Friday…our 4th day in Detroit.

We enjoyed the mass gathering tonight, with a surprise guest coming to top it off. First of all I’ll start with what we did this morning. Today was another day at Cobo Center. We spent most of our time in the proclaim community room, which is a big spacious room that had 4 different sections with numerous stations with activities. I went to a couple stations. The first one I went to the station that had bumper cars. The bumper cars were fun but the wheels where hard to turn and the cars would sometimes spin in circles. Then I went to the walk for water station. At this station you get a 5 gallon jug of water and walk around the course that is a tenth of a mile long. Each jug had a color and that color would represent a story that goes on during the course. Along the course there were facts about the lack of clean water around the world and places where you had to stop for a break or go to the medic because you got Malaria. When I finished the course had really sore arms and a pin. The station really made me think about just how fortunate I am to have clean water everyday and not have to worry about catching a disease from water. Then we stopped at the food court for lunch and went shopping in the ELCA gathering gift shop. We had some time to kill and after we went upstairs and found a hallway, where it was quiet overlooking the river and Canada. Emily said to me, “We took a nap with Canada”. We left Cobo Center to go to the General Motors building for lunch. We ate in another food court but this time we had better selections. Then we made our way to Ford Field to get a “good seat” for the mass gathering. They had a lot of speakers and another performance by Agape* and a special guest… The Temptations. They performed not only some of their songs but also songs from previous artists from Motown. That was really cool to see. We then got on the bus and arrived at our hotel by 10:40ish. Throughout the day we were constantly making new friend and furthering ourselves in our faith. We even had time after the mass gathering to mingle and meet new friends in the hotel lobby and give out free snacks. i have had a great experience so far here in Detroit and I hope I will continue this fun experience.

Julianne O’Reilly