Day #3 – Saturday – December 30- IOWAY Mission Team
We had a leisurely breakfast this morning because our first
group meeting was not until 8 a.m. The
goal was to get ready for our day at Skid Row on January 2nd. We brought with us a great many completed
towel kits for the homeless but people brought more items with them and gift
cards from back home to purchase more supplies here. We used the meeting room to spread out the
extra items and began assembling additional towel kits. We put together what we had and counted what
we still needed to complete the extra kits.
These items will be purchased at the Dollar Store near our hotel later.
The level of excitement in our meeting room was
interesting. Imagine 29 people packed
into a room not large enough to begin with.
Now add a number of tables filled with towels, toothpaste, deodorant,
soap, etc. Before long it was a din of
noise and laughter. A couple of people
began singing songs from “The Sound of Music” and before long everyone joined
in the craziness. I can only wonder what
the hotel personnel were thinking. It
could be that remorse set in for agreeing to let us use the meeting room. Or maybe they began to hum along with
us. We will never know.
When we ran out of many supplies, we ceased operation and
had our morning devotion time. Ellie
focused on the subject of prayer. At the
end she gave everyone a “Take Five” candy bar.
The wrapper was to remind us to take at least five minutes each day to
pray. Then we had about an hour to calm
down and rest until we boarded the shuttle for what I assumed would be the annual
chaotic trip to the 99¢ Store. By this
time everyone is getting to know each other pretty well so we are bonding and
the fun is really beginning. I have been
on this trip many times and know what usually happens on this shopping trip
when you turn 29 dressed alike, goofy, bonding adults loose in the Dollar
Store. You have to experience it to
understand and I assumed this year would be no different.
Actually, this was the calmest shopping experience I have
witnessed. The store was large and very
clean and organized. Ellie had given
each row of people in the bus a list of what they were to buy. We exited the bus, grabbed carts, and headed
down the aisles in search of all those items.
People who had brought debit cards or cash from their home congregations
stood at the check-out counter and paid for what each group brought. There were carts full of toothbrushes,
toothpaste, deodorant, socks, etc.
Everything was loaded into the back of our shuttle and off we went to
have lunch, or dinner as we call it in Iowa.
We drove some distance to the nearest ‘Hometown Buffet’ only
to discover it had closed. So our next
stop was at a ‘Soup Plantation’ like the one where we had eaten yesterday. When we were stuffed to the gills, our driver
took us to the work site.
We worked the 4 to 11p.m. shift on the ‘Lutheran Hour’ and
‘City of Alhambra’ floats mostly.
Judging takes place tomorrow morning so everything had to be finished
before we left. The beautiful, gorgeous
‘Lutheran Hour’ float was completed at about 10:30 in the evening. A number of our group put all the roses and
asparagus fern along the sides, a major task.
Some have thorn wounds and aching spots on their hands to prove it. As each float is finished, a general
announcement is given from the loudspeaker system and everyone in the building cheers
and claps. I do believe when our float
was announced we were the loudest. I was
cheering with most of our group right beside the float so maybe that wasn’t a
fair comparison.
As we entered the building, Jennifer, crew chief for our
float, grabbed Ellie and had her talk to a reporter from ABC. He had to have a script to read as our float
moves past his viewing stand but he wanted about 20 seconds of extra ‘color’ to
present, something interesting and out of the ordinary. Jennifer thought Ellie was the right person
to give him what he wanted for his presentation. She told him about our group and what we were
going to do on Skid Row the day after the parade. He seemed happy with that and repeated back
what Ellie had told him. Time will tell
whether he will say it correctly during the parade.
Kimberley, teacher and frien joined us to work tonight. She brought some of her former students to
give them an opportunity to be part of float decorating, something they
normally would never experience. Kimberley
will be joining us the day we serve at Skid Row and will come to our hotel and
tell what life is like in her neck of the woods. She has done this in past years and it is
always a highlight for our group because she is a great speaker and shares such
interesting stories.
On the way back to our hotel, Lonnie turned on the speaker
system in the shuttle and played John Denver and Neil Diamond songs we all knew
from the good old days. We joined in and
rock and rolled much of the way home. It
kept anyone from falling asleep after an exhausting day.
Once back at Residence Inn we had to unload the $2,000 worth
of items purchased earlier in the day.
Our plan was to take them to the meeting room so we could finish our
towel kit project in the morning. We
needed a new plan because we were informed the meeting room was needed as an
additional breakfast room in the morning.
The hotel was totally booked and the normal breakfast room was not big
enough to handle everyone. This meant
that we had to move everything we left in the meeting room this morning into
our rooms. Everything we had purchased
that morning went into our rooms as well.
How we will complete the towel kits for Skid Row remains to be seen.
I will not think about it until morning when I will defer to
Ellie since she is in charge. Somehow
she will figure it out. Day three of decorating
will not happen tomorrow either since floats had to be finished tonight. That means we will need a new plan for the
day, probably about plan D or E by now.
I am too tired to think about it now and Ellie is already sleeping so
time will tell what happens. I hope she
is planning in her sleep because in the morning 28 people are going to be up
and ready for an adventure! She sleeps
soundly so perhaps this will be a morning disaster waiting to happen! J
Tiredness has overtaken me so goodnight! Lynn – tired and done petal pusher - signing
off.
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