Week 33 - Not Amish, Still Helpful
I am going to change some things up for this blog, throw a new style in and I wanted to warn you before it gets crazy. Background – I have been active on my Yelp reviews (food social media) after dining in new areas, and recently was promoted to Yelp Elite Member. A Yelp Elite Member is a distinguished user recognized by Yelp for their active engagement, HIGH-quality reviews, and contributions to their platform’s community. To be completely honest, the style for my Yelp reviews is quite unique, I don’t think much about what I am writing, I just let thoughts flow from my head to the computer and go with it. I am going to try that for this blog. It worked for Yelp, maybe our readers will enjoy it on the blog. I won’t try too hard though, that never works. I am just going to let thoughts flow. Sometimes it feels similar to when you are awake after a good night's sleep but you are still drowsy and maybe in dream state, but your ideas are really flowing and you never want to add any period to end a thought because they all are tied together.
This week, we spent our time in Spokane, Washington, which honestly is a really great place mostly because our friend, Reese (well, he used to not be our friend until we met him in Bend, Oregon), is from Spokane and he set us up with some awesome people, including his pastor, his mom, and childhood best friend, all whom we had breakfast with. They were welcoming and continued to ask us how they can serve us, but we showed up in Spokane to serve them, and it is crazy how people continue to serve us with so much generosity when we're doing this trip to serve others, people can be so awesome I love it. We didn't even have to set up our work for the week, usually, we take care of the facilitating of our volunteer work, but they were reaching out to all these people and groups, which was cool to see how well connected in the community they are, and we are thankful for Reese who set up this opportunity, and I know in the last blog when I talked about him, I mentioned how if we lived in the same place we would be really good friends, and I am starting to realize even if we don't live in the same place, we will still be really good friends.
Reedemer Lutheran Church Pastor (Dave) and Reese’s amazing mother (Trish)
(Quick intermission - that paragraph might be tiring for you to read which I understand so not all of them will be crazy run-on sentences, but that is a common style in my reviews).
Shirley and Lee Phillips go to Redeemer Lutheran Church, Reese’s home church in Spokane. We had the opportunity to spend a day with them cleaning out their gutters, which weirdly enough is satisfying to see all this dirt rush through the gutter after sticking this snake looking piece of metal down the gutter over and over. Davis did a really good job sticking the snake looking piece of metal down the gutter over and over and I did an exceptional job letting him know when he would knock the debris down in the gutter. Shirley and Lee were a treat to be with, they even shared their love story. Before they told us their love story, they made sure to clarify they were only 87 years old. I want to share their love story with you that has now flourished into 68 years of marriage: Lee was working at a grocery store that had 6 check-out lines and Shirley was serving hot dogs and milkshakes down the street. She also was working at a store that sold stuff for 5 and 10 cents so I am confused if that was the same store or not, but I was too into the story at that point to ask questions. He asked her out and got rejected … a few times. Sometimes she was dating other guys, sometimes she was too busy. He claims she was a “hottie”. She agreed she was. I confirmed she STILL is, in a polite way. After she finally said yes to Lee, they went out 5 nights in a row. Lee picked Shirley up in a different car each night because his dad owned a used car lot. Typically, her boyfriends wouldn’t even pay for her meals, so she was impressed with the different car tricks. Stories like this are what make our trip special. Beneath the surface of everyday routines, there are fairy tale stories waiting to be told.
We went to help with Cup of Cool Water on Tuesday night, an organization assisting homeless youth in the Spokane area. The staff were great, the volunteers were great, we had great conversations with the youth, and even helped with the 1000-piece puzzle. One of the highlights was meeting a unique volunteer, Isaac. He is one of my favorite volunteers I have ever worked alongside. Right when we walked in, one of the guys gravitated straight toward Isaac. Another girl at the shelter mentioned a few weeks previous she had spent the whole time with Isaac, forgetting about dinner. Isaac did not even have to say anything, he just had a calming presence. At one point, Isaac was laying on his side and everybody was next to him petting him and he was wagging his tail. Isaac is a comfort dog that Redeemer Lutheran Church uses as part of their ministry. After my experience with Isaac, I realized a few things. Isaac is the champion of being pet by humans. It doesn’t seem like a hard thing to be good at, but he stands out. More organizations should have comfort dogs. Isaac was an amazing ice breaker and brought a sense of ease and comfort so quickly. I was going to think of an analogy to explain how comfortable he makes people feel but there isn’t much else I can compare it to. If you have been around a dog, and that doesn’t include doodles, then you know what I am talking about.
Our main project for the week was at Lutherhaven, a camp the church is involved with located nearby in Idaho. They had a big project, and the camp director, Rebecca, had been praying for six Amish guys to show up and crank out this project for them. Here is the thing, I don’t know much about Amish people, but I used to wear a Lederhosen when I was young and I feel like that is similar to the attire. Regardless, she did not get six Amish guys but instead three somewhat handsome MEN (two of which are tall) who rolled up in a school bus. I think that did the trick because Rebecca seemed happy and trusted us with a project of building a gazebo looking thing, Cain and Davis call it a parabola or something like that but I can never remember the term they use.
I rarely see Cain and Davis challenged by our projects. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, they can do spectacular things with their hands in terms of construction. When Steve presented us his sketch of the gazebo (they call it a patella or something like that), they were a little frazzled. Not frazzled in a way that made me nervous, more so frazzled in a way that makes me excited. Oh man though, this project has gotten crazy. One time we were lifting a big wood column thing and I somehow ended up underneath it and was trying to use my head to keep it up so it wouldn’t fall, and Davis and Cain got nervous and screamed at me! We laughed about it later, but they seemed scared in the moment. I am getting stronger though, so I took care of it and didn’t get hurt from the big wood column thing. To be honest, I never was too nervous, but I think I should have been a little more. Cain is using his joinery skills on this project. Joinery is basically a way to “join” wood without using screws or bolts or things like that. He feels very alive. I know this because he told us but also, he just has that look. The look where he pulls back his curly hair under his big headphones and puts the pencil in his mouth and puts his hand on his hip and his other hand to scratch his head because he is in deep thought to solve a problem. Also, he might be scratching his head because we hadn’t showered in a few days so he might have needed a hair wash too. Then he solves the problem, and he doesn’t exclaim out loud like I might but he has this smooth little grin mostly on one side of his mouth. We are still working on this challenge of the gazebo thing (the word sounds like a gondola - or maybe cain or davis if yall remember what it is called put it here - pergola), and we are going to do such a good job. I am excited to keep you updated in our next blog.
To all of you still reading this whirlwind of a blog, cheers. I hope this story was told in an entertaining way and you have a better idea of how I truly process our weeks. We will continue our time around this area for the next week, accompanied by our good friend from Charleston, Ben Joye.
John the hitchhiker had lots of life lessons to tell us about
Cains first time oh yeah
Doing it oh yeah
