Memphis Bound!

Wednesday- We left campus around 8am and headed to Memphis. It was a good 4-hour ride through farmlands the whole time until we got there, too! The day wasn’t over when we arrived, either; because then we had orientation when we got here that seemed to go on forever! Our work schedule this round is working with the Wolf River Conservancy on Tuesday and Wednesday and ArkWings (the organization where we live) on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We have another round of Sunday/Monday off. We had more orientation things on Thursday, including a site visit to the Ed Rice Community Center where we met with the director. He was one of the most amazing people I have ever met! Ossie is a 61 year old, extremely fit black man who looks no older than 35. We were all shocked when he told us his age! He told us about his childhood and how his mom only made it through the eighth grade and his dad was in jail for killing a man. He told us that he grew up, persevered through all of those trials and tribulations because of people like us (working with AmeriCorps) and that if people like us weren’t in his life, cheering him on and telling him that he can succeed, he wouldn’t have made it as far as he did in life. He grew up became a lawyer, but after a little while of that he decided that wasn’t what he actually wanted to do with his life, so he quit and started doing service work and volunteering at hospitals and ended up being the director of the community center. He had so much authority and respect from everyone playing basketball there that day, that he walked into the gym while they were playing and asked them to come sit down so he could introduce them to us. Everyone complied and sat down quietly, immediately…it was so surreal! I felt a little embarrassed, having all of these balers in their 20s stopping their pickup game to hear about us, but they were all really nice and seemed to enjoy meeting us and hearing about AmeriCorps. Meeting Ossie that day was exactly what I needed to remind me why I am doing this program, to serve others and hopefully inspire and give hope to some other people along the way. We worked around our house and the barn and other various places on the 17 acres we are living on where ArkWings is. Mollie and I put knobs on all of the cupboards and put towel racks in both the boys and girl’s bathrooms. We were quite proud of ourselves! Saturday was another orientation, but for a reading program we will do every Saturday we are here with 4^th and 5^th graders at a local Memphis school. I am really looking forward to getting to meet some cute little local kids and hopefully making a difference in their lives and just having fun getting to know them! Our first official weekend here was spent being lazy and relaxing, trying to stay warm with this cold weather and snow we have been getting lately! I really thought I left all that in Maine! We watched lots of movies and played some board games…it was a good team-bonding weekend! So that brings us to Tuesday, where we started working with the Wolf River Conservancy and commuted over an hour to blaze a trail in the rain! Woo! Exciting, haha. It was very cold, but we got to leave shortly after lunch, so it wasn’t completely unbearable!

                                                                   (old trail = erosion!)

I have also received some very exciting news lately that Nate will be visiting me February 13^th-15^th for Valentine’s Day! And Lynelle will be here to visit the following weekend, Feb 18^th-22^nd! I am so excited!!! February is going to be such a great month! I am seriously so blessed to have such amazing people in my life who make time and spend money to come see me wherever I am…it really means a lot to me, so thank you!