Washington, D.C. and Beltsville, MD

On October 7th, after I was done picking up garbage in Delaware, I headed to Washington, D.C. When I got there, I met Brother Joseph at the San Miguel School. I got there at the end of the school day, so I was just in time to tutor some of the kids in study hall!

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to spend a full day at the middle school. My time at school began at 7:30am when I had the chance to visit with the boys during breakfast. After that, I had the opportunity to help a pair of students who were struggling with their science lab. When that was done, I worked with one of the students as he read through his independent reading book. After lunch and recess, I spent a couple hours helping an administrator by individually scanning all of the Christmas cards that the boys had made. At about 5:00pm, I called it a day and headed back for the night.

On Friday, I was able to attend the Hispanic Heritage Fiesta that was put on by the school to help the students celebrate where they came from! After a bilingual Mass, everyone gathered in the church basement to enjoy special foods from Spanish speaking countries around the world!

On Saturday, Brother Joseph was kind enough to drop me off at the metro station so that I didn’t need to bring my car downtown. After learning my lesson from riding the subway in New York City, I was able to find my way through the Washington, D.C. subway system without any trouble. I got off the subway at the Arlington National Cemetery and spent a couple hours walking around and paying my respects. After watching the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier, I crossed the bridge back into Washington, D.C. to snap a couple pictures by the monuments. Afterwards, I met up with Brother Joseph and Brother Dylan as we made our way to Beltsville, Maryland, to attend Mass and visit the Brothers at their retirement facility.

On Sunday, I made the short trip to Columbia, Maryland. After I arrived, my hosts took me to a build your own pizza place. Overwhelmed by the fact that the price was determined by size and not the number of toppings, I panicked and requested that nine different meats be put on my pizza, which is concerning and inspiring at the same time. After awakening from my food coma on Monday morning, I found myself back at in Beltsville spending time with the Brothers. Once I sat down with them, I pulled out my deck of cards and decided to do some card tricks, knowing that it was impossible for this crowd to be more underwhelmed than the last one. Let’s just say that things went so well that I was doing card trick tutorials by lunch time! After lunch, I sat down with one of the Brothers who enjoys board games and played a couple different ones with him.

Tuesday was spent planning and taking my car to the shop for some maintenance. Wednesday was spent with the Brothers once again. Rather than trying to duplicate the success of Monday's magical performance, I decided to leave the cards behind and sit and talk with the Brothers instead! Thursday was used to catch up on some much needed sleep and continue planning. On Friday, after a great stay in Maryland, I packed up my car and continued south towards Shipman, Virginia!

Thank you to Brother Joseph for hosting me in Washington, D.C. Thank you to all of the teachers and staff at the San Miguel School for working to improve the students’ lives. Thank you to Ken and Elizabeth for hosting me in Columbia! Thank you to the Brothers in Beltsville for being impressed with my card tricks. And thank you to all of you who continue to support me and pray for me!