Individual J-Term: Brookwood Day 9

    Day nine, wow, time has flown by. Before heading out to work I began the day with pancakes and sausages, personally my favorite. Today I was working in the Movers. The movers, help move plants from various greenhouses to propoagation and plants from propogation to the greenhouses. This is a very active group, always getting their steps in. It is a large group, with around 20 citizens, located in the movers building. Today we mainly moved pothos to a seperate greenhouse, for they were beggining to outgrow their current space. Here I got to learn about the suprvisors story of coming to Brookwood and hearing what the citizens think about Brookwood. 

    I next headed to Bloom fitness with the movers. Here we worked out through song. A key feature I have noticed, and told by others, is the importance of repretition. Specifically with Bloom they always do the same songs and movements. This is because reutine and schedule is very important, for many citizens at Brookwood thrive in an envirment of predictability.

    After getting fit, I went to Pastor Anthony's suprise birthday celebration. Armed with party horn, we suprised him with angel food cake and excellent homemade whip-cream by Ms. Heidi.

    The next activity was seeing the Brookwood HandBell Choir. Created in 2007, it is currently run by Ms. Diana who is the HandBell Director at Chapelwood! They were just incredible, I used to do handbells for a couple years, and the pieces they were not easy. The Brookwood Handbell choir has also been able to show their talent throughout Houston. Playing at the Astros, Houston Grand Opera, featured in Handbell Conferences, and so much more! Today they were prepping for a perfromance with the Houston Accordion Orchestra. While I was listening to them, Ms. Diana had me join them! I havn't played in years, but they use a musical sheet method, that they created, to help more easily convey notes. This is a really effective method, and allowed me to relativly easily attempt to play bells. Ms. Diana, with Brookwood, is hoping to patent the method. This would allow others to use their technique around the world!

    Next up, was fitness class! Here I had the privilege to lead with Ms. Heidi weight training and stretches with the citizens. We did excrises like dumbell curls, lateral raises, and dumbell shoulder press. This is intented to help citizens build their upper body strength with resistance training. For as anyone ages their upper body strength is significantly weakened, so anything one does it help maintain strength is key.

    For dinner I went to the Follet house. Here we had beef nachos, which were delicious, and wonderful conversations. We talked about how everyone got to Brookwood, what they love to do, and facts about Star Wars

    For the last activity of the day I went to Pastor Anthony's Bible Party! At Bible Party today we learned about how we Christ to be our foundation, not money, populatrity, material goods. After the lesson we played Wheel of Fortune. Mr. Anthony uses fun interactive games to help better say his message. For everyone loves games!

    My biggest takeaway today was about how Pastor Anthony uses fun, interactive games to convey his message. I would want to try to use some of his techniques at Bible Party, in the talks I do with Middle Schoolers at church!