Weekend in DC

Friday I wandered around after work and I saw the Robert Taft memorial, and the Grant memorial- which looks strangely a lot like what I envisioned the Roosevelt memorial to be like, since it's a guy on a horse. On Saturday, the rest of my Calvin friends/group arrived, and my roommate Sam and I checked out the Air and Space Museum as well as the Natural History Museum. The Air and Space one, just wasn't my style. Im more into American History because I know more about it, then a specific thing such as Air and space. However, the simulators for being a flight controller for NASA was sweet. The Natural History Museum was pretty cool, I'll show the cool exhibits below in pictures.

Sweet knitted exhibit of what coral looks like underwater

The Hope Diamond! My Birthday's coming up....hint hint :)

A large Whale

An Elephant!

On Sunday, I went to this church in the basement if a coffee house, which was cool. We sang one of my favorite songs, "Oh, He loves Us, His loves like a Hurricane and I am a tree." Look it up if you haven't heard it. Its about how God loves us through anything :) In the afternoon a huge bunch of my Calvin group went to the Holocaust museum, which is an experience I highly recommend. The museum shows so many more photos and connects you to the victims and helps you understand. Over 2 million Jews died in the holocaust, plus Gypsies and many others. The thing that struck me the most, is that America, as well as other countries could have taken in those Jews, but we all turned them away. We could have saved lives, but we didn't. A proud moment for me came when I was visiting the wall that listed people who helped hide and just help those persecuted in the Holocaust, on the list I saw 2 Van De Kamp names. Anton and Wilhemina Van De Kamp and Jacobus and Gerretje Van De Kamp. I don't know if these are my relatives, but I hope in some sense they are. I am proud that someone in the Van De Kamp side stood up for those persecuted and made a difference.

On Monday, all the Calvin Students visited 2 organizations The International Justice Mission, and the Institute of Religion and Democracy. The first organization was amazing, they go out into third world countries and hold the government accountable for their laws, such as the illegalness of slavery, sex trafficking and persecution of citizens. They go in and produce evidence to the cops and show that there is punishment for those who break the law. I loved their mission, and could totally see myself being involved/ working their or lobbying for there cause in congress. The second site- Institute of Religion and Democracy was interesting, very different from the CRC background. It dealt with the 7 Protestant sister churches, and trying to uphold the churches to tight stances on political issues. All in All it was a great day. Hopefully the rest of the week goes as well. God Bless!