'Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.' - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

This morning we went to the 16th Street Baptist Church for the morning service. This is the church that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached at and attended back in the day. It was primarily african american people in attendance and they were very welcoming and happy to have us there. Some of us even recieved hugs. The service was lively, passionate and very charismatic. Something we will never forget.

(Here is a link to a video that was taken at the church. I wasn't able to post it to this blog but managed to     upload it to our youth facebook page. Some of you may not be able to watch it if you aren't part of the group. For that I am sorry. Hopefully once we return you can be added to the group or can watch it from on of the youth's pages.)

https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150645650637705&oid=8499766069&saved

 

The 16th Street Baptist Church

 Our good lookin' group.

For lunch we attempted to go to a place called Nikki's but it was closed and looked like it had been closed for a while so we made our way to option #2 which was called Dreamland Bar-b-que. Deffinetly the right choice. As we were led to our tables we walked past a very impressive indoor brick barbeque covered in slabs of ribs...needless to say we knew this was the restaurant for us. 

 

Outside the restaurant.

In the bible God took a rib from the man and made it into a woman...this time the women gave their extra ribs to the men.

Yum!

Couldn't quite finish...

Love at first sight.

After a delicious and filling lunch we made our way to the Birmingham Civil Rights museum (right beside the 16th Street Baptist Church). There we walked through a maze of informative exibets about how society moved from segregation and extreme racism to freedom and equality. The pictures, models, videos and timelines were angering, saddening and frustrating at times. We agreed that it was embarrasing to think that it was our race that treated them so poorly. 

Chillin' (or rather cookin') outside the Civil Rights Museum.

After the museum we headed over to the MDS home base. We were extremely excited when we saw our trailers becasue we were all expecting some pretty dingy construction trailers and it turned out to be nice camper trailers with a full bathroom in each!!! 5 of the boys headed back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and the rest of us went for a walk to see some of the damage that was near the site.

Our new home for the week.

Not too shabby.

Our trailers.

A church that had been demolished by a tornado.

Once the boys returned we headed out for another fast food supper and then headed back to the site for orientation. Tomorow we wake up bright and early to start work on the project sites! Oh one interesting fact...apparently we have accents. We've been asked numerous times "Where ya'll from" to which we say "Canada" and they reply "Ok I was just wondering cuz of your accents".

Goodnight ya'll.

Gina