Irene and I left Shults-Lewis on Wednesday afternoon. after teaching a class on "Providence and the Holy Spirit" at the Lebanon, Indiana church of Christ that evening, we hit the road immediately and stayed the night in the Walmart parking lot in Effingham, IL. We hit the road the next morning early (6:30 AM) and got all the way to Benton, Arkansas (just west of Little Rock) about 3 PM where we stopped in another Walmart Parking lot for the evening.
This morning we were on the road by 8 AM and made it to Camp Bee (Sojourner headquarters) right at noon. We got all set up since we are going to be here until the 23rd of October.
Having said that, we will leave tomorrow morning. We will leave the Trekker here and drive the Flex to Mission, TX to close on the house at Bentsen Palms. 3707 Hummingbird Lane will be our new residence Monday afternoon.
I've got to call Monday for our UPack to be delivered and already have an appointment for the DirecTV installation set up for Wednesday morning. That means we will have to get a big screen television for our living room on Monday afternoon or Tuesday.
Most of the u-pack truck we will be able to be unload ourselves, however the big pieces some of the landscape guys will help us get out of the truck on Tuesday or Wednesday. We will then spend Wednesday and Thursday trying to get things in the right room.
On Friday we are flying to Tucson, Arizona to see our newest grandbaby Izabela Rain Gordon and we are looking forward to that. We will fly back from Tucson on Monday and continue to unpack the boxes.
Then on Friday, October 3rd, we will drive back to Marshall, Texas to be here to attend the listening lab that starts on Monday the October 6th. The listening lab runs until the 8th of October; then on October 13th, Monday, the workshop begins when we pick our sojourns for next year.
Friday, September 19, 2014
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
another One Bites the Dust
For the last 2 1/2 weeks we've been @ Shults-Lewis Child and Family Services just South of Valparaiso, Indiana. It's affiliated with the church of Christ and is a residence home off troubled teens. We have gone there for the last 4 years.
The greatest part of it is getting to know and make a difference in the lives of the kids. For some this is their last hope before they would end up in Juvenile Hall. Virtually all of them have issues with authority --- of any ilk. Many are the product of SEVERELY dysfunctional homes. One girls mom taught her to steal to get her mom drug money and her brother is the one that was giving the girl cocaine and LSD. Others have been physically and/or sexually abused.
Within two weeks they think of us as the grandparents they WISH they had. It's a joy to see the transformation in there attitudes.
For the most part Irene and the other ladies got a MONSTER rummage sale ready. We got there the 1st of September and the Children's homes big yearly fund raising day "annual day" as they call it was the 13th. The rummage sale items took up a whole gymnasium. New and used items of every kind have to be sorted by size or type. Then they have to be stacked and priced. It took 6 ladies 9 days 7 hours per day to get it ready.
I painted the office of one of the counselors Robin Egg Blue (3 walls) and purple. quick, guess: Is the counselor male or female?
The day before annual day all the men set up the 500 chairs and 100 tables for the vendor booths and auction area. It's a nightmare!
The rest of the 2nd week and Monday & Tuesday of this week 5 of us men spent our time putting together a large utility shed at resident home #5.
We got stuck leaving. it rained 8 inches in the 3 days before we arrived. It made it difficult to level our rig: the blocks we use under our jacks just kept pushing into the soft ground. Then, while we were the it must have rained another 10". It was a quagmire. It took us 4 hours to get out of the much.
As I write this we are in the parking lot of the Walmart in Effingham, IL. We have to be in Mission Texas on Monday to close on our brand new home.
The greatest part of it is getting to know and make a difference in the lives of the kids. For some this is their last hope before they would end up in Juvenile Hall. Virtually all of them have issues with authority --- of any ilk. Many are the product of SEVERELY dysfunctional homes. One girls mom taught her to steal to get her mom drug money and her brother is the one that was giving the girl cocaine and LSD. Others have been physically and/or sexually abused.
Within two weeks they think of us as the grandparents they WISH they had. It's a joy to see the transformation in there attitudes.
For the most part Irene and the other ladies got a MONSTER rummage sale ready. We got there the 1st of September and the Children's homes big yearly fund raising day "annual day" as they call it was the 13th. The rummage sale items took up a whole gymnasium. New and used items of every kind have to be sorted by size or type. Then they have to be stacked and priced. It took 6 ladies 9 days 7 hours per day to get it ready.
I painted the office of one of the counselors Robin Egg Blue (3 walls) and purple. quick, guess: Is the counselor male or female?
The day before annual day all the men set up the 500 chairs and 100 tables for the vendor booths and auction area. It's a nightmare!
The rest of the 2nd week and Monday & Tuesday of this week 5 of us men spent our time putting together a large utility shed at resident home #5.
We got stuck leaving. it rained 8 inches in the 3 days before we arrived. It made it difficult to level our rig: the blocks we use under our jacks just kept pushing into the soft ground. Then, while we were the it must have rained another 10". It was a quagmire. It took us 4 hours to get out of the much.
As I write this we are in the parking lot of the Walmart in Effingham, IL. We have to be in Mission Texas on Monday to close on our brand new home.
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