3 Men & a Lady!: The Beginning

The new interns are here! They are a small, but mighty team, 3 Men & a Lady! They hail to us from, Washington state, North Dakota, the Ozarks, & Wisconsin! Darn Yankees! We'll work in Joplin, Chicago, KC, Oklahoma City, Springfield, & mostly Thailand!

Night one: Traditional Chinese food and awkwardness! :)

Day two: They signed their lives away, no drugs, no dating, and the infamous no "any unspecified egregious behavior!"

 Then it was the Springfield Scavenger Hunt - The Mazda vs. The Lexus - Matt put some interesting items on this term's list:  Someone who looks intelligent:  we had fun finding a bunch of people who did NOT look intelligent, but I found this very intelligent looking crew at MSU:

 incidentally this is the largest number of African Americans I've EVER seen in Springfield, MO. (Evidently they  still practiced hangings on the square into the 80s here?!) That's only a slight exaggeration.  He also wanted us to find a woman OR pet who could be over 90! (For a man that is so political he's not very politically correct!) So I hung out in the Depends aisle forever, but that was no luck, and it seemed in appropriate to converge on the Maranatha Village and do a photo shoot or hit up a funeral home! The end result was we found 7 coffee shops, 15 pay day loan places, 39 churches (when the rapture comes Springfield will be full, I mean empty!), and 7 colleges!

Day 3:  We went to Greekfest, I learned what Eucharist means, Opa!

              Oh yeah, we hit up the nature center, and the boys have not shut up about how fast Nancy walked! I think it's the last time they let her set the pace! ha! Reminds me of when we let Sandy set the pace for PT in the desert and she took off sprinting! Never underestimate the grey hairs!

Day 4:  We hit up 20/20 for church- Pastor Jordan did a great job! Then Essjaydubb and I made an amazing lunch! Then we napped!

Day 5:  We hung the summer team on the Legacy wall- man we had a lot to say about that amazing bunch, & we prayed for each of em too! Then we learned about the mission of God, the Biblical mandate for Compassion & heard from some Amazing men that run this place like Kary Kingsland, Jim Batten, & our founder Hal Donaldson! We are Blessed!

Did you know that Convoy of Hope started with Hal and a pick up truck full of groceries in Southern California?

I'm sure you're tired of reading (imagine how tired we were from DOING!?) So, I'll start listening to this session on health & hygiene:  Matt just added some great insight, "How do you know if you have diarrhea?  If you're in the shower and you feel a shot of power, diarrhea!" This session is going downhill fast!

How Patton Changed My Life!

About 4yrs ago, when I was 25, I had vision insurance so, for fun, I had my eyes checked.  Dr. Pearl Vision said, "You're slightly near sighted blah, blah, blah and sent me home with some spectacles for driving & such.  Give yourself 2wks to get adjusted!"  Sure thing, Doc.  On the first day I felt disoriented, like I needed to step up on the curb, but there wasn't a curb! So I figured I didn't really need them.

Over the past couple of years I've asked more than once for presenters to focus the projector better because I was having trouble making out the words. However, when I would get up from my seat to go forward & assist them it seemed every time by the time I reached the first row the projector had self corrected!

By this past Spring, I was at Step 1: Admitting I have a problem.  (Until then I just wondered why the Department of Transportation continued to put out signs with teeny, tiny, blurry print! It seemed very irresponsible!) Unfortunately, I no longer have vision insurance and who knows where those initial spectacles went to!  However, I just happened to be in the Philippine Islands this spring! You haven't seen a mall until you've been to the Mall of Asia.  Oddly enough, free eye exams caught my eye! (Must've been in bigger and better print than those DOT signs!) Or possibly, missionaries are just drawn to the word FREE!

I took my eye exam like a champ, puff of air and all. Dr:  "You have a stigmatism." Me:  "Is that a Tagalog word?"  He explained it, but it was all Greek, Tagalog to me! I left with $50 Gap frames prescriptionized for my stigmata.  My team had been out doing something super spiritual like watching the Hunger Games or something.  My co-workers convinced me no one would even notice.  Corey saunters up first thing out of his mouth, "Sweet! Now we can get the senior citizen's discount."  Needless to say, my new glasses didn't make too many other appearances!

At 29 years old I don't need to be mistaken for a grandma! So, I turn around a lot, I can finally see the street signs when I pass them so I just turn around at the next available spot! It's a small price to pay.

However, this week a stand up guy changed my life in the Convoy of Hope warehouse. I had left my office and someone had locked the door to the warehouse and my key doesn't fit that lock so I was frustrated.  I went around ran my errands in the upstairs offices and was making my way back thru the very, dimly lit warehouse.  About 50ft from my office I see a tall slender man standing right by that door that got locked! He was just standing there staring.  It was creepy! "Hey!", I greeted (more because I had a bone to pick with the chump who locked me in more than out of friendliness!)  He evidently was hard of hearing because he didn't even flinch.  I shouted louder, he was kind of unnerving me! It wasn't until I got about 20ft off did I realize this was not a man at all, but a very tall fan!

I of course shared my startling experience with my BFF, who would never mock me! Sara walks out to the warehouse & introduces herself to said fan, & proceeds to have a conversation with him, "Oh you already met my friend Mary Beth?  You guys talked a bit earlier? Nice, nice."  And since then has made herself laugh with lines like, "He's a stand up guy!  He's your biggest fan!  He sure gets turned on easily!"  The fun is never ending around here! So, thanks to Patton, here's my new look!

S & M, the Interns & my Wii Fit

 I've always gotten the words Sadistic & Masochistic confused.  It's not like in Bible college they said, "A Pharisee is someone who is all about following the rules they were 'Fair-is-sees' and the Sadducees did not believe in  heaven therefore they were 'Sad-u-see'; oh! And by the way, a sadistic person derives pleasure from inflicting pain & a masochistic person derives pleasure from receiving pain!" Yes, I also have my masters in counseling, but I still get these words confused; so when I want to employ those words I just mumble the first part and end with a bold ISTIC.. "saaamaaaassssISTIC Jerk!"

At the end of each intern term we debrief as a team and each person answers the following questions:  1)what was your God moment?  2) your funniest moment? 3) what will you take away from this experience?  & 4) A shout out?

This term the God moments ranged from:  The miracle of a woman getting up and walking out of her wheel chair to (possibly also a miracle) Aaron holding a baby and realizing, "Hey I don't really hate kids!" Each category usually holds a wide range of answers like these; people are different!  However, one category had little to no range this term, the funniest moment category! It went like this:

  "When Jess fell down in the middle of the clean water skit & couldn't walk afterwards!"

  "When Ashley stepped off the curb and had to go to the hospital!"

"When we had the kids act out the Good Samaritan story and somehow the Samaritan ended up being the fattest  (healthiest) kid there and Richard was the donkey and she had to ride on him!"

"When Morgan challenged Mary Beth to the pull up contest in the back of the canter and MB jumped rather than pulled and busted her head on the steel top likely resulting in a concussion!"

"When we had to run thru the Miami airport and Marissa was turned around running backwards to tell everyone where to go and she literally bounced off that big column!"

Then I realized in terms past it has been very similar:  "When your face swelled up!"  "When Cameron got smacked in the face with the poop rag!" "When Corey was stuck hanging from the wall with his very uncomfortable harness on!" "When Debby almost smacked the tree zip lining!"

The interns are SADISTIC, it's Sad-u-cee! Who enjoys seeing others inflicted with pain?  I mean I'll admit I've viewed The Grape Lady on YouTube more than once and gotten a decent ab workout in, but I don't DVR "Wipe Out" or anything! So I've been left wondering am I the OTHER one! Do I like to inflict pain? (No comment from the peanut gallery, it's a rhetorical question!!!)

Last night I had a revelation:  I turned on my wii fit, all the Mii s came out, one of which is my skinny little sister & more than one of her men friends who have been around long enough to create Miis.  The only Men Miis that belong to Mii are  (is) my dad! So that's pain infliction #1 & #2.  Then MY Mii comes out, (your height + your weight = your shape!) equalling pain infliction #3,4, & 5!! THEN I step on and the Wii (which is obviously a practicing SADIST!) has the audacity to moan "ooohhhhh!" Then it says other nice things to you like, "That's Obese!" "This mind challenge was obviously not your thing!" "Your wii fit age is 39!!! That's 10 years older than your actual age!" "You are unbalanced!" (Pain inflictions: #6-10)

Sooo, to sum it up: Sadducee = Sad-U-see, Pharisee = Fair-is-see, Sadistic = The Interns & The WiiFit, Masochistic = MBK.

(Nope you really can't get these last 5 minutes of your life back!!!)