The REAL first day!

So today was the first day with all the other VISTAs! Today was the start for all the other VISTA Volunteers that are going to be giving a year of service to The Almond Tree. They had been at PSO(pre-service orientation) the last few days and were all rarin' to go. I loved PSO and all the great people I met during that experience, so I was pretty jealous that they were all just getting done. It is one of the few places where you can go and see hundreds of other people from different part of the country, varying in age, background, ethnicity, but all are in one common place for a wonderful mission. Even though I myself am still very new to being a VISTA at The Almond Tree I have been put in charge of running the entire office this week while Dianna is down at a leadership training in Austin.

Aside from 2 people being an hour late and one person never showing up at all I think it was a pretty successful day. Crazy story, one of the women who was supposed to be coming to work with us never showed up today. Well, after further talking with some of the other women who had gone to PSO, which was located in Albuquerque, they said that this woman had changed her flight time. On further examining the situation, realizing that both of her sons happen to live in Albuquerque, we realized that this woman pretty much scammed AmeriCorps for a free flight to New Mexico. Definitely not in the spirit of what everyone is trying to do but it sounds like she had been given a pretty tough road. Apparently she was up in Jacksonville fleeing the coast when hurricanes Hugo and Ike hit last year and a tree fell on her car. Well without any insurance or money to fix it she essentially became stranded here. All of the people that become displaced and never make it back home weeks/months/years after a hurricane evacuation was astounding to me. I guess being up North all my life I have never really considered the effects a hurricane has on the people after the severe weather has left.

Annnnnnnyway, sorry, got sidetracked. Today was pretty laidback, standard first day coverage type stuff. In the afternoon we did head out to meet with 4 different organization within the Jacksonville community, two churches, two nonprofit organizations. I was astounded at the way the churches operate in the south. Yes, I have moved to the Bible Belt but these things are built like 4 star hotels. They are huge with the first one we visited today serving a congregation over 700. It was incredible to see all of the outreach they were doing within their community. A pastor at the first church we visited today had such a wonderful quote when we were discussing the various outreach programs he has created. He said that he was a Senior Pastor for 7 years but realized as he stood up there preaching he was more concerned with what was going on outside of the church.
He said, "a church is just a warehouse until you put God's work into motion" Basically that just because people all go and congregate in a building every week doesn't mean they are doing God's work. It takes action to make it a church, a place serving God. I was glad to hear that type of insight for a pastor, that its more your actions than your physical location on Sundays mornings that matters most.

It was great to hear all of the ways they felt our organization could reach the needs o the community. It is exciting to be with an organization that has the freedom to actually create itself as it realizes needs opposed to one that already has a designated area of expertise. We are going to do it all!

Tomorrow I am going to go out to supper with a guy from my co-ed team and his wife and new little baby. I think he feels sorry for me not having any friends, haha. At this point I'll take a sympathy hang out.

I feel so motivated. In Casper it felt like I was stagnet, stuck with my wheels spinning in the mud. Here I feel like I can make an impact and I am already looking into other constructive ways to spend my time. I am going to look into getting maybe a part time money maker working as a hitting instructor at a local indoor batting facility. I'm also looking into the possibility of going to school part time at night while I'm doing AmeriCorps to get my Masters Degree. All just thoughts but I guess thats where it all starts.

aaaaaand drumroll please.....bhshshshshshshhhhhhhhhhh!

A website most of you probably know about but my family may not. I can picture my uncle Jon really loving this site actually.

www.peopleofwalmart.com

The address says it all. It all the creeps, weirdos, nastys, and fatsos we have ALL SEEN at our favorite have it all shopping center. Enjoy :)