Spring Break

     It was nice to have a week off from school.

     I went home for spring break a few weeks ago a day early, heading back Thursday night. Friday morning I tagged along as everybody went to go visit some friends, so I wandered around exploring, babysat little kids and had a conversation for nearly an hour on the problems with modern education. It was good to have a break, but it felt kinda weird to skip class.
     Then it was off to Tulsa for Courtney's play practice, that was neat to watch. Made me sort of miss acting, I was tagging different characters in the cast with personalities they reminded me of(e.g, Cinderella is Mariah, that short kid is me, the girl in back is Annette, etc.) And so of course we ended up singing songs from "Down By the Creek Bank" all weekend...

      Spent most of Saturday doing laundry and hanging out with the dogs and goats, things like that. Sunday it was great to be at GBC, nice to see everyone, and wonderful to be around so much good teaching.
    The next few days went about the same way, trying to balance a little bit of school stuff with spending time with everybody who wanted to do things with me (e.g, playing Legos with Trevor, board games with Caleb, catch with Amy). I lost several games of Settlers of Catan, which makes me a perfect 0-for-13 since Christmas(when we got the game). I did beat Caleb, who was also sick of losing constantly, in a two-player game, but that sort of doesn't count, since it's easier. So I guess I'm technically 1-for-14, a .071 winning percentage.
     Got nearer to caught up on stories, reread through Jan Karon's "Home to Holly Springs" and watched "Wreck-It Ralph". We now know what all the top creative people in animation were working on last year, that was fantastic. MUCH better than "Brave", which was appalling. It was a beautiful film, with a good soundttrack, but there was no story to it at all. You knew in the first three minutes the entire plot and what would happen when. And there wasn't really even any good one-liners or quotes.
     No, "Wreck-It Ralph" was far better. You totally were able to enter the world, yet it totally meshed with the real world; full of amazing little background touches on inspection later on in future viewings; history (of various video games); amazing relatable characters(Pretty sure I know Vanellope); spectacular insults and jabs between characters; and I really ought to just write a review of it.... The end-credits song is done by Owl City, there's go-kart racing, and the Bad Guys Anonymous meeting takes place in the ghostroom in "Pac-Man". There. And I haven't even started on the actual story itself...

     Well, anyway, went back to Tahlequah Wednesday night, everybody sat and talked at Grandpa's for about an hour, Harry and Louise came over, we got to talking about all the usual subjects(guns, animals, mandolins) and watched part of American Idol, the ever-stupid and omnipresent Beatles night. Nobody won.
    
     Thursday morning I and four other people jumped into a 1995 Dodge van on its last legs for the two-hour trip to Carthage, it was a bit of an adventure getting there. We decided to follow the GPS' directions, which took us west for half an hour and north fifteen minutes in order to go two hours east. We went a different route on the way back, through winding wonderful little Ozark towns in southwest Missouri, far north Arkansas and far eastern Oklahoma. Anyway, it was an interesting experience.
    
     There was only me, a guy named Tim who reminded me of an uncle I usually try to forget exists, and this guy named Brian who'll take over the leadership of CCF whenever Tom retires, and then Brian's two sons, aged ten and six. A lot of other people backed out for various reasons.
     The place we were volunteering was called the Carthage Crisis Center, a homeless shelter for people in southwest Missouri/southeast Kansas. Began in 1997 with the dream of an Episcopal priest, nine churches in the community came together to jointly set up the facility. It was a lot nicer than what I expected; falling between a nice dorm(if such a thing exists) and a hotel. There were about forty people altogether staying there at the moment; about fifteen men, eight women, and five families.
    
     We cleaned the laundry room Thursday afternoon; which was fantastic. I got to clean something!!! And it was helping somone - sort of. The group wasn't actually that helpful, I don't think, being far smaller than expected, and productivity could have been much improved. Anyway, it began snowing; great thick white flakes coating the sky and dropping on the ground.
     Didn't actually get to visit with any friends while gone, but I did talk to Ash, Jed and Alton, it was good to hear from them.
    
     Spent most of Thursday night trying to teach these eight-year-old girls, Gabby and Megan, how to play ping pong. It was...a lesson in patience for me, at least. Haha. Just trying to make their lives a little brighter, maybe someday later on they'll decide to start playing for real, and they'll remember that time at the shelter where that guy from some college somewhere took the time to try to teach the basics.
      I can't remember where we were or why we were there, but when I was little I once found this ping pong table, these teenagers were playing. I watch for a while, when the girl asks if I'd like to play. The guy hands me his paddle, and the girl tries to teach me how to return properly. I didn't understand it at all, but that scene's always stuck with me, how cool they seemed, how they took the time to be friendly to a little kid they'd never seen and wouldn't ever meet again.
      So the best part of the trip, I guess, was just getting to know the residents, how they came to be there, how I could pray for them. We met a man named Don at breakfast Friday morning, he and his family had their house burn last summer, they moved in with his mother, who died three months later, and then after that with a friend who turned out to be on drugs, and so they were all kicked out, leading to their staying at the shelter. Despite his struggles, the obvious ones, and then various health problems keeping him from his natural job as a plumber, including a terrible case of diabetes, he just radiated such an incredible joy, speaking of how God has used these trials to strengthen his faith and bind his family closer together.
      There's just a different atmosphere in the whole state, some kind of healing property in the air. I know it sounds crazy, but that's how it seems to me. Everyday life can be rough, but that's when God's mercies and grace are most clearly seen.
      The friendships between the residents was something amazing to witness, very hard to describe. Just unbelievable the way that life could (and will) go on, no matter where you happen to be at the moment. There was a birthday party thrown for a boy named Levi, he was turning seven, that was neat to watch, and inconceivable that we would be invited. Yet we were, and were welcomed as part of the family, no matter that our stay was measured in hours, as opposed to weeks or months. The kids all played together when they had free time, the mothers and other women talked and worked on various projects, the men cooperated well, each person doing his specific task with his team, and then dicussing the job market, politics or latest news of the Cardinals, Chiefs or Rams over meals.

      Friday was mostly spent working in a warehouse, sorting through oceans of bedding that had been donated in the morning, bagging and boxing those, then stacking for later sorting. A lot of heavy furniture was hauled away to be either thrown out or stored in the basement waiting for the next garage sale(I didn't help as much with this part, obviously), then a food delivery truck dropped off a load of groceries, so those needed to be sorted through and stashed somewhere. That was a neat atmosphere down there, despite warnings that it was creepy and scary.
    
     Overall, I kept getting flashbacks often; of that first shock and numb terror, and then the first halting steps at regaining control of our lives. I knew about having nowhere to go, that desperate clinging to whatever made a "normal" life at the moment, that sorting in cold temperatures through a deluge of items donated and saved, figuring out what can be kept and what to trash. Finding out so many new things about what a big God we have, how amazing He is.
     I was amazed, though, how quickly I adapted to everything. I can usually adjust to new things suddenly, new places of living(NSU being the notable exception), but still, this place felt like home. What that says about me, I'm not sure, but, it did.
     We had a place to go, and relatives swarming to assist any way they could. We had friends to encourage us and help us through. We had a budget-conscious contractor in charge of the remodel. We had a wonderful church praying and working with us. I had friends all over the country injecting humor and advice to give some stability. These people, they didn't have any of that. We could very well have been in the same situation, having to go somewhere like that.

     It wasn't enough. Not at all, and I will never be able to pay back all the help that we received when we needed it. But that's why I went on the trip; any help I can give, whether directly or behind-the-scenes so others can focus on serving, I want to give. If I get the chance, I'm definitely going back.

     Saturday I vacuumed most of the upstairs mostly single-handed, it was so good to be vacuuming a floor clean. Then it was time to leave after lunch, so I picked up(what else?) a local newspaper and a couple of energy drinks at the gas station. Slept in on Sunday, since it was the last day I could, and the semester began again with a vengeance, a terrible week followed, which made Easter look very appealing.

     It was weird to have so much time off, but it gave me a lot of time to think, and dimly began to light a path towards confusing answers. It wasn't the best that could be expected of a mission trip, but it was something. Maybe the Lord was working through us in ways we didn't recognize.