home

i'm sitting in huntington, fresh from an evening of fun and festivities with the boys and girls club kids. it has been so wonderful to come back here and to visit all of these kids once again. it's amazing how deep a kid can set their hooks into your heart, and the more you try to pull them out the deeper they go. it was so wonderful to see smiles on my kids faces and to feel there arms wrap hugs of love around me. these kids are mine. they're my babies. it doesn't matter how many miles from them that i will go, or how many more children that will hook my heart. they will always be mine and have a special place in my heart.

i miss working with kids on a daily basis. i miss knowing that the smile that i gave or a word that i spoke may have been the first good thing to happen to them all day. i take forgranted the "posh" lifestyle that i live. but i'm always brought back to earth and humbled by the small things that bring them joy.

My favorite and perhaps most impacting quote from tonight came from Autumn.
"I like this new gym!"
"Why?" asked Jeff as we exchanged glances and looked around the new room. The floors are bare concrete, the walls are plastic covered insulation with exposed bars and pipes.
"Because its comfortable"

Comfortable. wow. something that seems so terrible and dangerous to us, is comfortable to her. and why is it comfortable? because it is home.

Home. More of a home than what some of them maybe used to. Some of them spend more time their with part staff members than with their own parents. Some of them respond better to part time staff members than to their own parents. But it is home.

And it's my home too. And i miss it. I miss them. I miss their hugs, and thier tears, and their fists, and their hurt, and thier anger. But most of all i miss knowing that i am impacting someones life. i think that is what is so frustrating about where i am in my life right now. i can't see how i'm impacting anyone. in the summer...yes. but that is only 9 weeks of the year. But there are 43 other weeks that go by when i don't. I never thought that i would miss serving so much. serving with an honest heart. not with the bible. not with an ulterior motive.

I think that sometimes serving becomes too much about our reward; our fame; our pride; our money; our reputation; our heavenly reward. i hate it when christians serve expecting to see results. when we set the mood for things to change. for hearts to be affected. we play the right music. we read the right bible verse. we share the perfect testimony. and then what happens. there is a flood and an enormous amount of people wash forward. and the accept. they change. they commit. but what are they commiting too? the the God of the person that planned the evening? to the God that is presented to us? the God of emotion, the God moment. But what about God. Their God. The God that they can find by searching for him instead of blindly trusting the words of a 10 minute preacher, a motivational speaker.

I think that serving is much more than that. It's showing right and wrong in a way that is simple and applicable. It's facilitating interactions that foster social and emotional development. It's reaching people in their environment. In their home.

And i miss that. I miss being in their home. I miss being involved in someones life. I miss being able to see how someone is at home. and being able to make home better. I don't want to transplant kids to a false envronment where i know that i can force an emotion out of them if i say the right words and turn the lights down low enough. i don't even know what i'm talking about anymore. i'm sure if i read this again i would see all of the error in my thought. the mass contridictions. i would see that nothing flows. but i need this again.

i need home.

home.

insomnia sucks face

i want to sleep. but i can't. so here i sit; with sore eyes and a racing brain. i keeping thinking of all the things i have to do. all the things i want to do. i graduate in less than a week. and then...and then...i'd like to have an end to that thought. but i don't. maybe i will soon. maybe. but i don't want to speak out of place. and so i wait.

i had an idea earlier today. it came to me while i was showering. it would be amazingly fun. and feasible. but i don't want to say it, just in case i actually decide to do it. then it can be a surprise! oh evil scheming, how i have missed you, it has been far to long my friend!

i finished painting my room today. it only took three months. i'm pathetic. i just couldn't seem to find the motivation. but now i'm finished, and just in time for the party that i'm going to have for the jrs. it hasn't sunk in yet. the fact that my last day is friday. i know it, but it hasn't' sunk in. i don't' think the kids really realize it either. they seem to be surprised every time we mention it. it makes me teary eyed just thinking of it. Friday Kassy asked me how to do Jr. Jams. It's going to be her program after i leave. that was my program. i started it. they were my jrs. but not any more. ahhh. i wasn't expecting to become attached when i started last january. but i am. those stinking kids took my heart. and now a part of it will be with them forever. but, i think i'm going to come for whitney's reception this summer, and maybe if i time it right, i'll be able to make it to the club for the last part of the night. that would be wonderful. and Lisa and I are already planning on making a special trip to visit in September, just before I leave for the year. And you had better believe that if I end up somewhere west of here, i'm going to stop by on my way home next summer. Josh said something about making it back for March of Dimes; it could be a staff reunion day. Nicole and Sean, Lisa, Kim and Brandon, and Me, we could all come back just to walk 7 miles with a bunch of people that had a huge impact on our college careers. that sounds pretty nice.

ah enough.

look towards the future. to the next bunch of kids that are going to take my heart. to the next person who i give my heart to.
someday.

Jamie's Soliloquies

To corps, or not to corps: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to volunter to stop the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to not take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing not end them?
To go: to live; Forever more; and by going to say we end the heart ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. To stay, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in t hat sleep what dreams may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
must we give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear another man's whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay, the insolence of office and the spurns
that patient merit of unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make with a single choice? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make coward of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterterprises of great pitch and moment
Is it with this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action?-------

Pictures from work...The Boys and Girls Club