I realize now I should have gone with a baseball theme considering our location and our trip to the Phillies game. (Boy those guys are sad about the Braves whupping on them twice!)
For those not familiar with the term, a walk-off homer is when the home team hits a home run in the last half of the inning giving them a win. It’s all the rage with baseball fans and commentators.
So today, we hit our walk-off home run. We had our fourth day of mission work at the Salvation Army. Lots of just plain play-time. At least it was cooler and Marty was able to conduct a baseball clinic outside and Jonathan gave a taekwondo lesson to some eager students in the parking lot. (I’m sure the neighbors are wondering about that yelling they kept hearing!)
Kudos to Jessica, Hayley, Noah, Anne and especially Alex for sticking with the upstairs today. It’s quite warm up there, the window unit a/c units (that’s right… window units… much of the facility does NOT have a/c.. it’s “Africa-hot” in places!). Anyway, it’s hot and there were a ton of kids today and they were wide-open!
Where did that scooter come from any way?
How many piggy-back rides can you give?
Why are we all zombies?
These are the questions of the day for our upstairs workers.
Donna played endless games of scrabble and scategories. Also, Donna organized another storage closet (does the tv show “hoarders” come to mind?) and did the registration. As I shared during our group time, I am grateful for her service because that paperwork was frustrating to me as a parent and dealing with it for 40 kids is a daunting task.
Tesha bounced from location to location always pitching in (sometimes literally as she helped Marty with baseball). Always fun and joyful, she lifts all of us up and makes things fun! But before you think she’s a softie, she can bring down the big hammer and served as our disciplinarinan as well. Excuse me!?!
Marty continued to amaze the kids with his abilities. He umpired and pitched outside and made a new BFF. Also, Marty put up with our endless whining about how long it was taking to get to dinner while we dealt with challenging traffic and contradictory directions. Incredibly patient and so low-key about things. He was awesome!
Me, well, as usual, you can find me on the “couch” napping (let’s just say they are big into recycling and resuse. I mean, that car didn’t need a back seat anyway and it makes a comfy courch). And when not napping, I managed to get in a little hoops with the big boys. All in a day’s work.
We had a great sharing time and devotion with the YOM folks. We affirmed the gifts and talents we saw in each other. More on this later. I can’t wait to hear the kids share their experiences with you next week.
I don’t want to say too much about the work your kids did. They were tremendous witnesses and showed endless patience with these children. You’ll just have to come hear them in person next week!
Pray for us as we venture home tomorrow. The kids have set an early starting time and are anxious to be home.
Game over! Home team wins!
-Kevin
