Home

...as in, "We are home."

We are also beyond tired. Five straight nights of post-midnight bedtimes (hah!) and pre-7 a.m. wake-up calls, over 50 teenagers, and some amazingly incompetent youth leaders, no air-conditioning in our sleeping quarters, and a lot of tears (mostly good ones).... It's good to be home ready to sleep the sleep of the just in our own beds (knowing first-hand how extraordinarily lucky we all are).

Synopsis (please wander through the sites I've linked to; they are wonderful organizations doing worthwhile, amazing, creative, and necessary work):

My group worked at Mary's Place. The picture of the playroom showed where most of our work took place, but we also played outside on the playground, and in the Children's Center and Teen Center. The sister on the right in the photo on that page, Sister Nesta, is the Mother of the house, and she is absolutely amazing. So, of course, are all the children: Lana, Lakisha, Tanisha, Tanea, Josh, Craig, Jaderea, Briantia, Arielle, Trevor (whom we think has diabetes, thought his parents are clueless), Kailani, Lily, Asiyah, Adam, Colin....

Beast's group worked all over the city. They were at Salvation Army, The Fallout, and Catholic Charities over the course of the week. While my group spent the days playing with kids and giving out hugs, these guys spent the week actually WORKING and loved almost every minute of it (the downer was a disorganized coordinator at one site that kept them away from working for too long).

Both of our groups went in with open hearts and minds and did they ever get filled up again and again. We told all the kids repeatedly that we could see them "getting it" more every day. We are both really proud of them. We were, as far as I'm concerned, with the Cool Kids, the ones who were there for the right reasons, and rarely (if ever) had to be 'corrected.'

Yesterday we shopped at Mall of America (I'm not linking). It was fun, but exhausting and very wrenching after the previous four days.

However, I'm looking forward to a long night of sleep tonight, in a bed...in MY bed! With a/c blowing on me. And NO WAKE-UP CALL! :-)