Zwiefel volunteers at Olympics

This article submitted by Molly Connors on 8/27/96.

While the rest of the world was watching the Olympics on TV, Elisa Zweifel was in Atlanta.

Zweifel, a 1995 graduate of Paynesville High School, went as a volunteer for Youth With A Mission (YWAM).

YWAM sent 5,000 volunteers from 100 different nations to Atlanta. Americans were the minority in this group, Zweifel said. Five hundred of the group were security guards. The remainder performed music, drama and dances in the parks. They also evangelized.

Zweifel was part of a mime/drama group. The rest of her group, with the exception of one American, spoke little or no English.
Her group performed in five different parks, a safehouse for homeless people and Salvation Army places.

Her YWAM leader worked with the Olympic Committee and the group had a sketch of what they would do.

After the bomb in Centennial Park, security tightened up.

"They had actually laid off some security people before the bomb," Zweifel said. She was frisked going into the CNN building. Handbag searches were common. bomb scares were even more common.

There were so many bomb threats that everyone "got used to them," Zweifel said.

Zweifelâs group stayed at a church in the Atlanta suburbs. Forty people camped out in sleeping bags there.

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