christmas elves take manhattan

once upon a time some crazy roommates of mine were sitting in our living room in knights village talking about this idea they had about traveling around the country doing service projects. only 9 months later i sat in the fellowship hall of first lutheran church in chariton iowa listening to my same crazy friends talk about the past four months they've spent traveling around the country doing service projects. to say i am amazed and inspired at what the Lord has done with these four would be an understatement...
today i finally got a picture of what this latreia thing is all about. today steph, kelly, damen and i spent the day at a homeless shelter in des moines. we started the day off on the right foot by getting lost in des moines (apparently it's important to distinguish between east 11th street and west 11th street...) and our day included moving furniture, organizing food in a food pantry, and making a delivery of furniture to a family who just moved to des moines. we even got an invitation to eat christmas dinner at their house! i think more than the work we did, though, i enjoyed the chance to see a day in the life of latreia. how many of us just go ahead and act on those crazy ideas we have? i admit i wished more than once during the past 2 days that i could drop what i'm doing and jump in the van for the rest of the trip... but i think i'm going home realizing that this lifestyle of relying on God's provision and actually experiencing his faithfulness can be done anywhere i happen to be. so instead of picking up and leaving, i have been re-inspired to take my passion for knowing Christ and making him known and make a difference where i am right now.
so there you have it... i had a great day with latreia and i'm glad i got to get a little glimpse of what my friends have been doing all year!
Rachel Olson