Downtime In Duluth
By Arlo Ttekceb
Cars pull into the church parking lot, in the church parking lot sits a Kobussen coach bus, that our bus driver Wilson, would be driving later. Groups of families stand next to that coach bus.
That day was July 9th, 2023. We had to arrive at the church no later than 7:00. Once families parked their cars, they would then carry their luggage and set it in a pile next to the coach bus. Once most of the families had arrived we began loading the luggage from the pile onto the bus.
Once we had finished loading up the bus we said our goodbyes for the week, going to the restroom was an option or we could just stay back on the bus. Most of the younger kids of the group (7th and 8th graders) sat towards the back of the bus, but towards the end of the trip, those kids had migrated toward the front of the bus. After everyone had gotten on the bus, we had then left for our trip.
During the bus ride we stopped at 2 or 3 Kwik Trips, and other than that we did get caught in traffic once for at least half an hour.
We arrived at Lutheran Church in Duluth Minnesota around 3:00 that day. The church had a basement, a main floor and a second and third floor. We didn’t have access to the third floor but the church was very gracious for letting us use their space.
The basement was where most of the kids hung out whenever we had free time. The basement had a pool table, an air hockey table, a ping pong table and tons of chairs and bean bag chairs. They also had a huge storage room down in the basement and showers.
Most people slept on the main floor, except for some adults who slept in other rooms. We also ate our meals on the main floor, and the kitchen was located right across from where we slept. To the left of the kitchen was a staircase that led you to all of the floors. To the right of the kitchen were bathrooms and more rooms down the hallway. The second floor was where the Sanctuary and nursery was located. Obviously that isn’t the full run down of the whole building, but there were many other rooms on each floor with other purposes and there were multiple stairwells located around the church.
The first night, while we were there, us kids played a huge game of hide and seek, and after that we played a bit of sardines (Sardines is basically like hide and seek except there’s one hider and everyone else is a seeker. But when you find the hider you hide alongside them until everyone else has found you).
Lunch and breakfast were pretty much set up the same everyday. For breakfast we had a handful of different types of cereal, bagels, toast and sometimes other things. For lunch we would pack lunches and set them into coolers that would be brought to the different work sites. In our lunches we could pack things like sandwiches, chips and other snacks like that. For dinner we had different meals every day of the week. On Sunday we had planned to have lasagna but we left it back at the church, so instead we had pizza. On Monday we had a potato bar, Tuesday we had tacos, Wednesday we ate taco and pasta salad at a park, Thursday we ate brats and hotdogs, and Friday we ate at a restaurant called “Grandma’s”.
Every night there was a group that would go to “Super One” to pick up food. We had a “Super One” that was located pretty close to the church we stayed at (it was about a block away so it was within walking distance).
Everyday around 4:30 or 5:00 we went to the YMCA to take showers and change clothes.
It had been my first time going on the mission trip so I didn’t know what to expect. But it ended up being a great week. It’s clear that the people that organized the trip thought about our well being.