Author: Frank Downing

Is it really over? Thirty days just flew by! For thirty days I have not looked at a sales report, considered what I am going to get my customers for Christmas, or even complained to Jeff on the phone. Man, am I proud of myself. Well, I guess the time I spent reading that book on Humility was well spent.

This last week was all about checking off things on my “To Do List”. It was an extensive list. And again, I planned to get it all done. I just finished cleaning the garage, the last item on the list. Now Amy won’t have to clean snow off her van in the morning. To be perfectly honest, everything between the beginning of the list, “call Pella to get window fixed”, and the end of the list “clean the garage” is not completed. I know, things never go as planned. Ironically, I do not care! I did get to do some really important things. “Have Lunch with Aunt Norma” and “Spend a little time with Josh” did get accomplished. I feel good about that.

One thing that really surprised me was how long some of the things took to get accomplished. Things that should have taken 5 minutes to complete ended up taking over an hour. For instance, getting a simple signature card changed at a bank literally took 65 minutes. 65 minutes! All this time putting stuff in a computer, signing it digitally, using a PIN number, and then, the culmination. She pulled out a paper signature card and said, “Sign here!” It was quite a metaphor for life. The things that should be so simple, have been made so difficult. Some of them have been made difficult by others, some by government, some by technology. But really, lots of it has been made complicated by me.

I really appreciate this last 30 days. The time to think, to relax, to not rush from task to task, has been incredible. To “not be ruled by the list” has truly been a gift from God. I am so thankful to FD and Kris for the opportunity. Seven years ago, when I was working 65 hours a week in the funeral home, the FDLIC (yes, at that time we were still FDLIC) rep handed me Kevin Gaffney’s card. She said, “If you need anything over the next 6 weeks, call him, I am going on sabbatical. I remember thinking how different that was, and asked her tell me more about her company. When I decided it was time for me to make a career change, I remembered that event. Today, I am honored to be a part of this fine organization.

If I had to state my main lesson, it is that God’s plan is superior to my plan. I need to spend more time resting, resting in that assurance. Am I going to quit planning? Honestly, there is no way I will quit planning. Will I try to be less agitated when my plans go awry? I hope so.

I spent the last week working in the Mission Mart.  It is the resale shop for the Grant County Rescue Mission.  The Mission is just like that organization in your town that provides service to “the least of these”: Shelter, food, and a chance to survive, sprinkled with the Hope, and held together by the love of He who holds us all in the palm of His hand.

So, people donate stuff (that is the kindest word I can use to describe it) to the Mission.  The Mission uses volunteers and some paid folks (usually residents of the mission) to sort through the donations.  Unfortunately, much of what is given is garbage.  It goes to the dumpster.  Things that can be sold are priced and taken to the floor or stored for such a time as they are needed there.  Clothing that is too used or dated (or too dirty!  Do you suppose if the belt is still in the pants, they were washed before being stuffed into that plastic bag?) to be sold is placed into huge bales.  It is sold, by the pound, and somehow transported to Africa.  Metal products that cannot be sold on the floor is saved and sold for scrap.  This way, even things that are completely unsuitable can be valuable.

In theory, this should all happen seamlessly.  Donations should be processed within 24 hours of reception.  Unfortunately, it has not been working this way. Stuff is piled everywhere in the intake area.  Bags and boxes of clothing are everywhere.  Stacks of books fill the space.  To make matters worse, the store they have in a neighboring community is switching from its normal format to be a Christmas Store.  All their non-Christmas stock is being funneled into this space.

My plan is to come in and whip the reception area into shape.  To do this we need to process what is in the area, and come up with a plan to make sure that we are not over-run, again.  I had planned to be back earlier the week before to line up volunteers, but if you read my last blog, you know that did not happen.  At any rate, I show up at 9 AM Monday morning.  I am pleasantly surprised to greet 3 additional volunteers from my church in the next 15 minutes.

To say that sorting through the things people give to the mission is humbling would be an understatement.  To speak, out-loud, some of the things I touched in the last week, would be worse.  At any rate, we cannot formulate any kind of plan until the mountain of donations is sorted, so that is where we begin.  The primary component of the pile is clothing.  The clothing needs to be sorted.  Things that could be sold need to be folded and placed into tubs to be priced.  The clothing that is not suitable for re-sale in the store goes into bins.  From the bins, it goes into the baler.  Tim, a resident of the mission, mans the baler.  When he has a sufficient quantity of clothes, they are compressed, bundled together, and a fork lift moves it to the stack of bales across the room.  When there are enough bales, they load them into a truck, off they go to Africa, and the Mission gets the money it needs to keep operating.

Monday comes and goes.  We have one bale which has been moved, and we are about 2/3 of the way into making bale number two.  Time to go home and shower.

Tuesday….no volunteers but me, today, and Houston (or Abilene) we have a problem.  The fork lift is broken.  No fork lift means they cannot move the bales.  Oh well, it will get fixed, so I keep on sortin’.  I have filled the bin by quitting time, so tomorrow it will get baled.

Wednesday….still, no forklift, and the powers that be have decided that some of the old storage methods are unsuitable.  They need to be torn down.  This means we have to shuffle.  Space is a valuable asset, and we don’t have much of it here.  I feel like we are doing one of those puzzles where you keep sliding the pieces, so you can move the piece you want into the space you want.  My mother in law shows up to help.  My pile of clothes to be baled is ever increasing.

Thursday….Rumors of fork lift and fork lift repair are rampant!  But no, it still does not work.  Interestingly enough, I have been fighting the urge, all week, to take this matter into my hands.  I am sure that I could find someone to get it fixed.  I am also pretty confident that I could raise the money to get it repaired or find a new-used one.  But I have been reading this book on humility and the previous two weeks showed me that I don’t get to plan or fix everything.  This battle is not mine to fight. I am a volunteer.  My job has gone from planning the future, making sure this backlog of donations never happens again, to catching up from the past.  All I need to do here is keep sorting.  Today, I have two volunteers who have come to help me.

My goal was to have this area sparkling by the end of the week.  Everything in its place and a place for everything.  Here is the reality on Friday afternoon.  There is a pile of clothing waiting to be baled.  And by pile, I mean pile.  It easily stretches 10 foot square.  It easily stands 5 feet tall.  We are probably 75% sorted.  The fork lift is still broken, and I think the place looks no better than it did when I walked in on Monday.  As I prepare to leave, someone else shows up with donations!  I am defeated.

Lori, Sasha and Betty, the ladies who run the store, on the other hand, are elated.  They cannot believe what has gotten accomplished.  They expected us to get done about 1/3 of what we did.  They tell me the fork lift will get fixed, the Lord always provides.  Tim, the baler dude, about talks my leg off now, and at the beginning of the week, we barely spoke.

I guess I do not get to decide what success is.  I just get to help.  And, I vow to stop making plans, or at least, I plan to!

I have spent a lot of time planning for this sabbatical.  I have planned it to coincide perfectly with my 25^th wedding anniversary which is October 10.  I plan on leaving immediately following my conclave.  I am in fact, scheduled to meet Amy at the airport.  We are going to take a 7 night cruise from San Juan, Puerto Rico, and go to 5 islands to where we have never been.  We are going to spend a couple extra nights in San Juan, then I will return and line-up some folks to help me, as I work in the Grant County Rescue Mission’s resale shop.  The area where they accept donations is in a mess, and they need to get it organized.

We had my send off at conclave.  Kris prayed that I would get the sabbatical I needed, and not the sabbatical I wanted.  Well, there go my plans.  I couple of little things like Irma and Maria have severely messed things up.  The cruise line refused to cancel our cruise, which means the insurance will not kick in.  Our flight to Puerto Rico is still going.  Our hotels for the night before and a couple of nights after have closed and cancelled our reservations.  We cannot book an earlier flight home, as they are all filled with the folks who are trying to flee the island.  I won’t bore you with all the details, let’s just say we used the opportunity to “make lemonade when life hands you lemons” and spent more time on the cruise ship than we originally intended.

While we were on the cruise, we had the opportunity to meet a nice older couple.  One minute, I am looking at the steam coming out of the volcano on Montserrat, and the next, Phil (my new friend) is telling me he has Parkinson’s Disease.  He also tells me he knows exactly what this means for him.  As I am standing there talking with him, a young couple with a baby take my seat.  As I am supposed to be doing “deep thinking” on this sabbatical, I cannot help but stand there and be amazed.  In the presence of all this beauty, there is destruction lurking just under the surface.  There is an active volcano about 25 miles from me.  It made half of its island uninhabitable and forced 2/3 of its population to flee since 1995.  I also marvel at the speed of life.  It takes so little time to get from that young guy, holding his baby, to Phil, trying to make every moment count, while he is still able.

In all the other blogs I have read, lots of people say they can’t get used to the concept of not working.  Well then, take my advice….strand yourself in the middle of the ocean with no cell phone and very limited internet connection for an extended period of time.  It becomes pretty easy!  No desire to go to work here, and no ability to do so if I wanted!!!!

So, the extended cruise goes well, we have a great anniversary, and got in and out of Puerto Rico without “too much” trouble.  I do not, however, recommend vacationing in a disaster area.