Individual J-Term: Brookwood Day 5

    Saturday was another incredible day. With a later start, waking up at 7:30 am, I felt refreshed and ready for the day. My first activity was joining Greggy and the citizens for basketball. Warming up with various exercises for 40 minutes, ensuring people of all abilities can participate. As explained to me by Greggy, his goal with basketball is to constantly have the citizens improve in their own ways. You can see that only at Brookwood are 60- and 70-year-old guys and girls playing 5-5 basketball! During basketball, I was able to coach the opposing team against Greggy and let's just say we won. While that was all lots of fun. I honestly learned a lot from that experience. Here, I got to see the power of incremental growth and consistency with citizens. This consistency has enabled them to keep doing what they love no matter their age.

    Once done with basketball, I was able to have lunch with Greggy and Mary. Here, I learned more about their journey with Brookwood, what keeps them motivated, and why they love this place. Their advice and our conversations gave me enormous insight into their strategies over the years to keep up the work ethic they have. They also talked about how they got here and how one can pursue a career in special needs ministry. 

    Done with lunch, I headed over with Greggy to the citizens' 1.5-mile walk in preparation for the St. Luke student ministries walk. Here, I was able to walk with Mr. David, Mr. Rick, and bird watch with Mr. Robert. After a long walk, it was dinner time! This dinner was a first; I had Burger King for the first time ever!

    The last activity of the day was Brookwood History Day. At this event, in memory of over 45 years of Brookwood, Greggy led the citizens through the history of Brookwood, reliving the memories with the citizens. Many of the citizens at Brookwood have been there for over 20, 30, and 40 years. So, hearing their stories and favorite moments of Brookwood was incredible! Here, I was recruited as the Brookwood Eagle. Fully decked out in Eagle gear, I was unexpectedly thrown into a bit of dancing, and Simon says. Helped by Wilson, who loves mascots, I was able to greet all the citizens at the event.

    In conclusion, today was a fun day. I continued learning more about citizens and their stories. I was able to schedule a time for my interview with Mr. Rick and able to get advice from Greggy and Mary about how to further pursue special needs ministries.