Today was technically our last day because it was the last day we would be going to our work site and preforming acts of service to members of the Harrisburg community. The morning went like every other, packing up things for lunches, gross breakfasts, water jugs and everything in between. All except for the fact that we had to wake up insanely early because we were on breakfast crew. Oh the joy. We didn't do much, basically just set the table and then cleaned some stuff. No worries. We all did devos, myself still staying with the Springvale group. I guess this was just because I had never really felt compelled to go somewhere by myself and just one-on-one it up with God, I guess that would've been from my overall shakiness with Him throughout the week. That, along with the breakdown the previous night, led me to want to remain in the company of others. It was a fairly chill morning.
We were going to Silence of Mary again today. Except today we were actually going to the homes she has downtown opened up with her "families." The houses were so easy to spot. There were beautiful paintings everywhere all over the building and sunflowers and a garden overflowing with fruits and vegetables. Rainbow benches and gates with portraits all over them were everywhere. It was the coolest thing. And the inside was just like that too. Murals with wonderful pictures all over the walls. There was a painted bible verse in almost every room. The place was just so happy. It made me smile just looking at it. And I guess that that's what the strive for, with all the family members she has coming in, they need a little something to smile at. There was a table set up in front of the house with all sorts of shoes and clothing and other things. The whole idea was people could just drop off what they didn't need, and those who were in need just came and took it. It was great because people were almost always there benefiting from it.
We were introduced to some family members, they didn't talk much but we smiled at them so much they had no choice but to smile back. We sat outside on the benches a Chinese Missionary team had painted a few weeks ago, it was really cool looking at all the interesting symbols. It really made me think how much we all depend on each other to get by. I mean, I don't even know how many people from different countries had been on her property there. It was kind of a crazy thing to wonder. Ms.Sue came after we were given a tour of the home and where they kept stuff and who has here and what their story was. We spent a lot of time with Dave, who is a family member. However, unlike the rest he's fairly stable, though, bipolar. So he does as much as he can to help out Ms.Sue. Funny guy, with a cool story. When Dave was just finishing up the tour a lady walked in. We walked with a cane, back hunched and her whole body seemed to be caving in. Then she looked up at us and Dave asked her how she was doing. She burst into tears. "THEY THINK I'M CRAZY" she screamed. And flung herself into Dave. Dave then proceeded to explain how Beverly had just lost her sister 4 days ago and was quite devastated. She was constantly depressed and could never sleep because of the terrible dreams she kept having. Dave had told us that they were starting to set up stars on the roof of Bev's bedroom because she really likes stars, so the plastic glow ones kept her at ease. It was a really cute idea. Bev stood there, still crying. Our group tried to comfort her, I couldn't really tell ho much of a difference we were making. We asked if we could pray over her, ad she said sure. So we did. After that, she seems less shaky and continued on her way. I didn't give too much thought to that other than how rough it must be for some of the family members here.
After we were done exploring the house, we were lead across the street to another of Ms.Sue's homes that had been rented out to college students throughout the school year, so basically what we'd be doing for the day was helping to clean it up. It was a 3 story building the hallways were so narrow. We moved so many immensely heavy pieces of furniture down from the 3rd floor onto the 2nd. It was very dangerous and kind of scary when you were carrying them, but we managed. There a strange room on the 3rd floor that had a giant bucket of crayons stashed away in the closet therefore leaving the whole house to smell a little like a crayola factory. Once the furniture was cleared out, we swept and mopped every room in the house. And boy that took a while. In between we did have some adventuring. You could get to the roof of the house from the 3rd stony window, so Emily and I went for a little walk around. It was pretty neat seeing the town from a different perspective. We did go back inside and do some more work though. I helped to clean up the garden in front of the house, however we couldn't go outside on our own, so a family member was always with us. 3 of them had come with us to help out. They didn't talk a lot, I don't even think they told us their names. But they enjoyed our company. The laughed at smiled at the way we talked to each other. We talked about amusement parks and roller coasters a lot, since we were all excited about going to Hersey Park. It was nice. Anyways, Maddie and Emily cleaned a fridge. I don't even know how you clean a fridge, but they did. Meanwhile I took to the sink and dishwasher. While in the kitchen, we discovered a trap door. This was actually really funny because when we climbed down through the tile on the floor to the damp, crusty, pitch black room. We realized we couldn't get out. So we kept pushing in a spot until it eventually let up and we shoved the floor tile up in a room near the backdoor. However, it happened to weight 48 million pounds, so Dave rescued us.
After all this wild adventuring, we decided to have an exciting lunch. We walked back to the first house and decided to eat in the house beside the first house. Confusing right? Well, the people who had lived in the house beside Sue's had decided that she needed it more than them, so they gave it to her to use, so now there are two side by side. The second one had a nicer kitchen, so we all sat down at one big table and ate there. When we came in, Bev was talking with another family member, she smiled at us and left. We ate there with Dave and another family member. It was the most interesting lunch I've had in a long time. They have gardens everywhere, so Dave brought us all these random peppers to try. And by random I mean incredibly, horribly, spicy peppers. None of which I ate. We were all having fun crying and throwing up and attempting to poison each other... until we ran out of water. Dave booked it to the fridge and grabbed a pitcher of milk and we downed the whole thing. It was so funny.
After everyone had finished/been too grossed out to eat, we walked back over to the house and finished up there. We went outside to the back and picked up garbage and swept and freshened up the gardens there. Just like the other house, the garden was painted and there were cute drawings on the fence posts. The inside was quite plain, but oh, the garden was such a happy place.
Ms.Sue dropped by when we were just finishing up. She started talking about Beverly and how happy she was. She said she hadn't seen her so okay in a while. She thanked us so much for whatever it was we did and just continued to be puzzled by it. I was yet again astounded by the impact I had made without even realizing it. Sue talked about how thankful she was to have us and how we were the best group she's had, however we were instructed not to tell anyone that. She was just really sweet and I'm going to miss her a lot. We took a group picture, had fifteen group hugs and then headed back to the Y for showers. I realized it was the last time I'd be singing in the showers with Delia, Alex, Julia, and Tess. Oh dear I miss them.
When we got back to the church, for the first time since we'd been there I didn't go to Target. Instead we stayed back and played an intense game of man hunt around the church. We kind of ran off property too. Robbie and Sean ended up booking it back to the church while managing to slice both their legs up through thorn bushes and metal fences. It was kind of funny, but it looked pretty painful.
We had another strange dinner. For our evening activity tonight we were going to have a BBQ with everyone who we'd been working with this week within the community. Majority of people there would be the kids who Amy, Tess, Dealia, Julia, Alex and Robbie had been working with. I was really excited for the dinner, mostly because I wanted to spend time with the kids. We drove over in the big white vans. It was just a community church. Small, with a backyard no larger than a soccer field. The minute I stepped through the gate, a little girl jumped into my arms. She just clung to me, her eyes were so happy and full of light. I don't even know her name, but she was adorable. Over the course of the evening, she was in many different peoples arms. It made me question how much love they got within their families. I played with a bunch of the kids, took lots of pictures, did a lot of double dutch with the girlies. This was actually really amusing because all of the kids there were black, so when they'd tell me to go skip, I'd go in and be followed by a bunch of eight year old girls screaming "Uhh! Yeahh! Dat's my girl. You do yo thang." It was all really fun. Everyone kind of had a kid trailing them of in their arms or on their back. I just kind drifted and said hi to everyone and chilled with the people who had a random child with them. When dinner was being served, I sat down wit Brenden and Steve and Robbie who were with a little guy named Brandon and his friend Jeanmeyer. Jeanmeyer wasn't eating though. So I asked him if he wanted to get anything, and he said sure. So we lined up together and I chatted with him for a bit. He was probably like 4 or something. So cute.
We got our burgers and sat back down in the same group. After we were done eating, I got up to go to the different groups again, but I realized Jean was somewhat following me. So as he was playing with a soccer ball, I came up and asked him if I could play. We started kicking it back and forth. Then we decided to play frisbee. Then skipping. Then skipping with him on my back. Oh the dangers. And after that, we were pretty much together the whole night. We played duck duck goose, had piggy back races, and played chase like crazy. We also had a mini juice fight. He'd always take off and on his shirt and kick his shoes random places so I'd always have to semi-remember where they were. I swear he's the cutest kid and I love and miss him so much. Speaking of adorable, there was this 2 or 3 year old dude named Angel. I almost want to cry just thinking of him. He hung out with Emily H. during the night. They were just so happy and cute together. When it was time to leave, Angel freaked out. He kept telling her not to go and how he'd miss her and how much he loved being with her. Emily was almost balling. Angel's mom had never wanted him, he'd always bee a mistake in her eyes and she hated him. But his dad thought he was beautiful and wonderful and everything he could want, so he named him Angel. But he got no love at home from his mom. She wouldn't even touch him, so just having Emily carry him around and touch him all the time meant so much. She was so upset when we needed to leave. And I'm not going to lie, I was too. When I told Jeanmeyer I had to go, I picked him up and hugged him for so long. When I let go, his eyes just dropped. It was probably the saddest thing I've ever seen. We took a group picture and then headed back to the church.
On the way back to the church, our van stopped to fill up on gas. This was very entertaining because we were blasting out our Jesus music at the station and we were all dancing and singing and some random person walked out and was just watching us. We had attracted a lot of attention over our stay. Created such an interesting impression of Stouffville, I'm sure. It was all good. Back at the church, we all talked about our day and the kids from the cook-out. Combined with Emily's story about Angel, my heart sank a bit when I kind of realized how rough some of these kids have it as opposed to our easy lives. After the discussion about our day, we all kind of talked about the 5 days we'd spent here and what we've learned, what we accomplished and what we can do coming back. It was pretty sweet. Obviously it somehow managed to turn to something ridiculous and we sent the rest of the night laughing with each other. We knew we had to get up and out of the church tomorrow morning and needed as much energy as possible for the day ahead so we didn't stay up too too late. Therefore it was off to bed on the last of of service to the community of Harrisburg.
