Technology is a wonderful thing when it is used properly. For this week's entry, what was I going to discuss?? Well, besides being inspired by the Pearlington trip, which inspired me to create this blog, which required experimenting with the tools and capabilities of Blogger provided freely by Google, I am now inspired with Google's other tools, especially since they are mostly free. For $10, our family now has our own domain, snjgamble.com. For just a short amount of time spent prettying up the site, it is good to go. And, I was able to adjust some coloring to make it the appropriate Orange and Blue, like this blog. I am digressing after digressing now.
Using a free program from Google called Hello to get a profile image to the blog was interesting - not as easy as it sounded. Posting an image to a blog and then removing the post after copying the src link isn't the most convenient. Hello may not be useful to me. I do not have a lot of pictures or time to chat pushing pictures around.
Then, I found Picasa. And now you can see the image here today. I was experimenting with pictures from our Pearlington trip. With Picasa, I put a collage together of one of the families that we met and worked with. Since then, this collage has been asking me to post it each day from the computer. I didn't ask the people in the pictures if they mind... I will beg forgiveness if needed. All of this post was done by clicking one "Blog This!" button on Picasa. For all of that easiness, Picasa includes the little square icon below. I leave the icon in the post because Picasa deserves some credit.
To get back to the people part of the post; take a good look at the picture. Do you see any sad faces? Can you tell who the volunteers are and who the workers are? While working with the residents - they work alongside us when they can - you get to know them and they get to know you even if only for a week. You are happy to help and they are happy to have you visit. Everyone draws from that good energy to get real work done. The 2 volunteers in the picture (did you figure out which 2?) glued down a tile floor in a large room in just one day. I bet that when they got there, they thought never would they finish in 1 day. Well, they may have known they could do it, but I wouldn't have gotten it done in a day.
Unless you have been there, I don't think that you intend to make relationships with anyone for that week. You go to work hard to help someone get back into their home. But, you end up getting to know the residents that you are working with and the people that you are volunteering with. And, you get to share smiles like in the picture. The girl, JL, made a comment that she hesitates to make new friends every week because she has to say good-bye at the end of the week. I heard another girl a little older than her make the same comment to a group of volunteers at their house.
How strong are these families, and especially the kids, to live through what they have for the last 20 months, and still smile and be friendly getting to know people each week knowing it starts over next week? I think they are super strong, and it makes me want to go back and see how much stronger they have become.
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