"Won't You Be My Neighbor" Part III

This is the third part of Pastor Susan Hayes' sermon preached on June 30, 2012 at St. Mark Presbyterian Church

By Wednesday we were told we had to quit by 1:00 in the afternoon…Catholic Charities worried for the safety of all those volunteers.

We had already figured out to begin our day at 7:00am while the thermostat read only 80’s…our young guys up and out without complaint or drama.

After the tornado, The Presbyterian Church had renovated a building to house volunteers.  Twin beds for 40, four showers, a large kitchen area and plenty of welcoming air conditioning…we all slept well, bone tired as we were.

  Even in the course of only four days we had our routine, pack lunches, make coffee, fill the dishwasher.  In the evenings we would fix dinner and sit “family style” to eat.  We listened to the Cardinal games, read, talked, the boys retreating to their own space where you might hear Nick strumming his guitar or wrestling or gaming or, more often, snoring.

When a larger group of volunteers arrived to work on Don’s house we were moved two properties down to a cute rebuilt home…our job to clean out the basement.  Our homeowner…a hoarder…while Glenn and Jim installed siding and soffit the rest of us hauled mountains of debris, rotted insulation, decayed mouse corpses and tons of dishes and unidentifiable dusty stuff from this cellar/basement.  Because the homeowner was sensitive about his possessions we were instructed not to throw anything away…we left it in the small back yard for the next group.

 

As we were leaving on Thursday Jay said “I wish we could stay longer”…I felt it too…as we drove Highway 44 home we sang and debriefed…thankful for our clean homes for our families and for this community, very grateful for the trees that line these streets.