Follow the Road, chapter 5

Yesterday was our final day at Passport and my final day with the dozen-and-a-half youth assigned to the Salvation Army Family Store.  We have been in there all week sorting a huge pile of donated clothes.  I have learned some things about donations.  Don't bother donating torn, well-used, or stained clothing.  So much clothing is received in excellent condition, the lesser quality items are discarded and sold to rag makers by bulk weight.  We whittled that huge pile down to, well,  a very large pile and I was a little sorry we didn't have more time.  The manager of the facility, a 60ish woman named Flo, had asked to speak to us at the end of this final day.  I remember her on our first day here and how skeptically she regarded us.  As the week went on she became more amenable to our help and more confident assigning us tasks.  Now we gathered in the back of the store and she said some amazing, wonderful things.

I cannot thank you enough for your hard work this week.  We have been understaffed for so long I wasn't sure we would ever make the pile of donations manageable or get the store room clean.  I prayed for help for weeks before your group showed up here.  My usual experience with young people here is the ones forced to work here by court order.  But working with you and watching you work has been a pleasure.  You have been the answer to my prayers.  I know you are leaving us now, but please come back to us next year.

Flo went on to say that the store has flexibility in helping those in dire need.  If a family's house burns down, for instance, they can go to the Salvation Army Family Store and take whatever they need to get through the crisis for free.

How frequently are we the answer to someone's prayer?  I don't know, but when someone looks you in the eye and says that it is pretty humbling.

A couple of stories from the mission group.  I was working with a camper named Katie from western North Carolina.  She told me that she lived on a farm and had 26 dogs.  I said that was a lot, and she replied that they were her brother's and that he was training them to hunt.  "'coon dogs like that won't ever shut up."  It occurred to me that this might be my first conversation ever regarding 'coon dogs.

At lunch some of the campers and I were talking about how their youth groups operate at home.  Someone said that their Youth Sunday was a couple of weeks ago and a young man named Bridger preached.  I asked on what topic.  Bridger said, "The satisfaction theory of forgiveness."  A camper named Cody considered this a second and then slowly drawled, "Whuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?"  I'm glad he asked that, because I was about to.

Soon we'll follow the road home.  I have heard somewhere that there's no place like it.