Whatever

I'm having a little bit of blogger block after coming back from a long vacation in Tennessee and getting into the swing of things at school. I think I want to wait for some sort of way of neatly putting together my thoughts of being with family back in my home town, the precious times the girls and I create together during in the summer and in the passing of time as a new school year commences. But since I don't write every day, I don't process all those things and end up writing about nothing so I'm going to dive in with something we did a few weekends ago: a service project with our church family. The theme was "whatever" and we had these hideous orange shirts with the word "WHATEVER" on the front with these words on the back.

We spent our time gardening at a school, at a retirement center, delivering cookies to the volunteers at an animal shelter, and the day ended with BJ delivering a tractor at cost to hard working refugee from Africa. 

We walked down this hallway at the Alzheimer's section intended to jog people's memory, war memorabilia, old fashioned type-writers, a work bench, a rotary phone. It made me think about what I will remember, what my children might use to jog my memory if I lose it. 

I wonder what about my girl's childhood, this portion of life I have influence on, will linger in their memory. 

After lunch we went with BJ to deliver a tractor to a hard working man who is a refugee from Africa here farming a small plot of land. One of his customers/friends from our church read this article (Burundian refugees till soil in Stafford | The News Desk) and decided to buy Jackson a tractor and BJ facilitated getting it at cost.

It was so exciting, to see someone called into mission by seeing a need as well as seeing Jackson on the tractor.

After that we made our last stop of goodwill for the day by visiting the SPCA to deliver cookies to the volunteers and pet some animals.

The girls tried to talk me into getting a dog. 

I wasn't even tempted to say yes.

I would like to think that whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, pleasing, commendable, excellent and praise worthy, including time in service and in the presence of each other, will be on the memory hallway of their lives.  

Worthy of praise... I was so proud of Anna Cate in her delivery of her reflections of this day. She as asked to share what she remembered and what her gifts are that she can continue to use and we composed the following together the night before she delivered it as she read with heart and clarity.

Hi my name is Anna Cate and I want to tell you about when I participated in the whatever service project with our church family.

I planted flowers at James Monroe high school, and after that I went to a nursing home to plant flower and  visit with people in the Alzheimer's section of that place. 

After lunch, I went with my Dad to deliver a tractor to Jackson, who is the father of my friend Reneasee.  That made me happy to see Jackson so happy on the tractor. 

After that, we went to the SPCA to deliver cookies and play with puppies. My sister and I wanted to take one home but we already have enough pets and my mom said no.

And that's the story of how I took my time to give my time to other people.  It was so nice seeing people doing things for other people and it made me happy inside. It was nice being with people who I didn't know and get to know them. 

My mom says my gift to the world is that I make people feel loved. I can get along with people that I don't know easily. And last weekend two Mormons boys from Idaho and Texas came to visit our house and told us about God's message, I was comfortable around them even though I didn't know them. I showed them my whatever shirt and I showed them respect as we visited. I knew that they don't get respect that often when they knock on people's doors. I think God wants us to treat everybody in respectful, loving and kind ways.   

The book of Romans, the  12th chapter, verse  10 says,

Be devoted to one another in love;

Sometimes it seems hard to know how to help people, but I learned that doing whatever comes easy to me mighbe just what people need. 

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” 

― Mahatma Gandhi