Well, my computer is at the doctor's -- unfortunately our friend Bill is too far away to take a look at it. The fellow at the shop told me that they would be able to look at it first thing on Monday -- but wouldn't know for sure until then how "fixable" it is...
We walked across the court from the computer shop and had a surprisingly good fast food lunch of broccoli and beef and cashew shrimp at a hole-in-the-wall place. From there to the grocery store where I got ANOTHER store card! It seems every chain in every part of the country has their loyalty card and you almost cannot afford to buy groceries without it. The FRYE chain seems to be the big one here in Arizona --we actually haven't seen too many others. (They say you can tell a woman RVer by the number of grocery cards she has in her wallet!)
We drove around the housing areas in the neighborhood of the RV Park just to look at some of the landscaping. We actually saw some cacti that were beginning to bloom! (I've always been jealous of Sister Dena who always seems to manage to be in Arizona when the desert is in bloom!) I got a few pictures that I will share when (if!)I get my computer back tomorrow...
Today we attended services at Trinity Mennonite Church (where the Executive Board had met last week). The young pastor who spoke used parts of President Obama's speech in his sermon -- it was VERY inspiring and thoughtful.
We were surprised to see in the bulletin that Ken Madema was giving a concert tonight in a Methodist church in Phoenix as a fund-raiser for the Mennonite Church in Chandler. It's twenty miles from where we are, but we had to go. We had heard him a couple of times at annual conferences and have really enjoyed him. Ken is a fantastic talented musician who is blind from birth. He writes many of his own songs and is incredible at taking stories from the audience and making a song out of them on the spot.
The story I told:
Five months after Hurricane Katrina, we were in Pass Christian, Mississippi working with Mennonite Disaster Services. The winds of the hurricane had torn free all of the street signs as well as the big signs for stores. There were very few service stations or restaurants open in the entire area. I had been out all day with the Project Director scouting out sites where people had asked for assistance. It had been very frustrating as you had to figure out where people might be by counting streets from a known still-standing building. By late afternoon, I was badly in need of a rest room, but there was none to be found (Harold had been able to find a tree to deal with his needs, but it's a bit more difficult for a female...). Finally we saw a lady going into a house and I decided to knock and see if she would let me use her bathroom. She was very gracious and invited me in, although she was a bit embarassed that her house was somewhat askew after it had been pushed back on its foundation and therefore the door to the bathroom didn't shut very well. When I came out, I chatted a bit with this tall, elegant, elderly African American woman. She was very cheerful and friendly and after we had talked for a bit, I asked her how she could be so cheerful when her roof was covered with a blue tarp and her belongings were piled in the middle of the floor also covered by tarps. She replied thoughtfully to me, "You know that you can't appreciate sunshine until after it rains." Then she paused and looked around at her things. "And you know, all my things, all of this precious stuff, I'm not going to need it when I get to heaven anyway!"
Madema took this story and made a beautiful song out of it. It started with the sounds of wild winds and ended with the woman's words and singing that I had found more than a restroom that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment