Amy Blanc
October 6, 2008
Eng. Comp.
Helping Hands
“Good morning T.N.Ters! Who is ready to celebrate the lord this week?” Pastor Jim asked.
All of us T.N.T (Tuesday Nights Together) students screamed with excitement,
“We are!”
On the morning of July 1, 2006, T.N.T, our youth group of about forty five kids, was leaving for Onancock, Virginia. We were going to be doing many different community service projects and meeting other Christians from Deerfield, Wisconsin. These weeks are my favorite weeks all summer long. To be with friends, meeting people who I can make a difference in their lives, and meeting an awesome staff of Youth Works workers. Youth Works is the organization that finds low income communities in the United States, and asks teenagers from all over the country to serve and give back to the communities and to glorify the Lord. This trip was exceptionally special for more than one reason. I get to meet new Christians, grow closer to my peers, and most of all serve in communities that need our help. This year was different because I got to go to a woman’s house that lived about ten minutes from the church we were staying at. Her name was Barbra.
Barbra was a lady who had lived in Onancock for as long as she could remember. When I was informed I was going to be working at her house, I was really nervous but excited all at the same time. I remember I felt like a little kid waiting in line to buy a pack of Bubblicious Strawberry Splash bubble gum.
Our Youth Works staff site manager, Chris, had told us, “Barbra is a lady who has a little bit of mental retardation, and has let her trash pile up in her side room, and she collects old clothes and tries to sell them at yard sales to make ends meet.”
I had no idea what to expect when we would arrive, Is this gonna be just like all the other houses we served at? Overgrown weeds and chipping pain, I sure as hell won’t be pulling weeds, but I knew that I would be helping this lady get her life back together. Our white fifteen passenger van, filled with the “Whoppers”; our work crew name that Youth Works gave us, had pulled up next to her house, and we all jumped out one right after another. We looked like a never ending circus. We all crowded around her back porch, and a huge pile of trash that came up to at least my hip was overflowing. The trash had consisted of old glasses, teddy bears, dirty clothes, old news papers, and much more. Chris had gone into Barbra’s house to get her so that she can meet the cheerful students who would be helping her this week.
Barbra was about 68 years old, around five foot five, salt and pepper looking hair and was missing her two front teeth. She was wearing old, raggedy clothes that she must have bought with some money she had made at last week’s yard sale. She had a personality that was willing to talk to anyone about anything. She was a fun loving women who that was very caring and witty. When we went into her house, it was the hardest thing not to say “Oh my gosh, this is so nasty!” Her floors were starting to deteriorate, her framing around the doors were all falling off, and old finish was peeling off too. Her bathroom had not been cleaned in a long time. Her old bed room was filled from floor to ceiling with the clutter she wanted to sell in yard sales. Next to her kitchen was a small empty room, which is where she had let her trash pile up in. Now, there was one room that she was very proud of, and that was her TV room. The group before us had worked to finish it and had done a great job. It served as her bed room, and her TV room. She would crochet and watch the daily news on her fuzzy TV that always reminded me of a snow storm.
Stacie, our group leader, had asked me and the other girls if we wanted to tackle the room the trash was in.
I said “Sure Stacie, I will do whatever you want me to do.” No I actually wanna go back to the church and crawl in my sleeping bag and go back to bed.
So we asked Chris what needed to be done to the room, and he told us, “The room needs to be swept out, all of the walls, the ceiling, and the floor needed to be washed with bleach, and then needed to be painted.”
So, all four of us girls got into the room, and devised a plan. One of us swept the floor of all of the dirt and grime that had piled up over the years, while the others were getting the bleach, water, and dirty rags to wash the walls and ceiling. After the room was swept, we began to wash the walls.
The first day that we went to Barbra’s was one of the hottest days of the week. It was over one hundred degrees and I had sweat dripping down my face. It felt like I was running a marathon in the African safari. This room had no windows, and no fans to help circulate the stench of bleach. To make matters worse, there will tons of cockroaches running around the house and they never seemed to bother her, just like she never bothered them. I knew that if we didn’t get the job done, she would be embarrassed. This is all that Barbra knew and had.
All morning, the girls kept saying things such as, “I’m so hot, and this is so gross…!” yeah no shit, but we get to go home to a nice house at the end of the week and this women has to live here till basically she dies. So stop your fucking complaining. All I could have done is continued to remind the girls that if we were not here to help Barbra, then she would continue to live in this unhealthy environment.
Before we had gone to go eat lunch, the girls, and I were sitting at the kitchen table talking to Barbra about Onancock, and listening to her stories. She had told us girls that in May, the reason her husband left her was because they were planning on going to go to the church picnic, and her husband didn’t want to go with her. So she told him that if he did not want to go, then he needed to leave her. So that evening, he left her and never returned again. Barbra was very disappointed and afraid that she would not be able to live on her own, but she is taking it one day at a time. My heart fell to the ground when I heard her story.
At lunch we were talking to Stacie, and we had told her what Barbra told us. Stacie could not imagine anyone doing such a horrible thing to such a loving person. As we continued eating lunch I could not stop but think to myself, what can I do to help make a difference in her life? The girls and I thought that tomorrow we would pack her a sandwich and eat with her. After lunch, we went back to our dungeon to continue washing walls.
That night we were about to leave Barbra’s house and she was so excited to hear that we were going to be coming back again tomorrow. She knew that we were there for her and to work really hard. I was really excited to return the next day because I wanted to get as much work accomplished as we could to make her proud.
The next morning, we got up, went to breakfast and began to make our lunches for Barbra and us. When we returned to Barbra’s house the next day, I knew that we had a very long and strenuous day ahead of us. It was not as hot as the first day, but I knew all four of us working in the room again would be like working in hell. We chose to paint the room with a light pink.
She had picked out the pink, and she said, “…this paint reminds me of a blanket my mom had crocheted for me when I was young girl.”
I asked Barbra if she crochet too, and she told me she did. She had showed me some little projects she was working on, and asked me if I wanted to learn how to crochet too. I told her I would love to, but I knew that the work had to get done, and she asked if she could teach me at lunch.
When we went into the room, I was ready to begin painting. We each had our own wall, and we all gossiped about which boys were cuter from which youth groups, we would talk about the great job we were doing painting even though there was paint all over the drip cloths, and we would chat about our lives in general.
Lunch time came around, and we pulled out our lunches and Barbra’s sandwich that we made for her. When we offered it to her, she took it, but did not want to eat it. We were all really confused on why she did not want the sandwich, but I knew that if I were to mention something to her, I may hurt her feelings. As I was eating my lunch, Barbra came over to the table and began showing me how to crochet. She reminded me a lot of my grandma, being patient with me, and letting me try until I got the right hand movements down. I was so frustrated but I can’t let her know I was ready to quit right then and there.
As the week went on, the work cites got changed and the “Whoppers” were sent to kids club where there were a million Spanish speaking children running around not say a word to me. I wished I had spent all week at Barbra’s but working there had taught me not to take where we live or what we are able to do for granite. That week in Onancock, has changed my life forever, and to this day, I still think about Barbra and how she is doing, and if she still is living in Onancock. She was a woman who taught me that God has a plan for everyone and it is all in his hands.