Monday, September 12, 2005

This morning I'm writing from the frozen tundra...

Oh wait, no. I'm still at my desk. It's just that my fingers are numb from the cold temperature inside my office. This is a common problem here. I've worn gloves at my desk before, but it's so hard to type with gloves on. For now I'll just stay bundled up in my blanket and hope for global warming to kick in.

This weekend was busy and fun.

The Razorback game didn't go so well, but I did get to see my friend Mandy and meet her boyfriend, so it was fun to hang out with them for a little while. We got back home a little before 1 Sunday morning, so I slept in and skipped Sunday school and just went to church. I'm not crazy about Sunday school these days anyway, so it didn't really hurt my feelings.

Anyway, after church I went out to the camp and started organizing the donated clothing (folding it, making sure it was stacked up by size, etc.). The bad part was that we arrived at 2 like we were told, and we were supposed to meet up with the lady who was coordinating everything so she could tell us what she wanted us to do. Well...she carpooled with the two other ladies who were coming and they all got there 45 minutes late. So...my buddy who carpooled with me and I just went into the little clothing huts and tried to figure out what to do (pretty unsuccessfully).

Finally after our reinforcements arrived, we were able to get some work done. After the clothing was organized, we went to the supply closet and organized it and matched up sheet sets. People have really donated a lot of great stuff for these folks, but it seems like they're afraid they're going to take too much. We had to encourage them to take more. They would come in asking for a bar of soap and we would say, "Is that all you need? Do you need deoderant or lotion or a toothbrush?" And we would find that they didn't have any of those things.

And the kids were great. Once we sat down, they were crawling on us like a bunch of ants. One little girl named Shanika came and sat in my lap and was looking up at the moon singing twinkle twinkle little star. Then she said, "Shooting star....I wish I was a princess....I wish I had a room...I wish I had toys!" And she just had the biggest smile on her face.

A couple of the other girls and a little boy did our hair for us. I had some serious knots to comb out when I got home, but they were having the best time. One of the little girls said, "Do you have a head scarf? You can't sleep on this!" And she said, "I want to see you back tomorrow and look at your hair!"

I hope I get to go back soon if for nothing else but to play with the kids.

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