This morning at 1my mom and I helped about 20 volunteers from church sort supplies that were donated by local hospitals. Gainesville has a medical school so there are lots of hospitals nearby; the church had so many supplies donated that we had to rent out a warehouse complete with palates and hydraulic lifts to hold it all.
From 10 this morning to 2:30 we got through about half, 80, of the boxes to be sorted. IVs, tubing, EKG supplies, OR supplies, meds, gloves, syringes are dancing in my head. I didn't realize it until we were done, but my parents have spent the last two days doing the same thing with donated clothing. The group had great camaraderie. I spent a lot of time with a 3rd grader named Abraham; I thought of him and his brother as my little ducks. They had tons of energy and loved helping so I'd do the hard stuff and delegate anything that was easy to them. I was glad that I got to give their mother a break. She seemed very tired when we got started, but after an hour or two everyone was really in the groove of working together.
It was drizzeling as my mother and I walked into the warehouse. A combination of the rain, backseat driving and my short fuze for such behavior had made us snippy, but we were able to forget those feelings as the enormity of our task confronted us. Gainesville has a medical school so there are lots of hospitals nearby; a few tenacious nurses from Grace Church so many medical supplies donated that we had to rent out a warehouse complete with palates and hydraulic lifts to hold it all. What began as 11 pallets on the 22nd had bloomed over the past week to cover two entire walls of the warehouse. Never mind the two truck loads (almost $40,000) of rice and beans purchased from the general fund and the generous donations of $27,850 from the church body over the first weekend following the disaster.
Walking in, I met Nicolette - a spunky nurse in black underarmour and glasses - a combination of sporty and sensibility I will hold in deep respect in the future. She and another kind and efficient (harried?) nurse who I would think of as La Dame en Rose would become our tutors in med-speak and answer questions on everything from EKG lead lines to depends.
Still, it was an older married couple who were the keepers of the keys and beningly in charge. The reminded me of the Anderson's from A Bigger Vision Winter Shelter in Athens Georgia (http://www.biggervisionathens.org/). They've retired and now they have devoted their time to doing God's work. Beautiful eh? White haired and wiry, with a smile on my face and a song in my heart; that's the way I hope to go.
After handshakes and a hand waving tour we set down to work. The wall of boxes was 5 rows deep and taller than my head. Little did we volunteers know, but it would shortly regenerate itself like Lucy Ricardo's chocolate conveyer belt with donations collected by a sister church. If we had taken the time to contemplate it; that act could have brought despair, but working for others rather than for ole' George Washington changes your perspective. From 10 to 2 there was simple to much to do to philosophize over mundane topics like quantities. There was always another rack of tubing to carry, or IV fluids to move or the bane of my existence - loose, though covered, needles to sort out of crates that could well have been may of hay.
The initial step was to come up with some sort of organizational plan. Five pallets were laid out to wrap the new stack of full boxes we would be generating. IV fluids, Operating Room, Respiratory Tubing, Medicines, and First Aide would be our main categories, with each box packaged as specifically as possible. After two years volunteering at Athens Regional Health Center and two years coordinating 30 other volunteers at Mercy Health Center I found that I was comfortable in the give and take of a specific goal with loosely defined delegation.
Move these boxes there, sort out the stuff and bring them back to almost the exact spot you started; repeat. Intuiting that the organizational job would be the most difficult; I promptly started on the moving side. It wasn't 15 minutes before a tired looking lady with an extra large navy shirt covering her petite exterior shepherded in three excited elementary aged boys.
Long volunteerism has taught me the value of a willing worker and I could see that the boys liked the idea of helping me carry things. Besides, Joshua, a black boy in highschool, was already working and joking with me so I seemed less threatening than the other white women who made up the majority of the first wave of volunteers - but by no means the majority of the volunteers throughout the day. Or maybe, hopefully, those lines are more blurred here in the racially diverse Gainesville than in my hometown Athens where racial mixing still has the excitement of an avante guard activity - a sad but atmosphere from a University that was only fully integrated in 1986. How refreshing to see those walls come down in service.
"Do you boys know what we're doing?"
"Packing medicine for the Haiti earthquake victims."
"You're right! Where's Haiti."
Abraham points in the vague direction of South.
"Well you're doing great work by helping them!"
That "good job" was all it took and the boys were racing to beat Josh in carrying boxes.
"I'm strong see?"
"Definately!"
With the five of us moving boxes to the to be sorted area we soon outstripped the ten or so volunteers wading through seas of what seemed like a strange mixture of a household junk drawer and toolbox. My mother took the leadership role here and correctly identified the boys and I as the source of the majority of the new boxes.
"Alyssa you've got to stop brining us new boxes. We're overwhelmed. Come sort."
A quick glance in her direction showed a clear backlog, but it also revealed too many people in too small a space, so I escaped in a nearby corner filled with the familiar world of IV fluids to begin my sorting. Like spring ducklings the boys melted away into other tasks & toys, but my new friends would not abandon me for long.
IV bags were a comfortable choice for me. A few years back, I volunteers for the Anesthesia Departement at Athens Regional Medical Center. It was rumored to be one of the prime spots - they actually had work for you and you got to see the tail end of 5 or 6 surgeries every week. The rumors proved true; it was well worth getting in line 3 hours early to secure 1 of the 3 spots several hundred pre-health sciences students would vie for. Unlike my previous posts, Anesthesia was fun. I wasn't just making charts or photocopies; I was decked out in full OR regalia from my hair net to my boot covers and I couldn't have been happier. The techs knew how to delegate too. If it was a slow day, we laughed. And if was a busy day I learned on the job - fast. So the muted tones of lactated ringers, heparin, sodium chloride, potassium chloride and normal saline were comfortable friends of mine. Even if the boxes they filled weighed more than 30 pounds.
Plus the fluids were for the most part separate from the jumble of other donated items. A fact that let me feel productive while the initial organizational structure was being developed for the rest of the items. By the time I had found and sorted almost all of the fluids the nurses had a brisk sorting system worked out and I happily fell in place.
((((WRITE ABOUT SORTING HERE)))))))
Later I would tell Abraham's mother how pleased I was to see her teaching her children so young the importance of caring for our neighbors. The tension in her earlier had evaporated and we staged a thinly veiled conversation about how football players at the University had to get good grades or they wouldn't be allowed to play for the benefit of a staring Abraham. It take a village.
The best part of the day was seeing the racial walls crumble; that's something I hope to see more of in my lifetime. We were easily half black and half white - with a latino and eastern european immigrant mixed in as well. But everyone was just enjoying the feeling of doing good work for others. I heard a quote once that "we have succeeded in creating a society where we have neither true work nor true play" a quick google search isn't giving me the author but it you know it please help me give the author his credit. And it's true, isn't it? We don't often get the chance to do manuel labor and see its immediate result. Its very gratifying.
I also got to talk with Paul Emery (the pastor who has helped put together my DR trip) and Denny Heiberg. Denny did some pastoring; I guess my parents had told him how upset I was when it looked like the DR stuff had fallen through and he reminded me who is in charge and that its not worth getting upset since God often repeats the same plan of provision throughout believers' lives. He's right of course, but mostly I just felt chagrinned. It was fun talking with Paul as well. He was a missionary kid and its great to see his eyes light up when he talks about helping people. He must have said 3 or 4 times now "can you believe that they pay me to do this?"
And now Psalm 126:2
"Don't you know He enjoys
giving rest to those He loves?" Yes!
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