1300 miles, 2 days and 11 states later… and we are in Staten Island, New York! It hardly seems possible that last week we were at Miss Dorothy’s working to get her back into her bedroom in New Orleans and today we are on Staten Island working with a team of 26 high school freshmen from Grand Rapids, Michigan! My how time flies when you’re having fun.
And today was FUN! Now I know most of you are saying…”you had fun with 15 year olds?” and I would answer you betcha! Ok, so that’s a Minnesota thing but I did have a blast! The team was divided up today to go to separate job sites and I had the privilege of working with what I soon called “The Dream Team”. There were 6 girls and their fearless small group leader, Jessica. We were tasked with moving the rocks from a huge pile onto a trailer to be hauled over to a different site to be used as backfill and to provide some drainage rerouting due to persistent flooding in the home. The first thing I asked the girls was “Do we have an girlie girls here?” To which one reluctantly raised her hand. I said “ok girls, NO girlie girls here today ok?” And they all lifted a rock and said OK!
Let me tell ya, tell a 15 year old girl that they can do something and boy do they do it! They were lifting huge boulders and throwing them into the truck. It got to the point that they were looking for the bigger rocks because they wanted to get that trailer filled! We had no injuries, no whining, no crying and most of all…no girlie girls! In essence I was given “The Dream Team” to work with! God gave these girls super human strength (well it did take 3 to lift some of the larger rocks), super human attitudes and super human spirit. The were so much fun to work with. We finished our job in a little more than 1 1/2 hours and we had time to walk the 2 blocks to the ocean and put our feet in the sand before our ride came back to get us!
But I gotta tell you the coolest thing. They found out that one of their friend’s on the trip has a birthday this Saturday. They wanted to do something for her so Wednesday night we are baking her a birthday cake. They made special point of slyly finding out what her favorite cake was and have asked me to pick up the ingredients. On Thursday night when we have the homeowners over for dinner we will have an surprise for Jo. We’ll sing happy birthday and have her blow out her 15 candles. The same girls that can move rocks like a 250 lb wrestler can bake a cake and show so much love for their friend.
So the next time someone asks you if you think a 15 year old girl can help you with a tough job, say yes! Then ask her to not be a girlie girl, encourage her, pray for her and just enjoy her company. God made us all 15 years old once upon a time. Remember that.
I praise Him today and give Him all the glory for “The Dream Team”! What an awesome group of girls!
Rob and Jackie Passer 