John was told the night before we left by his Chief that "if he couldn't be at their staff meeting on Monday then so be it but he NEEDED to be there!" So what do you do when your boss says that? This burns me in so many different ways..it WAS John's day off! They knew he was going to miss the staff meeting months ago and then they decided at the last minute to make it mandatory! He goes in ALL the time on his days off but their stance on that is that when he wants off other times, they don't make him take annual time....so instead of being the witchy wife that I have been in the past when something like this comes our way, I took a deep breath, counted to 10 like 10 times and then said, "what do we have to do?" John threw out three solutions and so we decided to drive our own car, use our own gas, and then leave after the last dinner on Sunday and drive through the night to get home so he could attend the staff meeting on Monday. The only thing we would miss is sleeping and driving with the group on Monday....I was calm which is so unlike me and I think I proved to my hard working hubby that I respected him and his job. And when a woman does what a woman is suppose to do....immediately I was shown the blessing in it...
First, John and I got to ride together alone and talk which is something we rarely get to do uninterrupted...much less for 7 hours. I read a book to him and we discussed it AND we didn't have to ride in the van with the 8 teenagers singing Justin Bieber...we also got to have some fun on the way home (on our anniversary I might add) singing country music REALLY loud together to keep ourselves awake. We listened to Crazy Girl by the Eli Young band like 10 times (which is now one of my favorite songs and reminds me of my sweet hubby...This song is so me and John!) ....so all I have to say now is Thanks Chief! First lesson of my weekend of self examination...
One of the coolest things about this trip was that it was made up of families from our church. There were 23 of us and the kids that were there all had parents on the trip...this is unusual in the modern day church. A lot of mission trip are sorted by age, youth group status, men's trips, etc. But this really cool lady decided that she wanted her family to go on a mission type trip together and so it happen and you could TOTALLY tell a difference in the way that they kids acted, behaved, and worked. The families worked together...in family groups, we helped one another, encouraged one another and this compared to the youth pastor that had 15 kids to balance that stayed with us was astounding. ....It just makes a difference when your daddy is there to tell you to get your butt in order!
Mom and her two kids
Mom and kids working together!
The whole gang!
The fine lady that put this all together told us a cool story...she said once she came up with the idea, she kept hitting roadblocks...she was trying to take a group to Tennessee to work there but nothing seemed to work out. She finally asked our Associate Pastor if he had any other ideas and he said to call the Alabama Baptist Relief Group. So she did. And things fell right into place...a place for us to stay, work for us to do, etc. But she had some naysayers...first people at our own church said it wouldn't work because it was a football weekend for FSU and no one would go, secondly, it was a football weekend for Alabama and Tennessee in Tuscaloosa and people said that surely it would be a terrible idea to go this weekend due to traffic and people and such. Well we had a great group and we never even noticed the Alabama traffic....she prayed about it and it all worked out. Enough said!
Lesson # 3 (I've lost count...already)...We did not know anyone that was going all that well. None of the families were people that we normally "hang out" with at church. When I saw the list, to be perfectly honest I stuck my nose up and thought about how I didn't care too much for a particular person....why ? I have no idea..I've never even talked to him except a hi in the hallway at church and I'm just being totally honest here....I had totally judged this particular person and his family by the way they worship, what they wear, and how they act from a distance...never even have tried in my 5 years of attending our church to get to know them and then ended up traveling 7 hours to spend a whole weekend with him. And guess what, I now have a ton of respect for him.....he is a wise person, fought in Vietnam, missions is his heart, and I found him funny and enlightening...I feel terrible and stupid and had to ask forgiveness of God for such silly and ungodly thoughts. I'm glad I got to know this man and if it took God putting us on a mission trip together to teach me this lesson then Praise God. How many many times do we judge people by there outward appearance without truly knowing what is inside. So that is just the beginning.....and I haven't even started talking about our projects.
To end this post, I am posting a picture of the cot I slept on at the church where we stayed. They were so hospitable..totally opening up their church to us to stay, eat, and shower. They had portable shower trailers, a gym, and a fully equipped kitchen. We were very comfortable there. I heard that they have hosted over 45,000 volunteers since April. WOW!
Our shower trailer
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