Hey everyone! And once again, it's Jess here, although luckily this time it isn't due to Lorna oversleeping.

Yesterday, after the fence painting at Wesley Woods was called off during the rain, we met at the church for our lunch, before splitting into two groups and visiting two residential homes for the elderly. The group I was in visited a home called Echo Ridge, where we were given the chance to sing, talk to the residents, and join in with their game of 'beanbag baseball!' The other group visited Shannondale Nursing Home, where they were divided into smaller teams, and went and spoke to several of the residents.

Later that afternoon, were all met up again in order to have a team meeting, to discuss the events of the afternoon. Many of us were extremely affected by meeting the residents. We were encouraged by the good spirits and fun nature of many, particularly Charlie at Echo Ridge, yet many who visited Shannondale found it difficult and sad to spend time with these more elderly and infirm residents who perhaps were very lonely, and nearing the end of their lives with all the associated health and mental health issues.

For dinner that night, went to a place called Petro's which served chilli. I think I can speak for everyone in saying that it was really quite delicious. After our meal there, we headed down to the Worlds Fair Park, for TNT. This is the mid-week session for High School students of CSPC, and so we were given the opportunity to meet with new people, who weren't members of the LINK team. We also played an England vs. America football (soccer!) game, and I'm delighted to report that the score was 6-2 to us! Nearer the end of our evening there, most of us participated in running through the fountains at the park, which soaked us all through, but it was definitely worth it. Also, for the first time since leaving the plane at Knoxville, we were given the opportunity for some separate FourForty time, as were the team from CSPC. It was good to be able to realise how much of a 'family spirit' FourForty has now, and we realised how lucky we are to have such a close and unique connection.

Today was spent downtown in Knoxville, at a place called Lonsdale. This one of the poorer parts of the inner city, and we were able to help with starting a community garden there, where food crops will hopefully be able to be grown in the future. In order to start this garden however, we given the rather unenviable task of shovelling 'Zoo Poo,' from Knoxville City Zoo, to act as a natural fertiliser for the garden. This has definitely been the most physically exhausting day yet, but to look at all of our work at the end was extremely satisfying, and we hope that the new scheme of the community gardens will be successful.

After this, everybody headed home to take a much-needed shower, and small group of people have gone out to buy the breakfast food for our work at the Volunteer Ministry Centre tomorrow morning. The rest of us are enjoying spending time with our host families once more. Hopefully there will be some more to report tomorrow about how we all spent our time!

Tomorrow morning is going to be a very early start, because we will be serving breakfast at the Volunteer Ministry Centre, which means that we'll have to meet at the church at 5:15 am! Hopefully everyone will be there on time, and that no-one will be too exhausted!

Thanks for praying!