Thursday is over, and the teens are exhausted. It has been a very trying day. The weather is sticky hot, the work is hard, and there are some very tired people. With all that being said, the teens really "brought it" and the parish plant looks 100 times better than before. Our day started with our morning devotionals, breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, and bacon, and then outside to get started with more planting.

Hillary is our 'supervisor' for the parish landscaping job. She has what they affectionately call, the parish landscaping "bible". It is about an inch thick and very detailed. Leslie has been working closely with her to make sure that all of us are on the same page. All of our groups are back together and working on the gardens. (You don't realize how large St. Gabe's is until you are tilling all of their land.)

All in all, we have planted over 35 trees, (all of which are at least 7 feet tall), tilled about an acre of land, (mostly by hand with shovels, because they don't own a tiller~although a parishioner who was driving by took pity on us, and brought his personal tiller up for us to use), and hauled truck loads of dirt and mulch all over the grounds. We've obviously also planted a ton of plants and flowers, and watered, watered, watered. (The plants got some too!)

Like at home, the parochial schools require their students to do community service hours. They are split between church, school, and community. We had a high school senior named Lavell ask us if he could come and join us to help on the grounds to make his hours. Of course we said yes, and he has really fit in well. (It must have been kind of scary to walk into a group of 40 people that you don't know and ask them if he could join.) When he left yesterday, he said that he enjoyed our group, and even though the work was hard, and he didn't need anymore hours, he would like to come back because our group was "fun". (Of course we are! :0) Everyone was really excited that he was going to come back. (It probably didn't hurt that the girls in the group all thought he was nice looking.)

I really would be remiss if I didn't give a huge "Mad Prop" out to our adult leaders. They have really organized the jobs well, and worked with the teens as equals. It has been fun seeing them bond with the teens to get stuff done.

We had a little bit of a scare this evening though. One of our adults worked so hard, he passed out. (He is fine now, he just didn't keep himself hydrated enough, and wouldn't quit working!) The teens were awesome! They were calm in the crisis, got help, and listened to directions to make sure he was taken care of. I was once again, amazed and proud, of the outstanding teens we have in our parish communities. I am blessed to be able to work with them.

After working all day, we ate dinner, enjoyed some free time, and started Club Time. We did it outside in the newly planted Marian Garden. It was very moving to sing our "Prince of Peace" song surrounded by a little bit of beauty in the middle of destruction. The center of the Garden is a statue of St. Gabriel, and it is surrounded by benches for people to rest and pray. It also contains the "peace" pole, and now, some wonderful landscaping.

Now after all of that work in the heat, you would think that we wouldn't want to be out in it anymore. . .wrong! We played Hide and Seek in the dark, (yes, with all 25 of us!) and tag. It was a good time. We ended the evening with snack and prayer, and fell asleep pretty easily.
We are looking forward to seeing what we can get done in the morning. We only work a half day, because Father Doug and Sr. Kathleen want to do a discernment exercise with us this afternoon, and then we are going to celebrate our last day here by going to Honey Island Swamp Tour and Schaeffers for dinner. I'll write more tonight, and hopefully have some pictures of the garden and grounds. Thanks for praying for us, and please know that we pray for you every day. Blessings on your day, friends!