Project Advent II, Day 7: Tent City

Today was another really good day.  I'd been saving my last week of time off to use it during the week of Christmas, but then it turned out I wasn't going to be able to do that.  Since my vacation time resets on 1/1, and none of it rolls over, there's no way I was going to let any of my days go unused.  I'm taking off every Friday in December.

Because I had the morning free, I went to chapel at the kids' school, and Ava sat with me.  Each day during chapel, they recognize any children who have birthdays that day, and then read a prayer over them from the Book of Common Prayer.  On the page facing it was a prayer I wish I'd seen yesterday.

However, there was another that certainly seemed applicable to today's task:

I left the school and went to Lubbock's Tent City, located just south of the fairgrounds.  A couple of years ago, even before the Occupy movement, a group of Lubbock's homeless set up tents on a piece of municipally-owned land on the corner of a busy downtown street.  There was lots of talk about what should be done, and whether they should be able to stay, until a group called Link Ministries purchased this land on the edge of town and began transforming it into a space where a more permanent facility could exist.  Is this ideal?  No, of course not.  The ideal would be for everybody to have real shelter to go to every night, but this is something that is needed, and it's filling a need in our community.

This fall has been very unseasonably warm.  Nearly every day has been around 80 degrees.  This is good news for the residents of tent city, in that it hasn't been as bitter for them as last winter was.  It's bad news because warm temperatures this late in the year mean that the grass has continued growing, giving a place for pests to take shelter.  When I arrived today, most of the grounds were covered in grass about two to three feet high.

There are several groupings of large green army-style tents around the grounds, set up in rows.  The grounds manager asked that I try to drive the riding mower in a pattern that would point the discharge chute away from tents as much as possible, to minimize the dust and debris that would blow into the tents, and that was about the only request they made before I was off!  I've never driven a riding mower before today, but it was kind of fun.  I am completely serious about this: if I'm ever a lottery winner, I would quit my job and fill my days doing lawn mowing.  I really enjoy it.  I love how there is a job with clear parameters, a defined goal, and measurable progress, and you can look at it with pride when you're done.

It took a while to finish the whole place, and when I did, I was covered from head to toe in dust.  I had plans to meet a friend for lunch today, and I was planning to go straight to that, but I had to come back home and take a shower first.  My hair looked sand-colored from all the dust that had settled in it, and my glasses were practically opaque.  Luckily, I'd thought to bring a respirator mask with me.  See?  Here it is, sitting pristine and unused right where I forgot it and left it in my car while I mowed.

If you hear the sound of thunder tonight, that's just me, snoring through lungs full of Lubbock dirt.

I'm going to brag on my handiwork a little bit.  I didn't take a before picture, but here's the grounds after I was finished mowing.

Affirmation Project: The friend I had lunch with today was Captain Roy Bassett of the LPD, a friend from church.  There's a lot that I appreciate about him.  First, he's a really top-notch dad, and I take a lot of inspiration from watching him and his wife Jennifer with their two beautiful daughters.  Second, he's generous.  I think I may have shared this story before, but when my dad was in the hospital last year, there was a night that I badly wanted to go and see him during visiting hours.  My lawn was due to be treated by the Permagreen guy the next morning, though, and I had to mow and edge it before they came.  When I put out a call for help on Facebook, asking if somebody would edge and trim while I mowed, Roy almost immediately sent back a message telling me just to go to the hospital, and that he would take care of the whole thing.  He gave me another night with my dad.

Third is something that I just thought of today.  I know that I sometimes have a pie-in-the-sky view of things.  I want the world to be a certain way.  I've been fortunate enough never to have somebody else purposely inflict a grievous harm upon me.  But Roy has served in the police department for a lot of years.  He's seen things just this week that I hope I'll never see anything close to.  He's out there doing that so that guys like me can continue to hold onto our pie-in-the-sky view of things.  I'm grateful for that.

Project Advent II, Day 6: Lubbock Lighthouse

I was having a pretty hard time emotionally earlier this year.  In spite of some past experiences that had left me wary about unintended side effects of antidepressants, I went on one.  It really did help me.  In fact, after a few months, I felt like I was back in a good enough place that I worked with my doctor to gradually decrease my dose, and I took my last pill the day before Thanksgiving.  Two weeks later, I can tell you that I'm still doing well emotionally, but the last fourteen days have been incredibly physically challenging.  I've been working through cold sweats, vertigo, vivid nightmares, and a feeling like my brain has been hooked up to a shock collar that is set to go off any time I turn my head.  The first three things are pretty much gone now, but that last one is still with me, and my doctor says that it may be for a little while.  If I'd done my homework when I went on the pills, I might have had more of an idea about what to expect when I came off the pills.

Anyway, I bring all of this up not to troll for your sympathy, but instead to share that I really have a new sympathy for people who are taking steps to remove a drug from their lives.  This is an area that I have to admit I've probably been kind of heartless about in the past.  I'm also not making any kind of comparison between my situation and the situation of somebody trying to come off of something harder, because I know that there really isn't any comparison.  Just... I have an understanding now.

Through some shared connections, I've done a little bit of IT work on the side for the Lubbock Lighthouse in the past.  They are an outpatient treatment program that provides methadone and subutex treatment services, in addition to substance addiction counseling.  When I called their director and asked if he'd be OK with me coming over to do some volunteer work, he kindly agreed.

I've signed a confidentiality agreement with Lubbock Lighthouse (going back to the IT work) that says I won't disclose anything I witness there, including the specifics of any services that I provide for them.  Although I don't think they'd have any problem with me talking about what I did there today, I still want to honor that agreement here.  I'll just say that the work I did today wasn't IT-related, it was much more day-to-day office operations related.  I worked with a very nice woman who usually runs the front desk, and had an enjoyable hour of helping out during what would normally be my lunch hour, and then headed back to work for the afternoon!

Affirmation Project: Courtney - I love you.  You are a wonderful wife and mother.

Project Advent II, Day 5: All Saints Chess Club

When I started planning for Project Advent II, I wasn't worried at all about filling up my Wednesday slots, because I knew that I'd have the same thing that I have every Wednesday during the school year: All Saints Chess Club.  I've been doing this for about a year and a half now, coming up to school every Wednesday during lunch time and just being there to help out as needed, whether that's playing with a kid who has no partner, settling a dispute over the rules, or just being the grown-up in the room to keep things calm.

The club meets three days a week this year, during the lunch hour, and attendance is "come as you can."  Since the chess institute at Texas Tech is in transition now, with the departure of Susan Polgar, we haven't had the same assistance we had last year, and parent participation has been more vital to keep the program going.

When I was planning Project Advent last year, I stopped to talk to Paige, the chaplain and admissions officer for the school.  She was the one who told me I should use chess club as my hour of service on Wednesdays during Advent.  It's such a part of my weekly schedule that I really hadn't even considered that until she mentioned it!

This year has been a little more difficult than last.  It seemed like most of the kids who were coming last year had a pretty solid grasp on the game's rules before I ever met them.  Also, we had a pretty steady group of about five or six children each week.  At the beginning of this school year, we were averaging about sixteen children every time I came, many of whom had a tenuous grasp of the rules of chess at best.  There are some things that I'm pretty good at; commanding the attention of a room full of kids is not one of them.  I knew that some of these kids needed instruction about the basics before they could really play with the others, but it can be kind of challenging to give that kind of attention to one or two when you're the only adult in a room full of kids.  I'm still figuring out how to do that, but I'm also figuring out that it's also OK for me to loosen up and just let them come in and blow off steam for a while in the middle of a school day.

For instance, there are two girls who come in nearly every week when I'm there.  They always get out two sets of chess pieces and set them up into a game that they call Super Chess.  Here's a picture.

Sometimes instead of setting up the pieces that deep, they'll set up two boards side-by-side and line up the pieces differently.  There's a whole different set of rules they've invented for this game, rules that make perfect sense to them, and no sense to the rest of us, even after watching them play this for the last three months.  I'll give them this, though: unlike some of the other players, these two never, ever argue about whether a move was legal or not.  They may be the only ones who know their game, but at least they agree on how to play it.

Affirmation Project:  Scott Cheatham, you make me laugh, you're one of the smartest guys I know, and you've been a real support to me for the last couple of years.

Project Advent II, Day 4: Sick Children's Clinic

I really enjoyed today's hour of service.  Now if I can just stay awake for long enough to type about it.

The Sick Children's Clinic was founded in 1961 by two Lubbock physicians, Drs. Stanley Ullom and Gerald Marable.  Their dream was to treat indigent children in Lubbock and the surrounding areas in the early stages of sickness.  It is a totally free clinic where sick children from newborns to age 16 can be treated.  Medicine is also free from their on-site pharmacy.  Sick Children's Clinic is staffed solely by volunteers, including the doctors. Most of their doctors come during their lunch hour and are at the clinic for a short time. Regardless, they give each child and family their full attention.  Because the clinic depends on the availability of doctors, it does not have set hours: it opens at different hours each day, Monday through Friday.

Dr. Ullom, who was a cofounder of the clinic, and who passed away a few years ago, was my ENT doctor when I was a little boy.  I had a lot of trouble with my ears back then.  To this day, I'm just about deaf in my right ear, but if it hadn't been for Dr. Ullom's treatment, it would probably be all the way.  I never knew that he had been responsible for such a cool ministry.

I've seen the building that the Sick Children's Clinic is located in hundreds of times, it's just across the street from the South Plains Fairgrounds.  I'd never seen it in action before, though, and didn't know very much about it.  Lubbock's Second Baptist Church coordinates everything at the clinic, so I called them and asked when I could get on the schedule to help out.  I made sure they knew I have no medical background, but that I'm willing to do anything else they have need of.  When I arrived today, one of the other volunteers quickly showed me around the clinic (waiting area, office area, six exam rooms), and then asked what I was comfortable doing.  This was a coded statement, intended to mean "Are you comfortable talking with kids?"  I told her that I have three children of my own, and I'd love to do whatever I can.

We called the first patient back into exam room one, weighed him and took his temperature.  Then we interviewed him about his symptoms, took notes on his chart for the doctor to see, and called back the next patient.  I got to handle the next several patients on my own, and this is where I really started to have fun.  The children I saw were all between 4 and 9, which happens to be around the same age as my kids.  There were a lot of sore throats today, and one little boy with complications with his asthma, none of which is fun, but just having the chance to visit with them, see them smile when I asked them an unexpected question about their school, and make them laugh when I did some stupid little trick with my pen was fantastic.

Before I left, they had one more job for me.  "Hey, you're very tall.  The fluorescent bulbs in the hallway have been flickering for the last month.  Could you switch those out?"  No problem.  Didn't even need a chair.

I am extremely impressed with their operation.  The building is sparkling clean and immaculately well-kept, and we scrubbed everything down after the patients had left today.  The doctor (who attends the same church I do) was fantastic with the children, and had such a kind, gentle demeanor.  They have a well-stocked pharmacy right there in the building so that they can send families home with the medicine they need.  If it's a drug they don't stock, they have partnerships with a few local pharmacies to arrange for the families to be able to get the medicine they need at no cost.  The other volunteers were all so kind and welcoming.  They turn nobody away.  Again: nobody is turned away.  I'm just amazed at the directness and usefulness of this ministry.  They are helping meet people's needs in such a vital and important way.

When I was about to go, they asked if I'd come back for their next planned Tuesday hours, two weeks from today.   I thought about it for less than a second before I said yes.

Affirmation Project: Kyle, Chris, Casey, Dan, Eric, Dale, Tyler, Chad, and Parker: I love how I can talk to any of you, on the phone or in person, after any length of time, and it feels like we just saw each other yesterday.  Each of you has been a friend and a support to me since college, through good times and bad.  I'm so thankful for you.

Project Advent II, Day 3: KTTZ

If you've ever been a consumer of public media, you know how to complete this sentence: "This program was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the support of..."  Go ahead and fill it in, folks.

"Listeners like you."

I'm a big fan of NPR's news programming.  When you have a radio on your desk at work, what's playing on it makes a big difference in how your co-workers approach you.  If it's on music, they'll just come right up and start talking.  If it's on talk radio, they may may stop and listen for a moment before going on to tell you whatever they want.  But if it's on news, they tend to think, "Oh, he must want to hear that," and they will leave you the hell alone.  But also, it's really good programming.

When I called KTTZ, Lubbock's NPR station, and asked to speak to their volunteer coordinator, I was connected with a really friendly lady who asked if I'd be interested in helping to get out a fundraising mailing.  It's the start of the month, and close to the end of the year, so they were sending out pledge reminders.  So that's what I did today: visited the station, set up shop in a conference room, and stuffed a big ol' pile of envelopes.  It's not sexy, but it's got to be done.

That's not an entirely true statement, by the way.  I mean, it's still me stuffing the envelopes, so it's actually pretty sexy.  OK, really sexy.

Affirmation Project:  Who have your professional mentors been?  The people who have guided and led you in your career?  When I graduated from college, David Baucum took a chance on me and hired me as a software developer at his company.  When the IT bust of the late 90s took place, and he had to downsize some positions, including mine, he referred me to one of our clients, where I went to work next.  Every job I've had since I graduated has followed from those initial connections, and I owe them all to him.

Project Advent II, Day 2: Heifer International

Sundays are pretty busy times at the Holwerda house.  Courtney usually works on Saturday nights, so she's sound asleep during the day.  I get the kids up and dressed, and off to church.  After church and a bite of lunch, we usually have time to do one or two things together before we go back up to FUMC for the Bible study that I lead on Sunday afternoons.  On top of that today, Courtney and I had a fancy-schmancy party to go to this evening (WITHOUT CHILDREN!).  Today is just the kind of day that I had in mind when I made sure to give myself an out if I needed it.  Time to get out the wallet.

Fortunately, I got something in the mail a few weeks ago that I've been really excited to follow up on.  Heifer International is an organization that uses donations to provide livestock and agricultural training to underprivileged people around the world.  Their vision is a classic "teach a man to fish" scenario; they aren't providing just food to people, they're giving them the opportunity to continue providing for themselves.

There is a huge range of things that can be donated through Heifer, from a hive of bees to sheep and beasts of burden.  I wanted to find something that cost close to one hour of my pay, and there were several things that fit the bill.  I decided to go with a flock of ducks, because awwww, ducklings...

See?  Look how cute!

So... yeah.  Easy as that!  Go to the website, choose your gift, enter your information, and they take care of the rest.  What's cool is that the animals aren't all that the recipients will get.  They also receive training in how to care for the animals, grow their flock, sell the eggs, and even use the ducks as, um, a source of fertilizer.  It's exciting to me because it seems like a way to do something that will be a direct and ongoing benefit to a family.

Affirmation Project:  I may not be able to do this in every single day's post, but I'm trying to see if I can relate the service that I do each day to a specific person in my life.

Today I want to lift up Mrs. Anita Phillips, my eleventh grade US History teacher, and continuing friend.  When I arrived in her class in the fall of 1991, history was not a living thing to me, it was a source of trivia facts.  Through her lessons, though, I started thinking about how our world is defined not just by the choices our leaders make, but also through the actions that all of us take.  I started thinking about how we relate to the world.  I started thinking about how I am supposed to define myself as a citizen of this world.

Since I graduated, Mrs. Phillips has always kept up with my family, and her husband Darrell (another educator) has kept a loving and protective eye on my sister for years in her work as a school counselor.  Her daughter Ann, as well as Ann's children, attends the same church we do, and she was one of the kindest sources of help to me when I lost my father last year.

The donation to Heifer International that I made today was given in Mrs. Phillips' honor,and she'll receive a card to let her know about it.  Thank you, Mrs. Phillips for lessons that continue to shape my thinking about what kind of world citizen I want to be.

Project Advent II, Day 1: Second Helpings

I'm starting this year's project in the same place that I started last year's: Second Helpings at my church, First United Methodist Church of Lubbock.  Three days each week, the church serves a hot lunch to anybody who is hungry.  Some of the best memories from last year's project were made in the kitchen of our church outreach center, and I really wanted to make Second Helpings a part of this year's project, too.

Although I haven't been able to keep up the same pace of helping out at Second Helpings that I kept last December, I've been able to visit a few more times this year.  I've also found a different way to contribute.  I was in a coffee shop near my house one Tuesday evening a few months ago, and asked them what they did with the leftover pastries at the end of the day.  The manager told me that there were a few days each week when the food bank comes to pick up their leftovers, but on Tuesdays they throw them out.  They don't anymore!  I come by each Wednesday morning to pick them up and take them to church.

Some scheduling problems kept us from being able to work at the Thanksgiving meal this year, which really disappointed Blake.  I decided to take him along today, and he was really excited to join me.

We arrived at about 11:30, a half hour before the serving line started.  We rolled some silverware into napkins, and then helped set out bowls of salad, fruit, drinks, and dessert.  Mrs. Edwards, who coordinates Second Helpings, told Blake to stick close to her when we started to serve, and she'd show him what to do.

(And I just have to pause a moment here to make an aside.  I've been the vice-chairman of our church council this year, and because our church is starting an initiative to attract more young families, I've heard a lot of information about church demographics.  I know that the long-term vitality of any church depends on bringing in families, but I've also come to see that no church can run successfully for very long without dedicated grandmas.  Mrs. Edwards is awesome.  She just had a hip replaced, she's turning 77 next Wednesday, and she still plans a meal for over 100 people three times each week.)

So, while I was stationed at the very start of the line, serving rice to each person who walked by, Blake joined Mrs. Edwards, and helped her carry plates and drinks to a few of the guests who were in wheelchairs.  Once they'd all been served, he went to the end of the line and poured drinks.  I was so proud of him.  He really worked hard, and was so polite.  Check out this picture: it's not very great, but I love it anyway.  There's Blake, eight years old, nearly as tall as Mrs. Edwards right behind him.  He was carrying a drink to one of the people in attendance.

After everybody had been served, Courtney texted me to see if we could come join her and the little ones for lunch, so Blake and I cleaned up a little and then left.  First day of Project Advent was a success!

Affirmation Project:  As I mentioned in yesterday's project introduction, part of this year's experience will be taking the time to provide an affirmation each day to somebody in my life.  I know that some people are embarrassed by praise, so I'm going to try and not make this part of each day's post too much of a gush-fest.

Today's choice was really clear to me, because it was not only the first day of Advent, it was also the ordination ceremony of Paige McKay, the chaplain at All Saints Episcopal School!  Every school has people on staff who handle discipline, administration, and budget, but how many schools have somebody on staff whose full-time job is to love the children in attendance?  That's what Paige does.  She instructs and guides the students of All Saints, but first and foremost she is there just to provide them with a living example of Christ's love in action.  Thank you, Paige, for the love that you show to so many others.  Congratulations on your ordination, Reverend McKay!