When plans go awry

So today was the big "Beyond the Gates" event at our church. Lots and lots of people volunteered to go out into the community and do service and outreach projects. The three of us signed up to go to a local retirement community to spend time with the residents there. I thought it would be a good way for us to participate, plus Emma could come, too.

I got an e-mail from the team leader a few days ago, who suggested maybe making some cookies or having candy to pass out to the people when we're there, or bring games or cards or something like that to play with the residents. I made two different kinds of peanut butter cookies yesterday (it took all morning), and while Emma was napping today I put them into little baggies and tied them with ribbon. I figured she could pass them out to people. Cute.

Everyone who participated met at the church at 3:00 so we could meet as teams and get directions and any other instructions we may need. We didn't feel that our group was extremely organized, but we figured it would all work out at the Sunrise Retirement Home, which is where we were headed. I grabbed a printed out sheet of directions that was sitting on the table next to a box that had a big stack of directions and put it with our stuff.

After a lot of confusion - it seemed - we finally took off to our destinations. We followed our directions to exactly where they said it was. We never saw a sign that said Sunrise, but we saw people with green shirts (the shirts for the event), so we figured that was where to go. It was a convalescent hospital. It was not what we thought we were looking for, but we had followed the directions, so we went in.

The residents were in wheelchairs and/or bedridden and/or using walkers, and most of them couldn't hear us. We didn't recognize any of the people in the group from our church. Something was terribly wrong. They gathered some residents in the "rec room", and we sang old hymns for a while, then the leader said to chat with people. We had been singing with and holding a songbook for a woman named Pamela, so we chatted with her a bit; but Emma needed juice so I went over to the diaper bag and got it with her. We got cornered by this lady named Sybille (from our church group, by the way) who just started talking my ear off. I finally got away from her and went back over to Chris. She followed us. She was talking about how I need to volunteer with Mops and Emma can become a Mopette (or whatever she said), and she asked if we went to a Sunday School class. I said we used to go to one, but now we didn't. She said we HAD to come to her class and get involved. Said it over and over and over, and then her husband came over and pretty much started to read Chris the riot act about how important it was to get involved with the church and we needed to come to their class immediately.

By this point I was so angry that 1) they were talking to us when they should have been talking to the residents of this convalescent home which we were there to do in the first place, and 2) that they were being such zealots about joining everything when they didn't even know us and had no business talking to us like that. So I took Emma's hand and we went over and talked to one of the ladies sitting near us in a wheelchair. Her name was Flora. Then we started singing again, and we decided we'd had enough, but there was still enough time to figure out where we were supposed to be and find it. So at the next chat break, we left. Just walked right out.

It's important to mention that I couldn't pass out any of my cookies I had made because some of them might have nut allergies or whatever.

So we drove BACK to the church, and I ran in to see if anyone knew where the place was we were supposed to go. A nice woman told me where it was, and when she said it, I knew exactly where it was. So we went over there and arrived with only about half an hour left before we were to come back to the church for the potluck and celebration. So we went inside and saw the group leader and told him what had happened - I had picked up the wrong sheet of directions, which just so happened to be sitting on our table - then we went and chatted with a few of the nice people there. The people were really sweet and could communicate back with us. They loved seeing Emma. A couple gave Emma some candy, which was really sweet, and she sat next to them on the couch. So we finally got to do what I had thought we were going to do in the first place, so the day wasn't totally a bust.

I didn't even take the cookies in this time because I figured it was too late.

We went back over to the church and had dinner and heard a little of the stories people were sharing of their experiences, but we just wanted to go home. Plus Emma needed to get a bath and go to bed soon. So we came home.

Didn't go as I had planned, but maybe it wasn't meant to. Who knows?

That's all for now. More later.

Always remember: Near the box does NOT mean in the box.