ohio (June 19, 2008)

On my last reflections paper i had to send into sarah i answered on one of the questions saying that i need to continue to work on being more outgoing..
i get comfortable with who i know and stop there too often.

well as Ben said in his last bulletin there is a group from Ohio volunteering here this week and we met them on tuesday when they helped at camp. The rest of the week they have been working on houses that need fixing up. Today along with yesterday they were working on this house that had a fire in the kitchen which caused smoke to fill the whole house. Not to mention it was not in the best shape before that due to Katrina.

Last night we went to get ice cream with the Ohio group and I told their pastor Mike i would be interested in helping them today and he said that would be cool.

To be completely honest one of the reasons i wanted to go was because a couple of the girls in the group are really cute!

But then this morning as i got to the church for camp i was debating whether i really wanted to have a day of physical labor with a group of strangers (even if a couple of them are very attractive girls) and i almost decided to stay at camp where i have become comfortable with routine and familiarity.

But then i remembered how i put down i need to be more outgoing plus i never want to allow myself to become comfortable because i feel like that is when you miss out on many great oppurtunities. So i got up, found the Ohio group (they eat breakfast at the church so they were also there in morning) and told them i was still interested in going.

Once i decided i was going to go with them i also remembered a text message Sarah sent me on tuesday "No romance with the ohio girls" (well something along those lines) and made the decision to not only talk and hang out with those two girls while i was there but to interact with the whole group. We got there and the major task of the day was to scrub all the sut (i dont know if thats how you spell it but the remains left from the smoke) off the walls as much as possible, and we had to do this with one sponge each, it was a little discouraging(one sponge fills up with dirt real fast!) because it looked like we were just spreading the filth rather than cleaning it but we all pulled through and we did make a difference! I went into a room to work with a couple of the older women in the group and talked to them a bit. It was cool getting to know people from another state besides the one i am from and the one i am in. The one lady told me she now works at McDonalds because it allows her a good schedule where she is able to spend more time with her 15 year old son and attend his sporting events (she is putting a more favorable career on hold). It was really neat to me to see how humbled she was and how she had her priorities straight. Not everyone would turn down a good career to work at mcdonalds just to have more time for their kids!

Although this is something i already know i sometimes forget the reality of it. People are people know matter where they are from, no matter what shape or size, color and no matter how different they may sound and speak. It is amazing the people you would miss out on meeting and have be a part of your life if you let those things get in the way. This kind of reminds me of one of my favorite quotes. It is from Horton hears a who
"A person is a person no matter how small!"