our journals. In our small groups we got into really deep topics about the children and how they are going to grow up and work ten times as hard as we worked that day. To wrap up the night we made some sandwiches for our lunch tomorrow and got ready for bed. Over-all, it was an amazing God-filled day!

Live from Sacred Heart, your favorite bloggers;)

Catherine P. and Elsa K.

Week 2: St. Louise & St. Theresa - Monday

Today... it was probably one of the best experiences of my middle school life. I've met amazing little children that have spread love to everybody, and everything that was happening. That was the main part I remember. Other things we did was team building activities that helped me personally getting to know most people. Another thing we did was tabling, which was basically a food drive. Everybody had experienced "bad" people, and everyone experienced amazing, thoughtful people. Overall, today was a great day of learning about our faith and our friends.

- Zelda

Well today was... unique. not in a bad way but well let me just tell you. i think the highlight of my day was going to the migrant camp and playing with the children. i think the one that standed out the most to me was this one 15-17 year old kid (i do not know his real age) and he just got so into it and it made me realize how much we were helping these children and how happy they were happy to see us. later we had to go to some stores and kindly ask people to donate (the entire time i wanted to grab a mega phone and scream donate to us!!). but this taught me 2 things. how many kind people there are, and how many jerks their are. but it was over all great experience and i am surprised how much has happened and yet so little of this trip has happened

-Arthur

Week 2: St. Louise & St. Theresa- Sunday

Today was a fun day. When we arrived I was confused and did not know what we were doing. We got all of our bags and unloaded them into our rooms. After that was played a game with our hands. After that we did a prayer time and reflected on the word Agape. -Ryan

Today was weird. First, everyone went to a park down the street from where we were staying and had pizza. We had too much and gave it away. When we got to the church building we dropped off our stuff and played a game. it was really fun. A bit later we listened to a reading about a storm and thought about how we could relate to the story. Overall it's been a fun day.   -Joshua Frank

Week 1: MQP - Thursday

Thursday was very fun due to us sort of having a party, but I also felt very at peace when we went over to the Church to pray in silence for about 20 minutes. I felt like I was separated from the world and was completely stress free. And I didn't care about what I was going to do after, and I was just in the moment. Next we went swimming with all of the people from our church, and had so much fun! After we went swimming, we then went to sunrise camp to have a barbecue with of the migrant worker families. Which was really enjoyable because we played for a couple hours then ate. But before we ate, there was this one boy (Xavier) who unraveled an entire roll of string, to that string, and started to wrap people with it. And he was just the high of my day because he was just so adorable. So in the end, Thursday was one of my favorite days because it was impactful and very fun!

~Dominick Schulz

Today we celebrated the good works we had done this week. Today, we opened with a Divine Mercy Chaplet. Immediately following, we discussed ways we would act on what we learned this week regarding the plight of the migrant farming community. We then prayed in reflective silence in Sacred Heart. After that, we headed over to the local aquatic center to celebrate and shower before heading off to the migrant camp to have a barbecue and say our goodbyes. I had made a friend, an 8-year-old boy named Kenny, and we had really grown close over the last week. It broke my heart to say goodbye, but I am confident that we will meet again next year. We then closed out the night with various antics at the social hall as we spent our last night together.

~Luke Wall