Today was a good, long day.  We started off the day by celebrating Matthew's birthday.  He became a teenager here in Asheville!  After breakfast, we headed off to the Manna Food Bank.  We had a fun and productive morning of sorting and packaging boxes that will feed over 2000 people in Western North Carolina.  We also worked with a girl named Chelsea.  Please pray for her.  She has struggled with running away and is being placed in a new foster home in the next week.  The group enjoyed working with her.  Our experience here also made the 6:00 news!  We were so excited to see ourselves on the WLOS news.  Check out thier website and see if you can view that segment!

After working at the Food Bank, we headed over to the ABCCM hotel for veterans.  They just recently purchased an old motel and are renovating it for veterans.  Almost 150 men currently live there.  We worked on moving brush, chopping bushes (or at least we thought they were, but they turned out to be a stump), pulling weeds, and doing general yard clean-up.  We met a man that used to live in Raleigh and has attended HBBC.  It was good to make a connection with him.  Pray for Mr. Jones.

We came back and enjoyed an afternoon swim before heading out to the Fiddlin' Pig for dinner.  We had a great meal, but the bluegrass music and dancing made the evening.  Some children and grandmas asked the kids to dance.  They had a lot of fun dancing for about 2 hours.  We've got some great pictures!

The evening ended with a totally middle-school experience!  Matthew's birthday present from the girls included a hair-straightening experience.  He now thinks he is a Jonas brother.  We finished the evening with a devotion thinking about what we "want Jesus to do for us".  Pray that we will continue to be open to seeing God all around us and being His presence. 

Tomorrow we will be whitewater rafting.  We can't wait to tell you about it!