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