Time has gone by unbelievably fast down here and it’s crazy to think that I’ll be heading back to Seattle in a little over two weeks. Before I talk about heading home however, let me summarize the last week and a half or so.
As I mentioned in my last post, the group of 46 from North Carolina has proven to be our most challenging group to date. It was just a lot of people and organization of the entire team was frustrating. Yet looking back now, I can see that it was a rather successful week. The Vacation Bible School went smoothly and the numbers stayed constant around 40 kids each day. Also, by the end of the week, seven kids made a commitment to Christ and I believe that seeds were planted in others which will later be watered to fruition. Furthermore, the exterior of 2 houses were almost completely painted! The work teams were troopers in the sizzling 95 degree weather and worked their tails off. One of the highlights of the week that happened on my worksite was when the group’s bus driver, who worked for the charter bus company and had no connection with the church, began to help out painting the house. He was an older gentleman (probably 65) named Al who was only required to drop off and pickup the work teams which meant that him and his wife (who was along for the ride) had 6 days of vacationing to themselves in New Orleans. Yet Al, who used to run his own painting business, saw that we were all rookies at caulking windows so he spent a day and a half doing that for us while his wife helped paint. This was a big help and it was just cool to see them give up some of their time to serve with us.
This group took off last Saturday morning and a group of 9 adults from Colorado Springs got in Saturday and left Friday the 25th. While the Charlotte group was our hardest group, the Colorado Springs group was probably our easiest. They were all apart of the 1st Presbyterian Colorado Springs’ “singles group” called bridges and ranged from 18 to 35. There was a plumber named Jim who we kept busy all week running around to multiple houses and a contractor named Mike who worked well with our Mikey teaching the group how to mud, tape, and float drywall which I have learned is quite an art. We spent the week working on Miss Bobby and Mr. Alfonso’s house. They are this cute African American couple in their 70’s who were trapped in their home in 8 feet of water during Katrina. Miss Bobby is one of the nicest most grateful ladies I have ever met. She also has a gripping story of how her and her husband were rescued in the storm. The short version is that she and Alfonso were trapped up in their attic for three full days in the middle of the atrociously hot August heat where they managed to get in contact with their two sons just before their cell phone went dead. Her sons, who had access to a boat, were able to navigate through the devastated neighborhood that was under 8+ feet of water which took 2 hours because there were so many obstacles (cars, houses, street signs, etc) to maneuver around and because the names of the streets were underwater. When they finally found the house they had to tear through the roof to get them out. (This brief description doesn’t do justice to the way Miss Bobby tells the tale and explains how God’s providence allowed everything to work out, but you get the idea.) Anyways, we spent the week finishing the exterior painting and getting a significant portion of the drywall done. Unfortunately we only have one more work team in for the summer so we won’t be able to complete the entire house, though Mikey (who lives down here full-time) will be able to get most of the work done within the next few months with the help of a few friends.
This next week should be very interesting as it will be our first week of “dance camp.” There is a group of 12 dance instructors from a professional dance studio who will be here for two weeks teaching neighborhood kids how to dance. Accompanying this group will be a group of 15 (11 high schoolers and 4 adult leaders) from Lookout Mountain Presbyterian church in Colorado who will be assisting the camp and also doing some relief work as well. As much as I know I could use dance lessons, Mikey and I have decided to lead the work team while Candace and Anna will stick around the church to help run the camp. The following week, however, there is no work team coming and Mikey and I will be “forced” to help out at dance camp. While I can already envision how embarrassing it might be, perhaps my future wife (Lord-willing) will appreciate it!
Life outside of work has been awesome also aside from a recent injury I incurred (that I’ll explain eventually). I have been fortunate enough to go out twice on the 22 foot fishing boat that Rusty (the 27 year old guy I play volleyball with) owns in the swampy Louisiana rivers and lakes. The first time I went was on my day off two weeks ago. I went with Rusty, his sister Katie and two of her friends from Michigan who happened to be in town and wanted to go for a ride. We went through a bunch of fishing camps (cabins along the river that are only accessible by boat) and spotted 4-5 alligators during our adventure. The second time I went was Friday afternoon after work which was with Rusty, his other sister Jenny (the church secretary) and the other three interns. We took a similar tour of the fishing camps and then went out into a large lake where we decided to swim in the warm, muddy lake water about a quarter mile off shore (Rusty’s thermometer literally read 85 degrees which makes sense considering the entire lake is 6-8 feet deep!). It was here that my rather painful injury took place. This is how it happened: Rusty and the other three interns and I were standing on the bow of the boat before anyone had jumped in while Jenny was taking a picture of us all. Once the picture was taken, no one really wanted to go into the murky water first so Rusty gave me a forceful push and the bottom of my heal basically got bayoneted by the cleat on the top of the boat which left a nice half inch deep gouge in the bottom of my foot. It hurt like hell but I still swam in the swampy water for about half an hour (probably not the best idea with an open flesh wound). Once we were done I got some gauze from Rusty’s first aid kit and monitored the bleeding until we got back to the boat launch. Now of course Friday night is the night of our volleyball league and there’s no way I was going to sit out. It turns out Cassie, Rusty’s wife, is a nurse and so when we got back to Rusty’s house with the boat, she rinsed out the wound with peroxide, put some Neosporin over it and bandaged and taped it up to keep the sand out. I popped 3 Tylenols and played. Jumping hurt a lot but I was still able to jump high enough to hit a guy in the face with my spike which helped keep me motivated. =) It was a really close match and we came back in the third game from an 11-7 deficit to win the match 15-13. Afterwards I rewashed the wound with peroxide and bandaged it up. On Sunday it wasn’t looking too good so I went to an after-hours clinic and got a tetnus shot, some anti-biotics, and some ointment. I figure the best way to look at the situation is that I’ll now probably have a nice scar to remember New Orleans and Rusty by.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, my time down here has flown by. And while I know there’s a whole new adventure that lies ahead of me with my trip to China, I really have grown to love it here and will be sad to leave. I’m doing my best to “live in the moment” to “be present” and “breathe it all in” because I don’t know if the Lord will lead me to Louisiana again.
Well I’ll update in a few days about our glorious dance camp and my unpleasant puncture wound. I’ll also get some pictures up once those crazy girl interns decide to upload them. Ah… the frustration of not having a camera.
Kyle
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