SLOGGING THROUGH A SLICE OF YOUTH

We drove up to a palatial size ramshakled house with the glory of its yesterdays long gone. It was obviously a neglected house.

  The white washed clapboard had long ago darkened to the color of slate gray.  There were broken toys and other objects strewn about the yard.
Several little shabby looking, barefoot, dirty but happy faces eagerly appeared out of nowhere.
   We were invited in, we walked in and I was like OOOOOOH.  The children followed. 

I took in my breath sharply, I stopped, the dimly lit room revealed a sparsely furnished room with shredded sheer curtains on the windows.
  The living room where we were to hold the Good News Club had only a sofa and a chair and it was cold, dirty, and uninviting.
  It was my first encounter with such poverty here other than I had experienced in Mexico.
While attending MU, we were all required to accrue a specific amount of hours prior to graduation--called Christian Service.
  The above story was one recalled while ministering with CEF and their Good News Clubs.
While working with children for a couple of years, my senior year goal was to support the team that went to the Louise Home every Sunday afternoon.  It was a boarding home for disturbed teen girls.

  During that time we sensed much friction and antagonism toward stressing salvation by grace or works.

  The head house mother did not want us to stir up the girls to some emotional experience they were not ready to handle.   We brought snacks and homemade goodies to share with the girls and talked one on one.  Celebrated holidays and at times were allowed to have a sing and showed love.  Several of the girls made commitments.
There continued to be many wet and dismal days.

I loved the comforting sound of the Portland rain as long as I was under my comforter, unfortunately, those were many gray blanket drizzly days and did not have the luxury of lingering longer in bed.  Not only was the weather dismal but these were also some of the most difficult days of my youth. Darkest Days Of My Life click here
All students were required to attend select devotional and chapel activities as well as the annual Christian Life and Missions Conference.  Slogging up the hill to "Fort Mitchell" to sit damp and shivering, just when one has dried and warmed up, it would be time to make the trek back down, however, those were some of the highlights of my year.

1971, Life after college was foremost on my mind.  I found myself vacillating over future possibilities.  A friend and I visited Emmanuel and Good Samaritan hospitals with intentions of applying to nursing school.
Well that was scrubbed as I was not proficient in the math required.  That left me with another option.  I had applied to Wycliffe's SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) program and was accepted for the following summer but with some reluctance opted out as I did not feel linguistics would work for me.  As I mentioned in the previous blog that memorization was painful for me, I only got as far as memorizing the Greek alphabet.  Linguistics was not in my future.
After graduation, I took a step of faith, moving to SoCal with meager belongings, not knowing where it would lead.  I arrived with no job, no plans, and no current place of my own to call home but with a glimmer of hope.
I soon enrolled for a 5th year of college at Glendale C.C. where I enjoyed all my classes in child development while working in nursing homes. My nursing home experience click here 
My assignments were not glamorous but I gained a wealth of experiences on both ends of the spectrum.