Ha! I’m back. The ol’ blog has suffered mightily at the past six weeks’ worth of home improvement projects and graduation parties, but I’m going to try to get back on the blogging wagon.

To pick up where I left off….

Thursday, April 9th, was the last day of the Diakonos Habitat for Humanity trip. If you recall, Wednesday had been a very physical day for me, and I awoke on Thursday tired and with a very sore back. I went into the common room, and after everyone had breakfasted and assembled, I found out that I would be going with Ombudsman (Craig) and a team of students to a teen shelter in Akron. Craig was to take a vanload of kids with him, and I was to take four students in my car. Fair enough.

I got “my” students together, and Craig gave me directions. We piled in to my car, and we waited for Craig to lead the way in his van. We pulled out following Craig, but after just a mile or so, Craig went straight, while I was sure going right was quicker. After all, that was how I had been going to Dunkin’ Donuts for the last few days. So, we zoomed off to the right and went the Dunkin’ Donuts way. It was not until I got to Dunkin’ Donuts about 15 minutes later that I realized that my shortcut was great to get to town, but was not near the entrance to the highway that would take us to Akron. No matter! I figured if I headed west all would be well. At 25 mph. Through a stop-light-ridden town. Needless to say, progress was slow.

I was not recognizing anything, but we were going west, so I kept going. After a very long while, I saw a sign that pointed to the highway, so I turned that way. After a mile or two, I recognized that we were near Kent State University, which, while not way out of the way of getting to Akron, certainly was in the “scenic” category. Anyway, for those familiar with the area, we came out next to the restaurant Mike’s Place, and we stopped for a group photo in front of the X-wing fighter.

We did finally get on the highway, and I had one of the kids call Craig’s number so he would not think we were in an accident. We got his voicemail, and so left a message, and we drove on to Akron. We got off the highway, and then could not find the street we needed. We went right for about two miles with no luck, so we turned around. We went back to the off-ramp and kept going for a couple of miles, and had no luck. So, we went back to the off-ramp and took the last option – going on what looked to be an on-ramp to the highway, but turned out to be the road we were looking for. So, with no further adventure, we got to the teen shelter about an hour or more later than we had planned.

The teen shelter had just acquired the property, so our team was there to haul out old scrap metal and other debris from the basement (where there was going to be a nursery for pregnant teens), and then to do some painting. Craig laughed at my compromised sense of direction, and then asked if I had any ear protection. One of the projects was to use a saws-all to cut down old pipes out of a very small closet space, and the noise was terrific. I did not have any hearing protection with me, but I offered to go get some. Craig gave me some money and I went and asked some workers upstairs where there might be a hardware store. They indicated that if I went down the road out front and then turned once, I would come to a hardware store. Thus prepared, I went on my way.

I first knew it was not going to be my day (in a directional sense of the word) when the road I had been told the hardware store was on suddenly ended in a “T” crossing. I picked a way that looked promising and drove on. And on. And on. I stopped at a Walgreen’s and asked the clerk if she could point me toward a hardware store. She gave me directions that got me way on the northwest side of Akron, but I finally got to a Home Depot. Heady with my success, I asked a clerk to point me to the ear protection. He showed me the way, and I got there to find they were sold out. Apparently, early April is the start-up time for lawn care companies, and they buy hearing protection in bulk. Sigh. I bought a few packages of the squishy in-ear kind of ear protectors, and made my long trip back to the center. I think I was gone about an hour and a half.

When I did get back, I took some pictures of the students doing their thing. They had been doing a good job, and it looked as if we were going to run out of work by early afternoon. Craig was kind enough to put me on a detail paining job that was around an air-intake for the furnace; that way I would not have a  totally useless day. We broke for lunch and had a good time in fellowship (including Craig and me telling the students how we met and wooed our wives); it was quite relaxed and fun. After lunch, I finished up my small paint job and helped do some small amounts of clean-up (there was not much clean-up left to do), and we all loaded up to head back to Camp Carl around 2:00 or so.

Needless to say, it was not my finest day of service ever, but I think in some ways God was being merciful to me. My body was a wreck from the work on Wednesday, and all of my efforts were in good faith, but resulted in my not having to further abuse my back.

We got back to the camp to find that all the other students were back from their projects, and that the final packing was underway. I packed up my stuff and got it all into the car, and then I asked Craig if it would be okay if I took off. It was not yet 4:00, and if I was efficient, I could get to my chiropractor and get my back taken care of. Craig understood and let me go, and I was most happy to find that Dr. Knop could take me quickly. My back was not perfect after he was done, but at least I could move properly again.

I drove home and puttered around the house, waiting for the time I could go pick up Meredith at the airport. As the time approached, I went to a Giant Eagle grocery store and picked up a dozen roses. I almost never buy flowers for Mer anymore because of financial concerns, and I wanted her to know that I had missed her. I got up to the airport fairly early, but I was able to pass some time chatting with a CVCA teacher whom I ran into (the video teacher, Eric). Eric was there to pick up his college-aged daughter. Her flight was a bit late, and Mer’s flight was early, so my wait by myself was fairly short. I stood outside the gate area, and as people started streaming out, I put on my sunglasses. Now, I know it is dumb to have sunglasses inside, but Mer finds them attractive, and I wanted to look as good as possible for her. She came around the corner and saw me and was all smiles, and I gave her a kiss and her flowers (zeugma). I’m pretty sure the group of three women were “awww-ing” behind me. It was great to see Meredith again. Even after almost 11 years of marriage, I really do not like being away from her.

We got Mer’s things from the baggage area and headed away from the airport. I wanted to take Mer out for some food (I can’t remember now if it was dinner and dessert or just dessert), and after a few tries of finding closed restaurants, we found an open Friday’s. It was a nice end to a busy few days.

Wednesday bloomed with me feeling slightly under the weather (but just slightly). The solution was pretty obvious – I needed to go to Dunkin’ Donuts to get a hot chocolate and a sandwich. Sad to say, but that solution worked.

Once I got back, I waited for things to get rolling, and we were shortly divided up into teams. I was once again staying at Camp Carl, and I was in charge of five students. One of Nate’s friends works at the camp, and he told us to meet him by the trailhead near the cabins where most of the group stayed on Saturday night. We wandered down the hill to the trail, and we waited for a few minutes until Nate’s friend pulled up in a pickup truck full of tools and lawn implements.

We were asked to clean up the leaves near two of the cabins. Another group had cleaned up most of the leaves, but they had run out of time before doing this fairly small area. Once we had finished that, we were told we could clean up the leaves from off the walking trail, and to clean up any brush that hung over the sides of the trail. We were given three leaf blowers (one of them was a big-time backpack blower), a couple of rock rakes, several pairs of branch cutters, and a can of gas-oil mix for the blowers. Thus equipped, we were left to our own devices.

I have to admit that I was very skeptical about the blowers. The leaves were wet from the previous two days’ snow and rain, and there was even still a dusting of snow in the shady areas. Also, Nate’s friend had made the assumption that we could start the leaf blowers. Happily, they were similar to my old weed whacker, and after a couple of minutes of priming, choking, and yanking and yanking and yanking, I got the first one started. The other two started more easily. Later, one of the student pointed out that the instructions were printed on the nozzle in both English and Spanish. Hah! Who needs reading?

It turns out I was wrong about the blowers. They worked really well. I had three students go at it with the blowers. They blew the leaves toward the woods, and once the piles were too big, I had two students use the rock rakes to rake/shovel the leaves into the woods. Meanwhile, I went around and cleaned up sticks and branches. It was an efficient operation, but it still took us about an hour and a half or even slightly more. Since Nate’s friend had told us to come and find him near the other end of the walking trail when we were done, I think he thought we were going to be done with the whole project by lunch. Needless to say, this did not happen.

When we did finally wrap up the area in front of the cabins, I sent three students down the trail blowing leaves (one to the left, one to the right, and the big backpack blower doing the middle of the trail). The remaining three of us followed behind cutting down branches and trimming back brush from the trail. Again, I thought it was pretty efficient. We made our way down a big hill and got to a fun but treacherous-looking bridge. We stopped for a short rest, we moved a downed tree, and we took advantage of the photo op. We then pressed on up the other side of the hill. The blowers moved on out ahead, which was not too surprising, since they were mechanized. We followed along as best we could.

We got to the camp’s archery area and cleaned that up – it was pretty thick in leaves and sticks. Once we cleaned that up, we decided to call it lunch, so we hoofed it the mile or so back to the camp. As far as I could tell from having run the trail on Sunday, we were about halfway when we broke for lunch.

We had a mellow – and shortish (about 30-minute) – lunch, and hoofed it back down the trail again. In the meantime, we had picked up a couple of pairs of hedge trimmers, which were more effective against the bramble bushes we were starting to come across. We picked up where we’d left off near the archery area, and the leaf-blower folks took off. This turned out to be okay, since they were able to do a side trail that we had been asked to do. The brush trimming team never did make it down the side trail, but at least it was blown clear.

As we got to the home stretch, we hit more and more bramble patches. We tried cutting them back or even cutting them off at the ground. I also had a hand at trying to use a spade to remove rocks from the trail, and I got out several before turning a corner and seeing the whole trail full of buried rocks. I gave up at that point. As we got close to finishing up, some of the leaf blowers came back to help with brush control. I have to admit that I was happy to let them help. I have back issues, and I had spent the entire day bent over picking up sticks or cutting brush. My back was having great difficulty changing positions (to bend over or to straighten up). I let the younger set take care of the last several hundred yards.

We finished up the trail at a small outdoors chapel area, and we gathered up the tools and wandered down the dirt road that the trail came out onto. We were over a mile from the camp, but it was a nice day, so we took our time. We stopped at the stream near the cabins, and sat there for awhile (I stood since I was not sure I could get back up if I sat down). After puttering there for a few minutes, we headed back to our quarters.

Once there, I found out that four others wanted to go running – Nate, Jim, and two students. They had a “cool run” near the large reservoir nearby. So, I threw on my shoes and we all piled in my car. Now, I know it seems stupid to run after complaining about my back, but it does seem to help. It loosens the muscles, and it involves almost no bending.

We went a short distance (three miles) down a tar road that was more potholes than tar, and we came to a bike trail with a big “no parking” sign. We went 10 feet past the sign and parked. One of the students (Matt) took the lead and led us on a wild trail run that was windy, muddy, and hilly, and in one area the trail had fallen in the lake. It was a slow run, but we had a good time giving Matt grief about his choice of trail. By the end, we had only run about 20-25 minutes, but it was enough to loosen up.

I let everyone else shower when we got back, so I was able to let the hot water do its magic on my back. I had even checked online to see if my chiropractor was open, but he was closed on Wednesday afternoons, so I had to let hot water do the best it could, and I headed to supper, which was in a big multipurpose room in the next building. We were able to eat with plenty of space. We had an excellent Cincinnati-style chili (chili on top of spaghetti), and then we set up for the evening’s entertainment – the annual Diakonos talent show.

Every year, students (and chaperons) sign up to do things of varying degrees of talent, and they are a good time. This year, I think we had about ten acts, two of which were mine. I had four Ceili Club dancers on the trip who wanted to dance a reel for everyone (and I had access to iTunes so I could get a reel for 99 cents). I also had four members of my Royal Fools improv group along, so I signed them up to do a short skit (game) as well. I was very proud.

Some of the other acts included a thrown-together joke-telling group that told lame jokes that were funny because they were lame, and a group where Craig used word art to change a student’s name into a picture of a pig, a girl who showed off her solo skit that she used in speech competitions, a different dancing group, and a couple of guys rapping (which was the second year in a row – they are a big hit). Everyone seemed to have a fun time, and we got things cleaned up a little over an hour after the show started.

Back in the main living quarters, we putzed around until Craig was ready to lead devotions. We sang three or four songs, and then Craig walked us through a PowerPoint review of the Romans passages we had looked at, and he looked at what it means to live “in community.” Again, I wish I’d written these things down, but as best as I can remember, Craig talked about putting the needs of others above your own, willingness to build each other up, willingness not to judge on appearances (and how Americans don’t have people over because the house is too messy or the like), and he stressed a proximity that would be needed to maintain a community – it is hard to have community when you are an hour apart. He had some good points, and I hope the kids (and I!) remember at least some of them.

Tuesday I managed to stay put in the morning and not go to Dunkin’ Donuts. I read a chapter in my Bible, and then hung out and munched on breakfast cereal and chatted with folks until it was time for the work crews to get organized. This day I was going to be in one of two teams that were staying at Camp Carl. One team (not mine) was going to clean up scrap metal and cut and burn brambles back in one part of the camp. My team was heading to the fairly new storage/vehicle barn to hang plywood so that tools could be hung from the plywood wall. Since it was cold and spitting sleet again, I did not mind being inside this time.

I gathered up my five charges, which included two members of my improv group, so I was happy to know two of the kids pretty well. We walked down to the garage and waited for Chuck (one of the camp maintenance men) to come and give us tools and instructions. It turned out to be a healthy little wait – about 20 minutes or so, during which time the students amused themselves by posing on various pieces of heavy equipment.

Once Chuck got there, we got going, kind of. We were to screw 2-by-4 boards onto existing studs, and then screw plywood over that. So far, so good. We had to cut boards to size, pre-drill holes, hold boards in place and screw them to the existing wall. There were a couple of minor problems. One, our drills were cordless and all died within about 15 minutes. So, we had to wait while Chuck got us corded drills. Also, the screw bits we were using were pretty rounded off, which can make for some pretty frustrating construction. To be honest, we did have one or two good bits, but since this skill was new to the kids, we rounded those bits out pretty quickly. Once Chuck got us new bits (in the late morning), we were able to use those without incident. A second major issue was one of  hands – we had too many. There were six of us for a job that three or four could do. That is not a major fault, but the kids do like to work, so they were a little frustrated at standing around (which is a good work attitude). All in all, we made fairly minor progress all morning, and then we broke for lunch.

The after lunch period went fairly well. Two of the students volunteered to help with the other team, so we were  down to a more manageable four people. We had good tools all around, and we had all the brace boards cut (and many hung) before lunch, so after lunch we were able to turn our attention to hanging plywood. Hanging plywood is great in that it looks like speedy progress. Every other piece of plywood had to be cut down, but I was able to do that with a circular saw. It was certainly not finish carpentry, but it worked well for what we were doing. We actually were able to hang all the plywood and clean up all of our tools (which were everywhere by this point), and we still wrapped up around 3:30.

I have to admit I liked this work. I’m not a manly-man, but I do know how to use most basic power tools (largely thanks to my dad, who hired me to help build his house back in 1989). When I get put in charge of several teenagers who have not used tools before, it makes me feel all he-manish. I certainly do not blame the kids for not knowing how to use the tools – that is one of the parts of this trip (helping kids learn how to do basic construction). Still, it is a rare and ego-stroking day when I am the expert on the construction site.

After the work was over, I got showered up and hung out until dinner (I think I played a few games).Craig came up with a fun and unusual stunt for evening entertainment. We were to write down something we wished to face-paint on another person’s face. We then put the slip of paper in a plastic egg, which Craig and crew hid about the main room. You then hunted for an egg, and whatever egg you got was what was going to be painted on your face. I was a little horrified when I found that mine contained something like “Baby Hitler playing volleyball in PE class.” Everyone was chortling at how clever they were for coming up with these horrible designs. That is when Craig lowered the boom. You actually got to paint the other person’s face with what they wrote. So, I got to draw the volleyball Hitler on a student’s face. My face got my suggestion – I had written the words “You Rock!” backwards so that the person (in this case, me) would see “You Rock!” correctly when looking in the mirror. There was much amusement all around based on this game. My boss was on the trip and got painted as a stop light. He he! 

Craig then took on the unenviable task of doing devotions to a group of mostly painted people (he did give us the option to wash off the paint before devotions started). Craig mostly opened the floor up to students to reflect on what was going on for them on this trip. I mentioned how impressed I had been that no one had complained on my team the day before in the mud and the sleet. Several kids mentioned how cool it was living in close community. I’m sad that I did not write the observations down – they were worth remembering, but my memory is not up to it.

I got up Monday morning at about 7:00 and read a chapter in my Bible (I was in Isaiah at the time). Once I finished, I took a run into town to Dunkin’ Donuts to get a hot chocolate and sandwich. While there, I picked up a coffee for Nate and a tea for Rachel. I got back to camp just as breakfast was being served, and the students were wandering in to the kitchen. After breakfast, one of the students (Lauren) read a psalm, and then we got ready for the work day.

We got divided up into groups again. We sent three loads of students to a local Habitat for Humanity chapter. This Habitat did all the framing for houses inside a large warehouse. Once the walls are framed, they get sent out to the job site once the weather gets nice enough for construction. So, the three groups spent the day framing inside the warehouse.

I stayed back at Camp Carl with a group of eight students. We spent most of the day doing landscaping of one kind or another. We split our group in half, and half of the kids worked on raking rocks out of the grass along the gravel roads (so the lawnmowers would not hit the rocks), and the other half was spreading topsoil on a new embankment (with a few students helping to clean windows in the chapel along the way). The topsoil was still fairly wet, so we had some trouble in parts spreading it effectively. But, in the end, I think it looked pretty good.

Our topsoil group them moved on to a job of moving several piles of mulch. The much had been dumped near the office building of the camp, and was now in the way of some landscaping improvements. So, we spread the mulch out along the edge of the building using shovels and pitchforks (the pitchforks worked really well), and that carried us to lunch.

We had leftovers from the church dinner for lunch, and we got warm again (it was only about 32-33 degrees out). We took our time, but got back at it after about 45 minutes. We finished moving the mulch piles, and then we helped one of the camp workers, Chuck, spread out plastic along the ground so that weeds could not grow there. Chuck then jumped in the Bobcat (small tractor) and started dumping topsoil on the plastic, while we spread it around. By now, it had started raining/sleeting lightly, and so the topsoil started to behave like clay and caked on our boots and clumped together. The work was hard and it was cold and wet, but the kids took it in stride. I never heard any serious complaining (there was lots of joking around). Chuck was very precise in dumping his dirt – if you happened to be near where he wanted to dump, you had to get out of the way in a hurry. This made for a few close (but not too close) calls, and much merriment was made in fear of the Bobcat coming for you in the night. After we got the plastic about 3/4 covered, Chuck finally stopped work for the day – the topsoil was simply too wet to work with. So, we gathered up our tools and called it a day at about 3:15.

Since we only had one shower for the guys, and since I still had the key to the apartment, I went back to the apartment shower where I could take a really long and hot shower. I have back issues, and my back was really stiff, and the hot water helped to loosen it up. Once I was able to move fairly normally, I went back to the main building and chatted with a couple of students and typed up some notes.

The other group came back, and Craig and Nate told me that the kids had knocked out in one day what Habitat had thought would take most of the week. This is pretty typical for our trips – our kids always seem to get more done than is expected. It did mean that there was going to be some rearranging of groups for the next few days, and Craig and Nate started trying to figure out where else we could go to serve.

Craig had a grad school class that evening, so he headed off in my car for that after supper. We had a hang-out time for awhile, and then we had a time of worship. One of the girls, Kaity, asked us to pray for her mom; her mom was having fairly risky surgery for cancer that evening. We prayed, and then sang a few songs, and then Nate shared some thoughts out of Romans 12.  “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

Nate touched on not thinking more highly of ourselves that we ought to, and he was talking about how we each have gifts to use and how that works like a body, but I can’t give more specifics. One, I did not take notes after the worship time (or for the rest of the trip, which was dumb since it has taken me so long to get to typing things up). Two, partway through Nate’s talk, Kaity got a text message that her mom’s surgery was not going well – there was a lot of bleeding. We all immediately stopped, and the girls gathered around Kaity and everyone prayed. That was right and appropriate, but it also ended Nate’s talk, so I cannot tell you more about his points. The good news is that Kaity’s mom came through the surgery okay, and the surgeons got 80% of the cancer. Her mom is supposed to go in for out-patient surgery for the other 20% this week.

Craig got back and was apprised of the situation. Kaity insisted she wanted to stay on the trip, so we took her at her word. Craig had also gotten the names of some ministries we might be able to help, and so he was going to contact them the next day to see if we could arrange a schedule.

Craig always points out how these trips create community, and how Christians are supposed to live in community. It was sobering but heartwarming to see a collection of different “cliques” of students become a community in support of Kaity. The students reached out in compassion to someone in need, and a small display of the love of Jesus resulted. CVCA’s students never cease to amaze me, and I am proud of them for their hearts and their service.

Craig made the decision on this trip that we would use Sunday as a day of rest. In past years, we used Sunday as the travel day – we would all leave after church services, usually about noon on Sunday, and use the afternoon and evening to get to our site and get set up. Since we were staying local this year, we could use Sunday as a day of rest and relaxation. I was a huge supporter of this – on last year’s trip we had a rough time with sickness, with several people getting quite ill. It was my hope that taking a day off would help people stay better rested and healthier (and that indeed was the case – we only had one case of a girl getting ill and going home on Sunday evening – everyone else stayed healthy). This was probably our healthiest year on the trips I have been on, and I think taking a day of rest was instrumental in this.

Nate and I started the day out on an errand run – we had to go to town (Ravenna in this case) to get bread for lunch. Since we were in town anyway, we stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts to pick up hot chocolate and a breakfast sandwich for me, and a coffee and sandwich for Nate (and a tea for Rachel). Not a bad deal for running an errand. As it turns out, that little run was very useful to me as I used it several more times during the trip to jump-start my mornings (I went there three out of five mornings).

We got back to camp and scouted out the chapel space. It was a nice facility, including having a built-in projector. The only problem was that we could not find the heat, and it was about 50 degrees in the room. This was a concern to me since I was supposed to play guitar for worship (on Palm Sunday ,no less). Now, I am an adequate guitar player as long as I know the songs. Sadly, most songs I know are from 15 years ago. Nonetheless, I prepared two songs that I thought would be okay – I did not have time to get more ready. I had found out on Friday afternoon that I might be needed to play, and so Sunday found me trying to warm my fingers up enough to play. The kids came in at about 10:00, and I played my two songs. Happily, I had lots of help vocally from some talented students, and I think the playing went well enough – not good, but considering how stiff my hands were it was okay. It had amazed me that you could go anywhere with a group of 25 students and not have a guitar player in the group, and it happily turned out that we had a good guitar player in the group who came forward after the speakers to play one more song and then played for worship times the rest of the week.

But back to the service for Palm Sunday. We had two of the adult chaperons speak. My boss, Jim Gaul, spoke briefly on the freedom and joy he feels at Easter. He mentioned how he was raised Catholic and had come to believe that he had to make sure his good deeds outweighed his bad deeds. When he finally heard a clear presentation of the Gospel, he realized he could not earn his way into heaven (by doing more good than bad), and he embraced the freedom (from guilt and sin) that God gives through the Good News. This freedom brings joy to the life of the believer, and Jim encouraged us to live in and experience that freedom and joy year-round.

Ami (“Dubbs”) then spoke about Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. She talked about all the various signs that announced kingship to the Jewish people – the king (Messiah) was supposed to come from the Mount of Olives, people spread their cloaks for the king, runners/messengers were sent ahead of the king (the two disciples sent to get the colt), the king was supposed to come on a donkey colt, and was greeted by cheering crowds. All of these exciting things happened, but the crowd still turned on Jesus just a few days later. She used that as an illustration for our lives – if our Savior was not above hard times and suffering, then we should not be surprised when they come on us as well. Christianity is not a pain-free existence, but it offers joy. The crowd turned on Jesus because they were expecting the wrong kind of Messiah (king). They thought Jesus would lead them to victory over Rome, when he in fact led people to victory over sin if they would follow him. Dubbs warned us not to expect the wrong kind of Messiah – Jesus had pain and troubles, and we are not above our master, so we will have pain and troubles as well. But Jesus will supply the joy we need.

After the closing song (which I did not have to play), we had free time. I decided to use that time to go running. Usually I take Sundays off from running, but it had been several days since I had run, and it was a pretty day, and there were several guys going so it would be a social time. So, I went off with Jim and Nate and a student, Matt. We went trail running, which was very muddy and fairly slow, but fun and interesting (and supplied good bantering). We got back to the camp after about 4.5 miles, and Nate headed inside, but Matt, Jim and I put in two more miles on the trails. I felt good, and I was glad to get out running again.

  I got back and showered in the apartment. I then headed over to the chapel and set up my Wii (which I had brought along) so that kids could play if they wanted. I then went back to the apartment and napped for two hours. Nate woke me up and told me we were moving things into the main center (the college girls had left). I gathered my things and moved them, and found out that the male chaperons had given me the (one) private bedroom. I was touched and very happy. I operate much better on a good night’s sleep, and the private bedroom worked very well for me. Much later after the trip I found out that Dubbs had been sleeping on the floor in her room because of overcrowding. I wish I had known – she could have had my air mattress.

I spent a little time playing games (I won in a game of Blokus), and then I got ready for church. We were all going to Nate’s church for a fellowship dinner that his church combined with communion and a foot-washing service. I had never been to a foot-washing service before. We got to the church and headed into the basement, where the fellowship hall is. I got there a bit later than everyone else – I had stayed behind to make sure the girl that was ill met up with her father okay (which she did). We sang a few hymns (they were very nice), and then listened to some scriptures. The group was then divided into men and women, and we went to different rooms to wash each other’s feet. This involved sticking your feet in pleasantly warm water and having the person next to you scoop the water over your feet. It was novel to me, but it was okay. I got to wash the pastor’s feet – he was sitting next to me. After we washed our hands, we headed back to the hall and to an excellent meal. The meal was made up of various casseroles that were passed around. We ended the evening with communion. It was a very good service. I also got to see a couple of people who used to go to my church but whom I had not seen in about eight years. They had always been very kind to me, and I was happy to see them again.

After church, we headed over to Strickland’s Ice Cream. Strickland’s sells custard, which is a high-fat soft-serve ice cream. Craig was using trip money to buy everyone ice cream, so we all lined up. I got a turtle sundae, but I ordered a large (we were supposed to get smalls). I told Craig I don’t do small, and we agreed he would not take my ice cream money and I would not take his gas money (for the use of my car). Gas for ice cream always works in the Riordan economy.

After we had all had our yummy treats, we headed back to camp. We had a hang-out time where people talked and played games, and I used the time to type up notes. It was a great day of rest.

Saturday, April 4th was the start of spring break for me and Meredith. This year I was going to spend my break by going with about 30 CVCA students and chaperons on a service trip. Our service group at school (Diakonos) goes on a service trip every year during spring break, and this was my fourth year of tagging along.

I started the day fairly early by taking Mer to the Cleveland airport. She was going to fly down to Orlando to see her parents, and she was kind enough to book her tickets so they matched up with how long I was going to be gone (Saturday-Thursday evening). That would give us Friday-Monday (we had Easter Monday off) in order to have a mini-break together.

At about 8:15, I got back to CVCA, where the Diakonos group was meeting. Usually we go out of state (one year to Pennsylvania and two years to Michigan), but due to changes in state laws that made it difficult to go out of state, the decision was made to stay fairly local this year. As such, instead of using the first day to travel to the location, this year we were able to meet at CVCA, divide into several groups, and head off to various work sites right away. We split into three teams – one team went to a Habitat for Humanity work site to help out with spreading  gravel for a foundation. That work only took a few hours, so they then headed back to CVCA to do garbage clean-up around campus, which was very nice of them. The second team went to a homeless shelter/soup kitchen and spent the day serving food and cleaning around the shelter and kitchen. My group went to the church of one of the trip leaders (Nate’s church) to help them out with a community work day. Basically, the church was making itself available to do work for anyone who had need. The church was also serving a pancake breakfast, so the kids got a nice meal to start things off. On the job front, some of the projects had to be put on hold – it was a cold and overcast day (at least at the start), so the car-washing team had to give up on that idea. Our CVCA kids were mixed in with the local church members and sent off to various job sites of yard work and such. Nate and I were assigned to help an older woman clean out her gutters. Her house was only a block or so from the church, so we headed up there. It turns out her gutters were in very good shape. There were a few leaves and seed pods (the “helicopter” seeds) that had to be cleaned out, and I scraped out some roofing asphalt muck from around the downspouts. The lady was a widow, and super nice. I think she was lonely, and she spent a good deal of the time talking with Nate. She also insisted on paying us, so we gave her money over to the church to be used to buy food for people in need. All in all, cleaning her gutters only took a few minutes, but we talked with her for a fair amount, and headed back to the church after about an hour or so.

We then headed over to the big job site of the day – as they finished their first jobs, the church groups were all meeting at a local baseball field to clean it up and do some painting. At the park, we raked leaves, cleaned up trash, trimmed back brush, scraped and painted bleachers, and trimmed and mowed grass. There was a Little League practice going on, and the sun started to poke through the clouds, so the day was quite pleasant. I tried to keep busy by scraping and painting, but soon there were more hands than work, so I puttered with leaf and stick clean-up. Craig (the trip’s leader) has stressed that we should allow the kids to serve, and sometimes that means adults backing off work when there are more workers than jobs. That is wise too, in that I get tired faster than the kids do, so it “saves me” for future work days. It is still hard to admit that I can’t keep up with 17- and 18-year-olds, but that is the truth.

The church sent over some folks with a hot-dog-and-chips lunch, and we kept working until we had the place looking pretty decent. Nate had been mowing, but was asked to stop by a coach who was trying to run a practice, so we packed things up at about 2:00. We sent a few of the kids ahead with Nate’s wife (Rachel) to start getting the evening meal ready, and the rest of us went back to Nate’s church to do some clean-up around the church grounds. 

After we finished at the church, the kids piled into Nate’s van, and I got into my trusty hatchback, and we headed off to go to “the Tavern.” The Tavern is an old-fashioned-style tavern that a friend of Nate’s built. The Tavern has no heat except for a fireplace and a stove, it is lit by kerosene lanterns, and it is pretty darn cool. It has a small kitchen outbuilding where Rachel and the students were busy at work getting supper ready over a large kitchen fire. Rachel is an amazing cook, but I was impressed – it cannot be fun to try to get food ready for 30 people when you have to rely on fireplaces and woodstoves. She pulled it off nicely, though. She made a large cauldron of ham soup, and corn bread, and potatoes. We always eat well on these trips.

The students who had come with us roamed around the woods of the Tavern, and I took the time to call Dale and Carlene to make sure Mer had arrived safely. She had, and was in fact out with her father on a spa date to get a pedicure.

Nate and I then took my car over to where we would actually be staying for the week – Camp Carl. Camp Carl is a Christian camp run by the Chapel in Akron, and it is a huge camp with hundreds of acres of woods and trails. We went back there to touch base with the rest of the Diakonos team, and to then lead them back the short (but hard to find) distance to the Tavern. We all made it just fine, and the new arrivals were deeply impressed by the Tavern.

We spent a bit of time then until supper chatting and exploring. Supper was served, to great acclaim, and then we played games for about an hour while the clean-up crew took care of the supper things. Once everyone was back in the Tavern itself, we had a time of worship where we sang three song (two of which we did a cappella, which was very nice).

Craig then spoke for a short while on Romans 12:1-2:  “I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, in order to prove by you what is that good and pleasing and perfect will of God.”

Craig pointed out that Romans 12 has come after Paul has used 11 chapters to state the case of how sin has separated us from God and then how God’s great mercy brings us back to him. As such, everything we do should be motivated by the great mercy of God. The message of Romans 12 is to Christians (as opposed to everyone in the world), and it tells us how we should be and behave. We should not be molded (conformed) to the standards of the world. We should stick out and appear to be odd. God’s mercy demands all of us – there are no part-time Christians; there are no 10% Christians. It is an all-or-nothing proposition. There is no room to live in the world by the world’s standards and rules, and then “tack on” a little Christianity to make us feel better.

We then cleaned up the Tavern and headed back to Camp Carl at about 10:00. The main building of the camp was in use by a group of college girls for Saturday night only, so we were staying in the outlying cabins. When I got to the boys’ cabin, the bunks were mostly full, and the offer was made that Nate and I could stay in one of the camp’s apartments. I gladly accepted, and Nate and I headed over to the apartment. There was one bed, but since I had brought my air mattress, I let Nate have the bed. We were quickly in bed and asleep (although Nate talked in his sleep a little – I think it was about track, which he helps coach).

I discovered in getting ready for bed that I had a mild sunburn on my neck. Pasty white Maine boy managed to get a sunburn on a 40-degree day. That is impressive! I had a pretty good sleep, although I did have to get up during the night to turn up the heat. Otherwise, it was a quiet night, and a good day.

Tuesday was a mini date-day; Mer took me to Chick-fil-A. Our girls’ basketball team was having a fund raiser at the restaurant that night. We like Chick-fil-A, and then we would get to support one of our teams as well. It was a win-win.

It was fun – we were cheered into the parking lot by a group of students, and the restaurant was bursting with CVCA folks. It was a casual evening, and we ate some good food. It was a nice example of community.

Wednesday Mer and I headed out to the Hibernian Club to go dancing with the CVCA Ceili Club. We danced for about an hour, and we had a good time. The only down side was that two of the students got sick to their stomachs after swinging a lot in one particular dance (the Rakes of Mallow). They had eaten heavily in Amish country on a field trip that afternoon, and their stomachs did not respond well to the dancing. Even with that, they thought it was a fun evening. It really is great to dance to live music.

Okay, okay…so my blog has suffered mightily over the last month. I went away for 10 days in the first week of April, and I have not caught back up. I’ll try to rectify that over the next week or so.

Saturday (March 29th) was “my” day as far as date days went. We had a leisurely late breakfast at Yasoo (which is also the Hamburger Station for lunch and dinner – never been to another restaurant that changes its name during the day). I had the granola French toast, which was tasty, but it was odd to have crunchy French toast.

I tend to have rough ideas of what I want to do on “my” days, but sometimes I lack the specifics. This Saturday was a nice day, so I knew I wanted to go for a hike/walk. We went back home and I jumped on line and went to the Metro Parks website for our area, and I found a trail very close by called Hampton Hills. It was only about 4 miles away and it was rated as “one of the park district’s most demanding hikes.” That made the choice quite easy. It was off to Hampton Hills, to the Adam Run trail, about 3 miles long.

There were no leaves on the trees, and so the park still had a wintery look to it. There were also some sections of the trail that were still quite muddy. Despite that, it was a nice day and the trail was a windy, up-and-down trail that was quite to my liking. There were small ravines and staircases cut in the trail, and the leafless trees had a stark beauty that was very pleasant. We had a grand time tromping around.

For evening fun, I took Mer to Aladdin’s, a Mediterranean restaurant we both quite enjoy. One of Mer’s former students was back home on break and was working at Aladdin’s for some extra money. That gave us the excuse to go, and it was good to see Cara again (and good to eat at Aladdin’s again!).

Mer had a gift certificate to Blockbuster that had been given to her by a student, so we went there to get a movie. After some aimless wandering looking at the dearth of good movies, I found a movie called Priceless. It was a French (in French) movie about a man who falls in love with a girl who likes to be a kept woman. In order to be close to her, the man becomes a kept man of a rich, older woman. It was morally sketchy, but it still had its charms, and we both enjoyed it.

After the movie, we were talking about kept people, and made the observation that you rarely see anyone who is rich (athlete, actor, etc.) with anyone who is unattractive. To that, Mer replied, “I’d settle for someone average!” I really was not sure how to take that – we had a good laugh when Mer realized the object of her proclamation could easily be taken for me (as opposed to “I’d settle for [seeing someone famous with] someone [who’s just] average” ). It’s nice to see Mer can screw up linguistically once in a blue moon (to make up for my weekly faux pas).

Last Thursday we had the third Fools’ improv show of the year. I decided it was time to take a risk, and so I got permission to do the show in the chapel/auditorium. The chapel is a much bigger space that what I was used to in the library. The library can hold 80-90 people maximum, and we had been at that level for a few shows – I wanted to try a space that could hold more people. Another plus of the chapel is that it has a real stage. The Fools tend to hit the floor a fair amount in the course of shows, and having people on a stage means the audience can still see you even when you are on the ground. That was always a problem in the library. My biggest concern was sound – the Fools operate unmiked, and I was afraid that we would have trouble projecting in the bigger space.

Anyway, I was pleased with the results. After the show, I talked with about ten different people and they all said sound was no problem. The Fools did indeed hit the floor (in the very first scene, in fact), but everyone could still see them. The energy did not seem to suffer for being on a real stage either – I was afraid that being about 15 feet away from the audience and about 3 feet up on stage might make the audience-Fool connection be strained, but it seemed okay to me. Best of all, the place did not feel empty. The back wings of the chapel can be closed by retractable curtains, which makes a more intimate space that can still hold about 300 people. That could have felt very empty, but we had a new record attendance for a Fools’ show. One of my Fools counted the people while she was off stage, and she counted 102 people. That was very exciting.

Feedback from the show seemed largely positive. It was not just politeness – people told Meredith that it was a good show, and they volunteered the information the next day without being asked. I overheard a couple of people talking to each other about the show and they seemed to be happy with it. Mer thought it might have been our strongest show yet. I think it is safe to say we’ll be back in the chapel again for our last show of the year in May.

During the show, we had:

– A superhero called DanceMan who could not dance

– A man who had married a martian who used to have three heads and had been married to her cousin on Mars

– A dating game with Sean Connery, Jack Bauer from 24, and Jim Carrey

– An answering machine full of messages about all the leaves that were taking over the neighborhood

– A half-life game about learning to ski (including a very impressive 6-second version of the scene)

– A criminal who did not like the Godfather movies

– A taxi driver at Disneyworld who gets killed by a swordfish

– A scene about trying out different pick-up lines

– A musical chairs about a teen accidentally talking in code to a stranger, which led the FBI to investigate her home

– A genre rewind about breaking a vase that got rewound as a musical and a documentary

– A political debate about the merits of hiccups and of waffles

It was a very fun show. I’m looking forward to the next one! 

Last Wednesday was a rare mid-week treat for me and Mer. Ombusdsman was bachin’ it, so he wanted to go out for supper. So, we agreed to “do” Chinese and headed through the Valley to West Akron (actually Montrose) to go to the House of Hunan. Craig had eaten there before and proclaimed it to be quite good, and he was right.

The restaurant was about a third full, and so we got a table right away. We ordered and the food came very quickly (Mer was even still in the bathroom). Craig showed us up be eating with chop sticks in an easy manner. I ordered my Chinese staple, orange chicken (which I’m sure Jo will proclaim as the BEST chicken ever because it is ORANGE!!!). It was quite tasty, and it made Mer happy because it had snow peas and broccoli (she gets an odd satisfaction from seeing me eat vegetables).

We chatted about a bunch of things, including work of course. Since all three of us are at CVCA, it is a natural thing to discourse on. Any extended conversation with Craig tends to be very amusing, so it was a meal well spent – good food and relaxed atmosphere.

As good as Chinese food is, they do not do great (by Riordan standards) desserts, so we skipped dessert at the restaurant and instead made the trip to the Handel’s Ice Cream near our house. Mer and I swapped dessert preferences – she got the Blizzard-like “Hurricane” and I got a hot fudge sundae. Ombudsman got a raspberry-chocolate flavor which he expressed satisfaction over. After we had solved all the world’s problems by chatting in the car over ice cream, we dropped Craig at school so he could get his car, and we headed home. It was a nice way to cheat the week.