Family Fun Day

What do you think of when you get an email entitled 'Family Fun Day'? If paintbrushes and nail guns automatically come to mind, well, then, you win.

Recently our base director, Stan, penciled in a work day for the missionaries at the IDT base. May is an ideal time for something like this because we don't get any groups. We don't have any in November, either, but that would just be cold and miserable, and I, for one, wouldn't come.

I came to this one, however. And, true to form, I got all painty. Not that I mind. The biggest project was repainting the dorms. We have fourteen of them, all the size of an old single housebuild (um... 12x12? I don't actually know). Some years ago, one of the leadership guys (who will continue unnamed...) voted that IDT paint all the buildings a wonderful, sky blue. Bright. Sky. Blue. Since the aforementioned unnamed had clout (and, lets face it, everyone agreed with him), the buildings (dorms, school, bathrooms, workshops) all got painted blue. And it was kind of good, because you could see them from miles away. And giving directions was easy, because all you had to say was 'the one with all the blue buildings' and everybody knew what you were talking about.

No more, friends. The colors now are olive and, um, dark olive. Very soothing. As you can see. And we got twelve of them painted. And we would have gotten all fourteen, except we ran out of paint. You know, the olive one. Of course, there was more done than just that. Like the trim around the dining hall and church. And some sort of thing over the front door. What are those called? The top of a front porch. One of those. Very pretty.

I liked this whole shindig, because it seems to me that the more work you put into something, the more inclined you will be to take care of it. Hopefully, that will be the case with us.

Though I don't think I would like to get all painty too often. Getting it out of your hair is such a pain.

Changes and stuff

I'm sitting alone in the dining hall, over an hour early for church. This is, it seems, the only way that I can write for this blog relatively undisturbed. Actually, though, I have an office, which effectively hides me from the world, but I get too lonely in there, so I content myself with conducting my business in the dining hall. This works pretty well for everything except meetings.

Upon further reflection, I suppose I am a glutton for disturbances. Or maybe it is an echo of my time in the Junior High ministry, where I knew everything that was going on at every moment. Does this make me a busybody? Probably. The missionaries seem pretty good-natured about my quirks.

There are changes in the air. The weather is finally getting warm (excepting the afternoon winds that bring in all the dust), I am enmeshed in preparations for the Summer of Service, and several of my friends are leaving-some forever.

I didn't used to take goodbye's too badly. Maybe I was more easygoing then. Now, though, I am finding goodbye's to be rather difficult. Or maybe it is the continual hope that the goodbye won't be for always that is so tough. Either way, I just don't like it.

My friend Jen (of the faithful blogging which always seems to evade me) is departing for the States. She's been here for a year and a half, like she promised. She's been the housemom for La Paloma for a year and a half, which is no small feat. Don't misunderstand me. The Manzano family is stellar. I love being an honorary Manzano. But some of the girls that come into the house are damaged, and for many of them the only consolation they get from life is to damage in return. It is not an easy job to love them. Jen, however, has managed to do it, and most of the time she's done it quite gracefully.

And Carol-and her family, at whose house I have practically lived for the past year- is leaving for Canada. There is consolation in this, however, because they're coming back. Then they're leaving again. Then, hopefully, they're coming back. Again. Its all very complicated. Something to do with school, and M.A.'s, and stuff. At any rate, I hope fervently for their return. Carol is my workout buddy. Without her I would never exercise. What I am going to do without her to prod me, I don't know. Maybe learn self-discipline, or something.