Arizona Trip, Day Two, Tuesday--"Gonna Fly Now"-- Bill Conti (from the "Rocky" soundtrack)
I have to admit something upfront here. I know that I snore. Some have even said "loudly." So I tried very hard to be the last one to sleep at night so that it didn't keep anyone awake. If I did and you were quiet about it, thanks, but next time just kick me and tell me to roll over. It really does help, and I try to accommodate.
Anyway, I set my cell phone alarm to get up about 1/2 an hour early each day. That way I could be ready, have some Bible time, and be out of the way of everyone else getting ready. When you live in a house with four teens and a wife, you learn about mornings the hard way. And this was ten teens and a Rachel, so I knew I would be in for trouble. But surprisingly, everyone gelled pretty well during wake up time, and we made it to breakfast at Tory and Kara's house on time.
After a wonderful breakfast of biscuits and gravy, we all had to make our sack lunches for the day. All I can say is that it was good to see that Kara's kitchen survived.
We made our way to the Cultural Center on the reservation, about 25 minutes from Globe down a two-lane highway. There were plants that I was not familiar with alongside the road, and as you enter the reservation you dip into this valley with mesas and mountains in the distance. It was beautiful, but stark. After all, it is mostly desert. What struck me was shame for our government, who back in the day decided that the AZ desert was the best place to "dump" the Apaches. There is a little water, and they have built up some farmland, but for the most part it is a hostile environment. If it wasn't for the Apache pride, their ability to work together, and some grace from God, I don't know how they could have survived.
At the Cultural Center, we met the owner/operator Herb. He is super-friendly, and welcomed us all. He is Apache (of course), and he has had a multitude of jobs through the years. Now he mainly runs the center, and he makes traditional herbal remedies. In fact, when we were done for the day, he took us out to his truck, where he was drying some acorns. He had traveled into the surrounding mountains to gather them. I didn't even know acorns were edible for us, but he showed us how to shell and eat them. I must say, they taste like sunflower seeds.
While we got to know him, we prepped the conference room and kitchen/hallway for paint. We were going to paint the bathrooms too, but we didn't get that far on Tuesday. So Herb, Tory, Evan and I set to moving the furniture away from the walls, taking down pictures, etc. Evan found a dead bat under one of the bookcases-- awesome!-- and then we were ready to get started painting.
This turned out to be a perfect activity for the first day. We were inside and Herb had turned on the air in the conference room, so it was pretty comfortable. And since we were all inside a pretty confined area, it gave us the opportunity to get to know each other better.
The surprise of the morning had to be the condition of the exterior wall. While there were windows that I am sure provide a great view, Herb had to close them up with plywood to prevent them from being broken so that from the outside you wouldn't even know there are windows there. And he had to have some work done due to a water leak, and he paid a huge amount to have someone come in and drywall the repair. However, it quickly became apparent that the drywall job was not so good. So Tory, Rob, and I spent most of our time patching holes with the caulk we had while the others painted. We got the entire room done and about half of the kitchen before it was time to leave for lunch and VBS.
We ate our lunches on the way back to the church, where we were able to take a break for an hour or so.
After the break we headed over to Tory and Kara's so we could make our way to the VBS. They said it was going to be at the neighborhood park, so we all had an idea of what to expect. Needless to say, when we got there all of our expectations were destroyed. When we hear the word park, most of us expect a playground, some grass, etc. But this was not the case. I think I actually gasped when we pulled up. It was a fenced off area at the top of a hill. There was a playground that was literally covered with graffiti, and two slabs of concrete under shades, also full of graffiti. And a concrete slab for a basketball court. Otherwise, it was all just dirt and glass. LOTS of glass. Broken bottles, to be precise. And it seems like it is layered there, years and years of broken bottles just settling on top of each other. It was profoundly sad, because here is a place designed to bring joy for children, but instead it is where the teens, for generations, have been literally breaking their hearts and dashing their dreams via bottles.
Rachel sent out a group to wander the neighborhood and pass out fliers for the VBS while the rest of us tried our best to clear the concrete under the shade of all of the glass shards so the kids could sit down. We did not know what to expect, and even Tory mentioned that they had had only a mediocre turn-out the last time they were there. And it was the first day of school to boot.
After about fifteen minutes we saw the group coming around a corner down the hill. They were walking together down the street towards the park. All of a sudden, a huge group of kids lined up in front of them and started walking with them. When they reached the corner diagonal from the park, even more kids seemed to come out of nowhere and ran to join them. This is when the Rocky theme struck up in my head. I think I even let out a tear of happiness at what we were seeing, as the kids scrambled up the hill to the park. And even though Rachel had not been there for a year, one of the little girls ran right up and jumped into her arms. We were giving them something to be happy about, and to hope for.
The rest of the VBS was all about the high schoolers. They gave the lesson, played out the story with the children, and then conducted water games with them. I don't think there was a leader there who was not SUPER-proud of them.
Once playtime came, we all got into the thick of things. The kids are so starving for attention, for hope, for light, that it is infectious. You cannot stand back and stay uninvolved. So we were all playing with them-- basketball, frisbee, jumprope- you name it. The joy on their faces is indescribable, because you get the feeling that they don't get to express that emotion very much.
After VBS we went back to Tory and Kara's for dinner. We had our first big bug sighting there, a large stink bug that had wound its way up around the shoes in the carport. We were trying to decide how to let it live and get rid of it when Rachel came out, saw the bug, grabbed a random flip-flop, and struck down the stink bug with great fervor and enthusiasm. Poor bug...
When we returned to the church that night, we had our first debrief, where it was clear that Rachel wanted us to focus on building relationships with the kids. That was important for me, because here we are touching these kids' lives, and if we just turn around without another thought when we go home, what have we really learned? Then was some relax time. I stayed in the gym for a while, then went outside to watch the stars with some of the kids. It was beautiful once you got out of range of the porch light.
That was my lesson for the day. Just like leaving the porch light, sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone, where you can see what is going on clearly, and step into the darkness, into the unknown, into the uncomfortable. Then you can see a bigger picture, and even though it seems scary, there is a world you never knew that is just waiting for you to shine.
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