The Work!

As you know I was not a Field this summer, so I met far less families than last summer, but there are a few families I think I should mention from this week.  First off we worked for the Swamey's both the mother and her son and his wife and they are some of the most amazing people I have ever met.  When I visited them, all they told me was well we would love the work, but please if someone else needs it more work for them instead and this has been the third year in a row they have said that to us and Mrs. Swamey has given us the names of about 4 neighbors on her street and we worked for all of them before even working for her!  There is so much God in that lady it was awesome!  Then we worked for the Lee family!  Mrs. Lee can't get out of her house as she is bed ridden and I have been wanting to do this project all summer, so I was so glad that we were finally able to do it!  She has two sons who are about my age and I know they were a blast and helped that group through the whole 32 foot ramp!  This week I also had to go and talk with quite a few people who we didn't get to this summer, and will have to go back out to visit next summer.  The Brawn family, first off, live at the top of South Mountain in the middle of a gated community.  It has to be the hardest house I've ever tried to get to, but they are the sweetest old couple I have ever met!  They literally live right on top of the mountain though, in this tiny little cottage house!  Also, both the Wilson family and Rash family were so understanding and that is just a blessing from God!  When the Wilson's who do really need a ramp, were just so nice I was astounded because I was expecting Mrs. Wilson to be very upset even though I shouldn't have and the Rash family who are a very sweet couple actually originally from here in Gastonia asked me to come in and fixed me a glass of tea and a promise it isn't every day that when I tell someone we aren't going to be able to work for them they fix me a drink.

Even though I don't see a lot of the work, I do get to visit with a lot of people in the community who provide us with names.  To end the summer we put together gifts for these people and our staff decided to design Journey Jars for them.  These are little glass jars that had lots of inspirational messages inside them and I have to say making those gifts was my favorite part of the summer and seeing their faces light up when they received them was awesome.  Mrs. Barbara Houston at Blue Ridge Community Action was one of the sweetest ladies I worked with all summer and she cried when I gave her the gift!  The lovely ladies at DSS were also awesome and I loved getting to go in and chat with them one last time, it is just awesome how much good work they do.