Mission Trip Day 4

Here is Wonder Woman with Wes, a resident of the BirdHouse. (she looks hot because she spent the day working non stop in almost 90 degrees)  We spent the day redoing an additional bedroom.  It belongs to Wes and Dan.  Every room we have ever done for GCH is what I call bottom heavy when we come in.  By that, I mean everything they own is on or near the floor, with a lot of blank space on the walls above.  They have the basic sofa or bed, but no storage, no lamps, no art.  So, to me, it looks like someone picked up the room, gave it a good shake, and everything settled on the bottom.

See?  Bottom Heavy.

Usually in the bedrooms we find piles of clothes on the floor because they have no dressers or storage.  The good thing is that we have lots of empty space to use, we just build upward.  We always try to get as many storage areas into the room as can fit, because everything they own is in their bedrooms.  

Another thing we find with the residents in aftercare at GCH is that they save, collect and hoard everything they get.  They have usually lived many years with nothing but the clothes on their backs and ownership equals success for them. I can't blame them.  But they save things that are broken or no longer usable as well as the things they need.  

Wonder Woman is our organizing expert.  She has four boy children in two bedrooms at home and has learned the rules of keeping vs throwing out.  It makes her crazy to find things stored away that will never be used.  The discovery is usually followed by the statement, "that hurts me."  If you ever need a closet or a room cleaned out, she is the woman for the job.  So, she organized all of the belongings of Wes.  Then she sat him down and explained to him the necessity of not saving everything, and that if you have 15 hats, maybe someone else would be blessed by having a couple of them.  She showed him how to keep everything neat and organized.  Then I sat him down and made him put all of his CDs into a new CD rack.  He had 104.  I told him that was his limit.  If he got a new one, he had to give away one because the rack would hold no more.  Believe it or not, this is a learned skill and one that all of the program graduates have to learn.  (yeah, and some of the rest of us too) Wes kept saying he understood and he would keep it and he told Wonder Woman she could come back anytime and it would still look good.  All in all, WW was happy and so was Wes.

Another amazing trip!

Normal Girl

Mission Trip Day 3

I had time to work on one canvas for the Birdhouse.  While preparing for the trip, we all read  the story of Ann Judson, the first American woman missionary.  She and her husband went to Burma.  She was very young and Burma was very far away.  It took almost a year to get from her home in New England to Burma by ship. We read about the sickness, the imprisonment, the danger to their lives, the children that did not make it, the wars, and so many horrible things that she lived through.  She never lost her conviction that she was called by God to be a missionary in Burma.  I asked my team members to send me one sentence that stood out during the reading of the book.  I put those on a large canvas and we will hang it in the house someplace tomorrow.  These are all things said by Ann Judson in regard to her relationship with God.  Very inspiring.

So, three days down.  We have carried armoires, dressers, mattresses and more up and down the stairs at the birdhouse.  We have carried a sofa, a dining room table  and a roll of carpeting big enough to cover two rooms into the house.  Well, the carpeting, we carried from two houses down.  We have painted, installed cabinets, built armoires and dressers, sewn and hung curtains, nailed up moulding, cleaned out closets, and 10 other things.  See pics of the work: www.divinedesignbirdhouse.blogspot.com.  The house is looking great.  Tomorrow, we beautify.  We will bring in lamps and new towels and shower curtains and rugs and the homey touches.

One interesting thing happened today that has not happened in the past.  The men living in the house started telling us what they would like us to do in the house and what they would like us to bring them.  It has been a weird experience working hard all day while men are sitting in chairs watching us do it.  And then, today, they start giving us direction.  I am taking it as a sign that they have warmed up to us and feel comfortable.  Many of the women have had great conversations with the guys and I think that is an important part of our trip there.

Also, the men that did not want us to go in their rooms have now seen what we can do, and want us to fix their rooms.  This is work we have not planned for and materials we have not paid for.  But, we want to do it.  I sent a team shopping today and tonight I bought more furniture and tomorrow, we will speed decorate a room.  Stay tuned.

One more day,

Normal Girl

Mission Trip Day 2

This is the most important part of the day, lunch.  Not really, but is sure is a nice part.  The encouragement team is doing a great job treating a bunch of hot sweaty, paint covered women like queens.  

Everyone is working hard, we have accomplished a lot in two days.  Despite none of the four vacuum cleaners in the house is working.  Despite that it took four hours to dry the sheets in the dryer, and we had to fill the washing machine with buckets of water by hand.

We have had the assistance of a young man, sent to help us carry heavy things.  They are spoiling us.  His name is Rich.  He has been in the program for only 6 weeks.  He lives in the mission in the dorm with 50 other guys.  He is working through addiction and learning to let God direct his life.  He comes from a background of moving around the country and living in many places.  He had an awesome attitude and Wonder Woman and I could have talked with him all day, he was so wise.  He told us that he loves learning to get his life right.  He loves working and giving back for the things that are being given to him right now.  And he is learning that it is best to be still and just know God.  He said that he is learning that his sin is no better or worse than anyone else's sin.  Even though we humans look at some sins as worse than others, to God, sin is sin.  He found that humbling.  He also learned that he is no worse than anyone else and that was a boost to his self esteem.  Smart young man.

14 women working in close quarters for two full days....we are really doing pretty well....still lots of laughing.  We had a touch a go moment this afternoon.  We have a lot of furniture to get in the bedroom we are working on.  And, it seems the privacy in the shared bedrooms is of utmost importance.  So we stopped work at 4 o'clock to decide how to arrange the furniture in the room. There were lots of opinions and we moved heavy furniture around several times and nothing was working.  Wonder woman stuffed her head in a bookshelf until she could adjust her attitude.  I stood in a corner sucking my thumb.  We finally had to kick people put of the room.   Finally one of the residents came in and said to forget about the privacy thing...that if someone needs that much privacy, he should move out and get his own apartment.  Ok, that did it and we set the room according to how it fit best instead of how it made private areas.  Only took us an hour.

All in all, it was a good day and we left tired but with a feeling of accomplishment.  New carpet and furniture tomorrow!

Normal Girl

Mission Trip Day 1

Here is most of the gang, headed out in the morning, fed and ready to go.  It takes an hour to get there in the morning.  We borrowed a van and loaded it up with people and stuff.  We also have a pickup packed with stuff.

We spent the morning cleaning out all of the stuff we did not want to keep in the rooms.   In a house of 7 men, we found things I cannot even talk about.  Dirty socks and underwear were the least of it.  But we made great progress.  Both the downstairs and the upstairs teams got alot of painting done today.  Tomorrow will be more painting and alot of furniture assembly

To see more about what we did today and to read the backstory of the trip, go to www.divinedesignbirdhouse.blogspot.com 

Normal (so tired I am crosseyed) Girl

Writer's Strike

I am going on strike.  Just for tonight.  See me in the back with my sign?  I have been writing a horrible paper since 9 o'clock this morning.  What a sad fate for the first day of sumer.  I cannot even tell you how the paper ended up.  I could never get a grip on what the prof wants out of it.  Sometimes I get to the point where I know I have to turn something in so I just write whatever comes out.  I have done too much writing the last few days, so strike!

Normal Girl

The Official Sign of Michigan Summer

I just saw my first firefly of the season.  How cool are fireflies? If I could just figure out how to put them on a bracelet...... To me they signal summer is here.  Michigan summer is beautiful, not too cold, not too hot, you can spend 24/7 outside.  I usually miss most of the summer traveling for work, but it is looking good for me to be here this summer.  Sitting at the campfire, s'mores, canoeing, picking cherries, driving with the windows down, swinging in the hammock.  Let me know when you are coming for a visit!

Normal Girl

Loves Children, Loves Beads

These people have a heart for God's children and they are pretty good jewelry designers too.  Tonight, I spent a couple hours with the adoption specialists at Bethany Christian Services.  It is where Wonder Woman works and she invited me to bring bead soup.  These folks have stressful jobs dealing with people's lives, and tonight was a relaxing time just to visit.  And, they actually were very creative with good design sense.  I don't know if they teach that when you get a degree in social work, but I saw some really good bracelets tonight.  It was fun!

Normal Girl