Good morningeverybody, as I am writing this were getting together for our morning devotional before Emily comes to take us away.
Yesterday was a day that gave me a scare at first. After our morning showers at the YMCA (many thanks btdubs) we went to a state funded school in West Oakland. Its philosophy is to teach through play, and our challenge was to spend time with kids in the classroom, teach them, and play with them. Honestly, I was scared at first, but the kids loved me; each one of us, as a volunteer, was a celebrity. Our work was immensly appreciated by the teachers and the principal.
After our lunch, we drove to Berkely. It was raining. We split up into two groups of five, and Emily gave each group ten dollars. 'Meet a need' was the name of our mission, and our challenge was to use the ten dollars to buy a homeless man or woman a meal or whatever they might need.
My perception of what I need is different from Steve's vision of what he needs to survive. Steve needs only his remaining teeth, the items in his backpack, and his books. His meals tend to work themselves out, his ever changing shelter tends to find him. He was hungry, he was more than happy to accept food. We took from his hovel on Telegraph Street to Milanese Cafe, an Italian pizzaria at where he couldn't even finish his pizza.
We talked for nearly an hour. We learned that he had been the victim of a terrible divorce, and that had landed him on the streets. He talked about his love of reading, that seemed to keep him hip with pop culture, such as the news of ....
gotta go, ciao
, ben egan
Proverb of the Day: 21:3
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
April 6, 2009
Bear with me on this, I don't know how to blog. I'm going just going to write my journal entry. I woke up and played solitaire and that is about all I did this morning. We drove to Oakland to help this organization called MedShare. They help donate medical supplies to third world countries. The medical supplies they donate are usually things thrown out that can still be used. About 2-5 tons of usable things are thrown out each day.
Bear with me on this, I don't know how to blog. I'm going just going to write my journal entry. I woke up and played solitaire and that is about all I did this morning. We drove to Oakland to help this organization called MedShare. They help donate medical supplies to third world countries. The medical supplies they donate are usually things thrown out that can still be used. About 2-5 tons of usable things are thrown out each day.
The second place we went was Project Open Hand. They deliver meals to people that cannot get out and get their own meal.
Bye,
Parker
Cameron Mara - Day 2
Today was the first day of doing volunteer work and we went to two different places: MedShare and Project Open Hands (POH).
MedShare was really cool because normally hospitals throw out all the things that were taken out of there packaging and they end up in landfills even though they are perfectly usable. What MedShare does is provide an alternative use for said medical supplies. They have placed bins in 14 different hospitals across California and on a weekly basis collect what is in the bins and sort out what is and is not useable (using a list of approved objects written by the FDA). We helped to do the sorting and packaging.
The second place, POH, is a really cool place. They cook and package meals for AIDS/HIV patients and depend on volunteers to deliver them because some of them are unable to leave their SRO (Single Room Occupancy) Hotel, those will probably be talked about later so I'm just going to leave that out because its a long description. Anyway, we split into two teams and each served about 12 meals at 5 different hotels.
I enjoyed POH more than MedShare. For one, MedShare has just recently started up in San Francisco and it still isnt very organized in how things are run, as compared to POH which has been around for 15 years and had State Funding. The main reason though was because when we were working for POH we got to go into the places where people lived and see how thankful they were to be receiving a small tray of food. It was awesome.
And, that was our second day in San Fran.
Funny Thing of the Day - Chest-tling (v). Wreslting while standing, and not being able to use any extremities of the body.
Today was the first day of doing volunteer work and we went to two different places: MedShare and Project Open Hands (POH).
MedShare was really cool because normally hospitals throw out all the things that were taken out of there packaging and they end up in landfills even though they are perfectly usable. What MedShare does is provide an alternative use for said medical supplies. They have placed bins in 14 different hospitals across California and on a weekly basis collect what is in the bins and sort out what is and is not useable (using a list of approved objects written by the FDA). We helped to do the sorting and packaging.
The second place, POH, is a really cool place. They cook and package meals for AIDS/HIV patients and depend on volunteers to deliver them because some of them are unable to leave their SRO (Single Room Occupancy) Hotel, those will probably be talked about later so I'm just going to leave that out because its a long description. Anyway, we split into two teams and each served about 12 meals at 5 different hotels.
I enjoyed POH more than MedShare. For one, MedShare has just recently started up in San Francisco and it still isnt very organized in how things are run, as compared to POH which has been around for 15 years and had State Funding. The main reason though was because when we were working for POH we got to go into the places where people lived and see how thankful they were to be receiving a small tray of food. It was awesome.
And, that was our second day in San Fran.
Funny Thing of the Day - Chest-tling (v). Wreslting while standing, and not being able to use any extremities of the body.
Day 2 Allie
We went to Med Share today and we sorted throughout medical supplies that hospitals donated to give to contries around the world to hospitals that dont have enough things to use.
http://www.medshare.org/
We also went to deliver food to people that have HIV and AIDS or just people that are homebound. It was with an organization called Project Open Hand. we walked through the city and went to hotals or apartment buildings that housed these people, and we gave them food.
Later in the night we talked with our CSM host Emily about what our favorite part of the day was how we felt and what we think our response as christians should be to help these people
till later
Allie
http://www.medshare.org/
We also went to deliver food to people that have HIV and AIDS or just people that are homebound. It was with an organization called Project Open Hand. we walked through the city and went to hotals or apartment buildings that housed these people, and we gave them food.
Later in the night we talked with our CSM host Emily about what our favorite part of the day was how we felt and what we think our response as christians should be to help these people
till later
Allie
Norma Screeton
Day 2: Wow, I got to experience too much to tell, so I will just let you know about our first stop for the day. We started our day at an organization called Med Share. Med Share is a non-profit that collects medical supplies that hospitals would otherwise throw away and ships those supplies to countries in need. It was suprising to learn that the hospitals in the United States discard thousands of supplies daily that have never been touched and could be used in another country. It was sad to think about how many supplies are being wasted here in America while people are dying in other countries because they lack the proper medical supplies.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Day One...
Im sitting in the girls room. Holly, Allie, Norma, and myself. Hopefully this trip will be a huge eye opener. We went and took pictures at the bridge. In such a pretty city, there is so much poverty. I'm trying to figure out what is God's plan for me being here, especially since this was a last minute decision to come on this mission. For a long time, I've wanted to be a lawyer for IJM. Now I'm wondering if I have the guts for it. Im hoping this week will give me some sort of an idea and stretch me in more ways than one.
Til tomorrow,
Dondy Moreland
Im sitting in the girls room. Holly, Allie, Norma, and myself. Hopefully this trip will be a huge eye opener. We went and took pictures at the bridge. In such a pretty city, there is so much poverty. I'm trying to figure out what is God's plan for me being here, especially since this was a last minute decision to come on this mission. For a long time, I've wanted to be a lawyer for IJM. Now I'm wondering if I have the guts for it. Im hoping this week will give me some sort of an idea and stretch me in more ways than one.
Til tomorrow,
Dondy Moreland
The night started with us taking a tour of different neighborhoods, one of the areas that really stood out to me was China town, it is the largest Asian populated areas outside of Asia. Along with that the human trafficing and sweat shops was huge in that area it really kind of freaked me out. We make America out to be this amazing place where you can start a new life or just escape all the bad things from your home country, when in reality we do to them exactly what they are trying to get away from. It's really eye opening to see things like that, and it makes you really thankfull for all the things and priviledges we have.
-Holly McCaig
-Holly McCaig
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