We awoke at around 7:30 and basically just got dressed and headed upstairs. I was late. I was always late for breakfast, but that was fine. We all sat at a giant table and ate breakfast then went up and packed our lunches for the day in these small brown bags. I felt like I was going into grade 2 again, it was kind of funny. After that, we filled up our water bottles, filled our cooler, filled our water jug and hauled them out into the van.
We had morning devos all throughout the trip, so we were given this cute little devotional book to read through along with our bibles every morning. We basically all branched off to different places to do our devos and when we were done, we'd all come back and meet up together and head to the gym. Once in the gym, the different work groups were assembled. Everything we did related to the show 'The Office' so our teams were split up like that. My team was 'Team Jim' consisting of myself, Becka, Brendan, Emily M, Maddie, Mark, and Addie. Maddie Addie and Mark are from Maryland.
We all met with our team sand then talked to one of the programming staff to see what we would be doing for the day. My schedule was split Manor Care & Work Project. So only knowing that, we headed off to our service jobs. Manor Care, as it turns out, is an old age home. When we arrived, we met up with Sammy, the head of activities in Manor Care. She told us about the program they have going on with the residents that youth would come in and ask them about their life story and just talk one on one with them.
She gave us a lay of the land, went over some rules and we hung in the main room for a bit. It was nothing incredibly fancy, a bunch of tables and chairs, a piano and bookshelf filled with board games. Oh, and a bird cage, the birds name was Sassy and she was a love bird. Quite like Sunny actually. She lived alone and was very hateful towards everyone. I knew a few tricks that I had with Sunny before she passed, so I thought I'd try them out with Sassy and they worked. So everybody found it amusing how the love bird would spread out its wings full span as I pet its stomach. She was a cute bird, loud, but cute. Sammy came back after looking for residents who were awake and not deathly ill.
We followed her around and everyone branched off into a room with a resident. As we were going into the rooms, one old lady asked Becka, Emily and I to come in, so we did. She then insisted that we take all her 3 Musketeers chocolate bars from her because she cant eat them. We kindly refused, but she was persistent. It was really cute. We ended up not taking the chocolate because it was too early in the morning to have chocolate. Emily stayed and pursued the life stories program with her. I would have definitely wanted too as well, she was a really nice lady. As we were walking down the hallway, we could hear Emily: "fourteen. Fourteen. Fourteen! FOURTEEN!" I assumed she was asked about her age. Emily is not really the quietest kid but she'd so kind, I knew she'd feel very awkward about yelling at this lady.
Becka, Brendan and I were all put in the 'common room' type area. Brendan was put with probably the grumpiest old mad ever. He's such a nice guy too, I just laughed at every attempt the tried to ask a question and Hoag would just say 'No.' Becka and I were put with two ladies watching television. So it was somewhat hard to keep their attention at first. We were all close enough to hear each others conversations and feed off of what questions they were asking. Sammy had given us all a booklet with different questions to ask. I didn't use mine at all, I was trying to make real conversation. My lady's name was Sandy. She grew up on a farm with loads of brothers and sisters. She liked animals. That was about it. She got divorced at a young age, worked as a single mom all her life, never went to collage. I tried to ask her about her interests but she literally turned down everything I'd ask. 'Were you ever into music?' "Umm, no." 'Did you like to draw?' "No." 'Any type of art?" 'No.' And this continued until we eliminated sports, writing, singing, dancing, acting. There was some baseball that she played when she was young but other than that nothing. Plus she had terrible stage fright as a kid. Sounds like the coolest kid around right?
She was nice, but she didn't have that exciting of a life. And she didn't like to talk. It seemed as if she was fascinated at me being there but she just didn't make conversation. It was kind of a one word answer to every question I asked. So naturally, when people don't respond or things become awkward, I start talking to myself. But talking to myself in a way that others feel involved. All while she's managing to watch 'Let's Make a Deal' She eventually had to go to the washroom so I said my goodbyes as it was time to go back to the main room for the Morning Show. As much as I'd have liked to say that was fun, it wasn't. I felt so meh about everything. I guess I came in expecting to make a huge difference and felt feeling nothing had even happened. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything extraordinary.
I talked with Hoag for a bit with Brendan before it was time to go back to the main room, we kind of dragged him against his will to the morning show just because he's so depressing. but he is slightly amusing. He yelled at me to behave myself at one point. I almost fell asleep during the Morning Show. They basically read the weather, news, famous people born on this day, people who died this day, important events made on this day. It was jolly good fun. After the morning show, we all bailed and went to a park to eat our wonderfully bagged lunches. After that, it was off to Work Projects we go.
We ended up in the backyard of a very old broken lady grieving the death of her hamster in a very creepy neighbourhood. Her backyard wasn't terrible, it just needed some fixing up. We cut all her shrubs down and way back with clippers. We raked her whole yard. Watered all her plants. And trimmed her huge arse bush. It wasn't a lot of work, but it was crazy hot outside, so it just made it seem brutal. We thanked her for the opportunity to help out, and gladly relaxed in the cool air conditioned van.
I was a little confused at how showers were going to work due to the fact that there were none in the church, but it all made sense now. Everyday after we finished our service work for the day, we'd head to a Y (YMCA) and take showers there. I've never been to a Y before that but oh boy, they are fabulous. I'm not even kidding. The most beautiful thing. Showers, pool, gym, wild cherry Pepsi for only 6o cents. There is nothing better. And it was such a clean facility too. Emily and I made friends singing in the shower. It was quite enjoyable.
We then went back to the church, we had a little free time basically until everyone came back from their service jobs until dinner was made. When all the Springvale kids came back, we decided to walk down to Target. See, the church was like 2 blocks away from this amazing plaza filled with wonderful stores so we tended to go down there everyday. Plus the Target had a Starbucks in it, so it just became more beautiful. If I only say one thing about that place, its that I am actually so excited they're coming to Canada, no lie. They are the coolest thing. I didn't buy much though, because I was saving my money. After harassing a few of the staff, we came back and ate a nasty meal and then went to CLUB. We talked about putting your beliefs into action and such.
We were getting all stoked and ready to go to the Chocolate Factory that night after club, so people were just hanging out, doing whatever and it starts to POUR. The sky cracks and rain is just plummeting from the sky, there's a huge thunderstorm and lightening is blasting all around. Everyone was just staring at it in awe through the window. And there's me, who's out in the middle of the field dancing, coming back soaking wet. It was a great storm, as was the sunset we experienced the night before. I think that's where I find peace, in the middle of a rain storm, I know that doesn't make sense, but it works for me.
When I came back inside, people were freaking out because I group of Springvale kids were sitting outside filming the storm and then lightening struck 10 feet from them. I'm not kidding you, it's on video, 10 feet. So the whole video consists of them jumping up and booking it inside, scared for their lives. It was so funny! Well, obviously we couldn't go to the Factory because we couldn't even make it outside to our vans without dying. They set up Toy Story 3, the movie in the sanctuary so everyone could come watch. But the Springvale guys had a different idea, we played the animal game. Such a classic Springvale game too, and we taught all the Americans. It was fun, I was in the King's Seat for a while. After I lost, games of ninja were exchanged and we all headed off to Church Group Time. This was basically where all our different groups that we came with gathered together and talked about our day. What we liked, learned and saw love in the things we did that day.
Our group time was pretty legit because everyone was freaking out about how excited they were and how much they did and how in touch they felt with God. People were sharing stories of this garden that they had planted outside this orphanage or this church that they painted. There were stories about how many food boxes they packed at the homeless shelter or how many beds they made, how many homeless people they severed lunch too. There was one group who was working at a camp for the whole week, and knowing that I had just worked at camp all last week, I knew what great relationships they'd be building. It was crazy hearing all these different stories about how much the different groups had gotten done. Then I'm just sitting there like 'I talked to an old person and trimmed a bush.' I felt dumb, like I had gone through the whole day, not making any difference at all, meanwhile everyone else was out there changing lives. It kind of sucked for me, but it passed quickly. Like the day before, we stayed up way too late in our group, talking and making joke, having a good time. But we did a lot of praying for each other too. It was really cool.
But we did eventually have to go to bed, and so we did. Thus concluding day one in Harrisburg.
