Waking up at 9:45, taking a ferry ride to a secluded island, eating free lunch, and spending a whole afternoon on a beach, in the sun, on the ocean. Sounds like a pretty sweet gig to me.

Yesterday we got to spend the day on Long Island, with some of the staff of The Root Cellar. The Root Cellar is a Christian outreach ministry located near government subsidized housing here in Portland. For the next five weeks we will be working along side them doing different outreach projects like Bible Club, Kid’s Club, neighborhood dinners, and Friday and Saturday night teen centers.

Most of their ministry revolves around building relationships, so the majority of our time and the mission trip teams will be building relationships with the kids of the neighborhood. The neighborhood is made up of primarily African immigrants, representing close to 50 different nations.

We will be staying in two different locations. For the larger teams we will be staying in the Portland YMCA. Today we got to go and check out the facilities, we will be staying in a new section of the building, sleeping on the floor of a gym. For the smaller groups we will be staying at the First Free Methodist Church, just down the road from The Root Cellar. The trustees in the church have been very gracious to us.

All of the people that we have met, and have been working with are great, we can not ask for more from a location. So far it seems that Portland will be a very good area to work in. Our first team arrives on Sunday night–we will begin on Monday morning by doing some small chores at The Root Cellar, and also working on some painting in the Church. Everyone here is really excited about getting so much help this summer. We hope and pray that our presence has a lasting impact on the people we come in contact with!

Noah