Homework!

At our last meeting, our trip leaders handed us a bright slip of paper that asked us to recap our experience any way we wanted to.  I'm....not so good with the creative things, so I elected to post another blog entry!  Yaaay!
Something that I forgot to mention during my first post was the documentary that Kendra has us watch, called Trouble the Water.  It was taped by a woman who stayed in her house when the levees broke, and we saw the town around her get enveloped by the water.  People lost their homes, their pets, their family members...but they didn't just sit on their roofs and cry.  They didn't despair.  They THANKED GOD.  I found that so amazing.  They were thankful for their lives, and they knew that God would bring them out of their hardship.  I was in disbelief.  I doubt that I could ever stay that positive if there was 10 feet of water in my town and I was floating along on someone's front door.  And then the next day, when we took the bus tour, it was so hard to imagine water that high...and seeing houses that were still empty, still dilapidated....a whole shopping center just abandoned...it was heartbreaking.
I've gone on service trips before, so I wouldn't say that my vision of service or volunteering has changed after the trip.  My favorite part about my church was always the opportunities I was given to go on service trips.  I only wish that someone had told me that SILD existed before now.
My boyfriend has always told me that a lot of things in life aren't worth getting mad or worked up over.  His advice got put into a whole new light on spring break.  Not one complaint was heard from the group, because not only were we totally PSYCHED to help out these people, but if you think about it--why should WE complain?  We have houses.  We have a place to live and even have the luxury to take time out of our lives to give someone else a place to live.
Complaining gets you nowhere.  Coming together with hammers and nails gets you a house.  Which would you rather do?
--Joanne