Here am I send me

"Here am I send me", the message on a young woman's T-shirt said so much.

We spent the evening at church putting together Hygiene Kits to be delivered to the Astrodome where the folks are being temporarily housed after having fled the floods of New Orleans. They are in need of so many of the basics that it’s hard to grasp the many needs being worked on. My heart swelled with pride to see so many of the young people in our church volunteer their time after school and well into the evening hours; opening boxes of tooth brushes, boxes of towels and unwrapping each bar of soap so that there would be little if any to discard once it arrived at the Astrodome.

I got lucky and remembered that my digital camera was in the car. I snapped a few pictures as the process was winding down. We had put together approximately 2000 individual kits, something which we had better get good at because this looks to be one of those kind of things that will be long term.

I have no way of expressing the good feeling that were shared as we stood around a table and unwrapped bar after bar of Ivory Soap, stacked and taken to the next table where each bar was wrapped in a small face towel to be then be placed into a zip lock bag with all the other items. We joked that we were looking for the one with the Willie Wonka Golden Ticket hidden in it; our fingers covered with soap film as we discarded the wrappers. I look forward to rubbing shoulders with these fine young people, the best examples of how the next generation will take on these great challenges of being ready to serve in times of need.

“And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God”. Mosiah 2:17