Chapter #3: Alabama (Part 1)

This year's spring break was pretty amazing...I had the opportunity to go back south to Montgomery, Alabama with some of the Cats 4 Christ group.

Last Saturday morning, me and 6 students including the campus minister made our way to Montgomery, Alabama to work with a company called Common Ground. This group helps with inner city youth plus works with families who have trouble keeping up with their house, etc. But before that Saturday night we stopped in Memphis, Tennessee to stay with the McGraws. They were I guess our C4C headquarters for our midway point of the trip. They treated us very well...

That Sunday before we completed the trip down there, we had a chance to go visit the church over there called Highland church. It was really beautiful on the outside because they did some remodeling to it a few months earlier if I'm correct but the inside of it was big and nice. The church is also open to the public too. They were planning to a couple of shows in their church like bringing in David Barnes and comedian Michael Jr. Not many churches to that now, but it was good to see them use there own building for others big name people.

Sunday night we made the trip down to Montgomery and we were greeted by some of the forks who were working with the kids. They free food for us...nice! Once our group was finished eating, we went to the house that we were staying for the most of the week. Big 6 foot 9 man named Alex also was living there he was our dad when we got there. Most of the time though when we were at the house he was never there going to meeting and other things. Being in the neighborhood that is almost like a third world country you hear strange things. And the very first night some of us who stayed at the house we heard some gunshots somewhere down the street. I don't know exactly the place but it was kind of scary for a little bit but after that things during the week for us down there would be pretty calm.

Monday, we starting to work the outside of the house where a family was going to move into sometime next week. The family was been in Montgomery for all of their lives and they have a daughter (more on this family later) We also worked with a construction group from Clearmont, Georgia and they were doing the heavy lifting on that house, while our group me, Cary, Loel, Kelsey, Molly, Richie, and Courtney were taking care of the outside of the house and we would do that for the rest of the week. We learned how to caulk meeting we put some kinda of substance into these cracks at a 45 degree angle and it fills the cracks nicely there's few more steps but I won't go in to them...that the simple version. The second day was more about painting the house and getting it ready for at  least the other group who coming in after us.

 The second day of the trip, we had a chance to hear the testimonies of the two men. One goes by the name of Frog yeah lol don't remember his real name quite yet and the other person was Irving. Frog and Irving came out to house and told their story about how they both came to Christ. And it was amazing to hear these guys stories, and how they managed to survive under the conditions before they came to Christ. The things that they did and how they came back was just stunning. What sticks out for me in all of that was second chances/redemption. And currently, they are both working together a little bit at a time to restore the community. They want to give back to the community that they both having grew up in since these guys were little...also they want to have an impact on these younger kids have them know Christ too.

Tuesday night we had the chance to go bowling and hangout with some students from the church that they go to called Landmark (more on them in P#2) then ate some good ice cream at a Italian shop called Fancy Nancy's. Never had that before...it was pretty good.