$1500, a dumpster, and Jamel

Well this week has been very eventful in my life. I have been struggling on how to share it because I feel like I am simply praising God because good things happen and I don’t like that. My faith is so much more than simply praise in the good times, I praise in the bad times in fact that is the only thing I want to do when I am having a bad day, but I don’t always feel like writing about those days in this blog. Sometimes I do share the ick but not this week.

The week began well knowing that at the end of the week 2 of my best friends in Racine would be leaving on the next leg of the journey in this life. On Tuesday I was at home in the afternoon helping Mark get his Chia Herb garden together. My phone rings and Donna shares with me that there is checking waiting for me for $1,500.00. I was excited and the people in the room with me didn’t need a briefing on the conversation because they heard every word loud and clear form both ends on the phone. This was a huge blessing, that morning I had paid rent and then prayed, “Lord you know my living situation is changing as of May 31^st and I have more bills due in the next couple weeks, do what you gotta do!” About an hour later I received this phone call, the miracle was already on the way prior to my prayer!

Yesterday was Saturday and we had a work/cleaning day at the Lazarus House. We filled a 30 cubic foot dumpster, the kind the use when they are gutting a house. I don’t just mean full but we are inches from the do not fill past this line. After much prayer and God’s wisdom we felt it was necessary to do this, we gave a lot of good stuff to Habitat Restore, and gave 9 appliances to a scrap guy in the neighborhood who will be able to make some money off of them. You the pick up trucks with scrap metal balanced up way past the cab, that’s who came and picked it up. But we are glad to be supporting the local economy. We had a small group from Waukesha come and do most the work along with a few random friends and Katy’s mom. It was a great day of bonding and CLEANING! If you have seen the building prior to Dec. 1^st 2006, you should come back and see it now, it is amazing. I believe that all of us as staff walked away feeling like a huge wait was lifted off of us and building. Mark said as we left, “I feel like I can breath in the building again!” We also were able to bless some families in the neighborhood with blankets, sleeping bags, treat bags, Easter baskets, and other random things as we cleaned yesterday.

As we were wrapping up for the day Jamel came by, he is my friend form the summer. It has been an interesting year as we get to see him every Monday and Tuesday morning as the school we go to and eat breakfast with the kids. You can tell the weekend it was rough from Jamel because Monday is not a happy day for him, sometimes he walks by without a ‘hi’ or a smile others he comes running up because he can’t wait to see us. When Jamel was by yesterday he asked about when Wrap Kidz is starting again. He had a friend with him who told me Jamel was telling lies as they walked over. Stories of how he would come and play legos with us, each lunch with us on a picnic table out back, and do yard work. His friend didn’t believe Jamel until he told the ‘lies’ Jamel told and I said, ‘Yeah those are true, Jamel hung out with us a lot.” The friend was quiet and then said, “Let’s go Mel!” Jamel said, “You can go I am going to stay here.”

It has been a good week. I can’t imagine what God has in store for next week. Even if it is not as amazing as this week, which I am sure it could be, I will still praise him.