Borthwick - may he rest in peace... Part 2

So you see... Borthwick was important. And we were on our way back up to Darwin to catch our plane to Indonesia. We stopped on the way to overnight at Devil's marbles. It's this really amazing rock formation in the middle of nowhere.
We fought the BILLIONS of flies that night, slept on picnic benches and then started driving again at around 4ish in the morning.
Remember? Borthwick had trouble with the whole overheating thing and we were trying to give it a break from driving in the dessert heat during the day.


The plan seemed to work. Although it's hard to tell because about half an hour into the trip the accident happened.
Lisa was driving along Stuart Highway, we are still in the middle of nowhere and it's freaking dark outside. So.... We kind of hit a cow!

Yes, that's right. We hit a cow. She just never had a chance. (the cow AND Lisa). There was a big bang, we all scrambled all over the place and one of our students ended up with liquid something all over her (Borthwich wasn't airconditioned, so the windows were open)
At first she was shrieking because we thought it was blood. Turns out it was poop... Not sure what's worse...

We didn't see a sign like this!

We all got out with torches (flashlights) and some tried to find chase away the cow. Some of us tried to move Borthwick off the road. It was kind of in the middle of a dark highway. No biggie....


Well, we didn't find the cow or were able to move Borthwick. So we tried to light it up as well as we could and then stationed people up and down the road to warn any cars or ROAD TRAINS (those are scary and huge) about Borthwick in the middle of the road.


To read part 3 of 'Borthwick - may he rest in peace' come back tomorrow.

Why ....

Ok, truth? 

There are days when I wonder why I do what I do...

And then I click on this link and remember....

God Behind Bars in Oklahoma

Xmas gift bags for inmates

Every year God Behind Bars makes sure that each inmate at 'our' prisons gets a little gift. It was time again to 'stuff the bags'. Fun times!

Whole families came out to help!

The bags have candy, lotion, deodorant and lip balm

The WINNING table

Which was of course MY table! :)

These guys didn't even have a table

LOADS of bags. And that's just a couple hundred. 

I reckon she looks a little like Santa

Grocery Assistance at work

Every Tuesday we give out boxes of food to the people of the neighborhood. The way it works is, that they have to make an appointment to receive a box.
Each week we have up to 30 appointments, each appointment representing between 1 and 8 people per household.
Each week we have the food to serve all 30 appointments and each week we have between 8 and 15 no shows. It's frustrating, because we want to help them with food. But if they don't call and then come late or don't show up at all, they forfeit their appointment and at the moment I can't even reschedule them until a month from now.

Today though, was different. Today, almost ALL of our 32 (!) appointments came, representing 80 individuals that were able to receive food today. There were only 5 no shows, which is unheard of in the history (1 year) of grocery assistance.

And on top of that... Today almost everybody was so grateful... I'm not sure you can imagine how hard it is to cheerfully hand a box of free food to someone who in return demands chicken instead of the beef in the box, refuses to take the bananas, because 'they attract bugs' or gets mad at you when they find out there's no coffee.

I really like helping people. And I really like it best on days like today... When everybody comes in, no missed appointments, no complaints, no verbal abuse (oh yes, that happens)... Just a fairly straight forward time of helping people make ends meet.

Days like today help me remember why I do what I do. Days like today make me grateful and help me continue to pray for the people of our neighborhood.

Days like today help me go through the days when I feel like a punching bag; when everyone who walks through our door seems to see something wrong with the way we serve them; when it's just not fun.

Thank you Jesus, for reminding me how much I like helping people. I learn from the best.