My stay at the Alderson Hospitality House has been truly wonderful.  I don’t think I could have asked for a better placement.  It is hard to believe that time passed quickly before my eyes and I have yet to reflect on my time there.  My last weekend at the house was quite busy with it being Family Weekend at the prison.  Since the annoucement of the date and time for that special occasion, families have been calling and unfortunately the house was booked on the second day after the announcement.  We’ve had to add numerous of families members to our waiting list and suggest hotels outside of town since the only motel in town, the Riverview Inn, was booked.

Work started earlier than usual but it was a good experience and out of the ordinary.  Aside from the spectacular and memorable white water rafting trip our first guest was to arrive the next day from Wyoming.  After spending two months at the house, the guests arriving from Wyoming travelled the farthest than any other family I had known.  They were set to arrive in the evening so my co-workers had treated me out to dinner that day at the Lewisburg Inn which is an old fashion inn with collections of memoribilia and trinkets from the past.  It was a pretty swanky restaurant.  I am terrible with compliments and good-byes and prefer not to discuss them at all.  Although this world may seem vast it is also small in many ways.  There is always that slight chance that I may see that person again, so good-byes are permanent and I would prefer that I leave on the note of leaving a person only temporarily.  It’s emotional, and I tend to be less emotional than others when it comes to leaving places.

For my last surprise, my co-workers took me to the Greenbrier Resort.  One of the most expensive places to stay at in West Virginia.  When you stand outside of the resort and look up at it, it almost seems comparable to the White House.  I’ve only seen the White House from the distance but at least to me I felt like I was standing in front of it looking at the majestic white pillars and greek style architecture.  Unfortunately the interior decoration did not exactly coincide with the sophisicated anterior of the place.  I wouldn’t exactly call it atrocious but nearly atrocious with the patterns and color that they have chosen.  I expected something grand and sophisticated.  The colors and patterns were fun, bright, and were consistent throughout the floors but not at all what I had expected.  The atmosphere of the place of course aligned with it’s purporse of serving it’s wealthy clients.  They had many name brand stores, restaurants, spas, cafes, golf course, stables, and soon to be casino.  A perfect location for anyone who is wanting to escape reality and the animosities of life.  Even in Sulphor Springs, where the resort is located, there is not much to the town except the train station and the resort itself.  It would be a great place to stay if you have the money and only wanted to stay in one location without having to travel far.

I was happy to have seen this resort that everyone has been talking about.  For souvenirs I took free recipes that they were handing out at their gourment kitchen.  It was a great visit but I have my own opinions about the place and the investments of the money.  It was a great surprise and a great ending to our day off.

After my surprises it was back to work.  We had a family come in from Wyoming, which is by far the farthest that any family has travelled from in my two months there.  They were a pretty nice family a grandmother and her granddaughter.  They were a delight to have around the house since they were both very social and very helpful.  Everything else fell into place with families travelling in the next day and little children running around the house.  I spent my last weekend talking to family members and saying goodbye to the guests that have seen me on numerous occasions.  They exchanged a few words of advice and contact information with me and I couldn’t help but feel a little sad.  In the words of my good friend, “such is life”.

I spent my last week at the house packing, chatting with people from the community, working at the food pantry, and my last community night at Bethlehem Farm.  It was all memorable and wonderful.  One of my friends and former employees had sent me a care package with home baked cookies and a stuffed animal.  Also in that package was a card in which my friend had stated that I should enjoy every little thing possible.  The air, the mountains, and the trees.  I did that and it was beautiful.  This experience “ripped the curtains” for me.

What a weekend!  Literally exhausting.  Two of our volunteers, Joan and Phil left to Chicago for a family event, leaving me and Tina the director to run the household for a couple of days.  I have always enjoyed my down time of taking naps, reading, browsing the internet, and taking a run or walk.  I had no time for any of that this weekend.  Tina and I took turns of waking up before 6:30 a.m. to set out breakfast for the guests on Friday to Monday.  From the morning to the evening we were constantly cleaning, cooking, preparing food and snacks for the guest, interacting with the guests, washing and folding laundry, and checking guests in and out of the hospitality house.  By the time evening hit I was burned out and instantly fell asleep till the next morning.

When Monday evening came around I was truly excited that Phil and Joan had arrived and that the next day would be my day off, which means I can sleep in (Yea!!!!).  Not the case in this situation.  Phil had surprised me and Tina with a trip to the New River for white water rafting.  I have wanted to do this since I found out that white water rafting is a popular past time sport in the state of West Virginia.  It’s just terribly expensive.  Luckily Phil was willing to pay since his wife, Joan was not interested in the sport.  So that meant another early day to arrive at our site in time for the 10:00 rafting trip.  I fell asleep throughout the ride to Fayetteville.  Upon our destination, I awoke to a camp with wooden cabins and banners of all the different activities that were available.

We attended a short orientation which was informative and quite comical.  Our tour guide look like a guy we knew with a mixture of Amish background.  I believe that the Appalachian style for men is to wear their beards long and sport the attire of sandals, shorts and t-shirts.  I’ve seen most young men dressed like that throughout my journey and it just amuses me because I am sure that underneath all of that hair are decent looking men.  I couldn’t help but imagine how these men would be compatible for my single director, Tina.  Afterward, we put on our safety gear and got on a bus which transported us to our site for white water rafting.  There were many people there for the same purpose of exploring the New River and adventure out to the small rapids meant for beginners like us.

We boarded the raft with another family and luckily our tour guide who had explained the safety rules was our guide for the rapids while everyone was assigned to another professional guide.  We floated across the New River learning the commands and how to use our paddles.  The first rapid was a little surprising to all of us although it was a class 1 rapid.  My heart almost jumped out of my chest, hoping that my body will still be in the raft when we reach the end.  After the first rapid we looked back to see the others and it was just a beautiful site to see how the rafts bounced across the waters throwing it left to right whichever the waves were hitting. A few times our guide let us jump out of our rafts to explore the open waters but to also experience how it would feel like if we fell into a rapid.  The next rapid, a few of us jumped out of the boat with our body’s in a juxtaposed position going with the current over the rapids and to the eddy ( a calm area in the water).  It was a thrilling experience and I now see why they say toes pointed forward and not your head :).

After the rush of adrenaline we stopped and ate a hearty lunch.  During the entire trip as we floated across the water I couldn’t help but think of God’s beautiful creation.  The surrounding mountains, trees, cliffs, and the water was and is what the States use to look like before industrialization.  Well, ironically the New River was man made but still everything around was there before I had been conceived and before anyone else existed.  Maybe that’s being overly dramatic but I couldn’t help but think about some of the stories that our tour guide was telling us about how the mountains were much higher than they are now because of the mountain top explosions and that there use to be a town in West Virginia that was the biggest town in the United States.  As far as my explorations has brought me through the towns of West Virginia, even North Manchester is larger than most of the towns of West Virginia.  It was unbelievable that some of these towns and areas became non-existant and all that are left are dilapidated buildings and forestry growing within and around it.  Modernization does take away from the historical value of what use to be valuable.

Towards the end of the trip we had made a few stops.  One being at the end of the run on the Bloody Nose rapids.  At the end of the rapid we paddled towards the rapid to “surf”.  It was an amazing experience.  We had only one person who fell out of the boat and he floated towards our raft once we hit the steady eddy.  Tina had decided to switch him places to see if there was a difference between sitting in the front of the raft than the middle.  As we paddled towards the rapids I noticed a large wave towering over Tina’s head and couldn’t help but think that she would be the next to fall out of the raft.  Like a true nature girl that she is, she held on tightly and made it through the crashing rapids.  It was an amazing experience and unforgettable.  Our next stop was to Jumping Rock which is a large boulder that you jump off of into the New River.  Being the daredevil that I am (not really), I hurriedly climbed the rock to the top and stopped.  In my head everything seemed perfectly fine, but as I stared down into the water I couldn’t help but think of all the terrible things that can happen if I didn’t jump too far from the boulder plus my fear of heights.  Luckily, Phil noticed the change in my attitude and grabbed my hand and jumped in with me.  If it were not for Phil I think I would have been stuck on top of that rock for awhile because there was no other way down except to jump down.

So at the end of the trip everything was perfect. Aside from the fact that we had bumped into a guy who had a large gash in his head and was bleeding heavily and another person who had dislocated his shoulder from Jumping Rock.  After the trip down the river we spent a couple of minutes in the gift shop browsing around and waiting for our pictures from our white water experience.  The pictures were great but expensive so we held off on buying them.  We travelled back home and as always I fell asleep through the trip.

When we arrived to Alderson, Tina and I drove up to Bethlehem Farm for community night.  Bethlehem Farm has just been a joy. I know that I am an introverted person but every community night you would honestly think that I was an extrovert.  I meet different people each week from all over the States and I can sit and talk for hours about almost everything.  At the end of the evening, each group gives a review of their day through a song or skit.  Also, the new tradition of square dancing to the Virginia Reel.  I have become a pro at dancing the Virginia Reel and was fortunate enough to dance with the birthday guy.  A great ending to a long weekend and also a start of another long weekend.

The following weekend is family weekend.  The prison hold events and activities for the children and their loved ones to partake in.  With that being said, an extra day of work and a full house for the weekend.  It is my last weekend and so I will enjoy what I have with everyone.

The days are winding down and I am thankful that my co-workers allowed me to take a small vacation.  I made some plans to meet a friend in D.C. from the 12th to the 15th and explore the beautiful sites that D.C. had to offer.  The original plan was that the director and I would borrow a car from Bethlehem Farm and drive down to see our good friends and meet on Wednesday to travel back home.  Little did we know that her plans did not exactly follow out and I would be in need of transportation.  As fate would have it, a couple of people from Washington were staying at the hospitality house that weekend and would be heading back a day earlier than I was suppose to leave.  My co-workers knew these people and arranged a ride for me to D.C. and all I had to was buy a train ticket back to Alderson.  When I told my mother about my change of plans, she was apprehensive about my traveling with strangers.  Being a very stubborn person, I managed to convince her that I would be safe and that if anything did happen she would see it all over the evening news.  My mother and I have always had a great relationship and I consider her to be one of my best friends that I can talk to about almost everything.  I was determined to go even if these people were complete strangers.

Before I left that Sunday, I was able to meet the people that were driving me and they seemed to be harmless.  They had little knowledge of English and I little of Spanish.  This was going to be an interesting 4 hours.  We left on Sunday afternoon.  It was hot and humid.  There were 5 of us and we squeezed ourselves into a minivan with all of our belongings.  They were kind and asked me questions about myself and home.  The people I traveled with were from different Spanish countries and were regulars from the same church.  Every month they would travel down to the women’s prison camp and would talk to the women about God and their faith.  So, throughout the drive, we spoke about my faith in God and if I was saved.  Hmmmm….saved?  It’s been awhile since someone has asked me that question, and as honestly as I could, I told them at this point of my life I wasn’t sure.  When I was young, I always said that I was saved because I went to church and I prayed but now that I am older, I have a full depth and meaning of what people mean by saved.

I believe in God and Jesus.  I love him and thank God for everything that he has blessed me with and his sublime creation.  It was difficult for me to say that I wasn’t sure if I was saved.  I would like to think that I am saved.  But how do you know?  What actually classifies a person as being saved?  There’s a song that I listen to that my friend always plays for me and it’s called:  “He still loves me”.  When I am feeling down and imperfect that song lifts my heart up.  This particular part is my favorite:

Seems like I always fall short of being worthy
Cuz I ain’t good enough
but he still loves me
(yeah)

I ain’t no superstar
The spotlight ain’t shinin on me
(no no no no no)
cuz I ain’t good enough
but he still loves me
Loves me

I used to wake up some days
and wish I’d stayed asleep
cuz i went to bed on top of the world
today the world’s on top of me
everybody’s got opinions
(they share)
They ain’t been in my position
(they don’t care)
that it breaks my heart when I hear what they have to say about me yeah
(what they say)

I am so use to being on top of everything that most days I do feel that the world has rolled on top of me.  I want to believe that I am saved by God but most times I feel unworthy of Him.  I was reading this book called:  Blue Like Jazz, and it was a biography of man and his faith.  I remember reading the part that sometimes people do not mind giving to charity but they do not like to feel like charity.  So when it comes to praying to God, we ask him to help others and to guide them on their way, but when it comes to ourselves we are too full of pride to ask God to help us.  It’s true.  I pray for everyone around me and I ask God to give me the strength to make it through life and to make me a stronger woman.  I would like more than anything to find my own way to what God has in store for me without any help.  I think that is one of my problems.  I am full of pride and I have always been taught to be independent.  As humans we are infallible and I tend to make many mistakes in my own faith.  I sometimes get so easily distracted by life that I forget what I was focused on such as starting to read the Bible.  I tell myself that I will start reading it so that I can figure out where I stand in my faith and the distractions and lack of motivation has pushed me away from my path.  I guess it’s time to let my pride fall and start asking for help.

So many times this week I feel that all the questions I have and cannot find the answer to that everything and everyone is pointing to the Bible.  The obvious answer and I have yet to touch it.  Another thing, the Bible is huge.  Not that I didn’t know that before but where to start….  I remember being young and having this ambition to read the Bible.  I started with Genesis and didn’t get too far.  After I reached the chapter where this person has begotten this person, and this person had begotten that person, I was completely confused and just gave up.  Everyone that I have spoken to on this journey has either suggested a chapter or told me to chance it and let the Bible fall to a page and pick a verse to start with.  If anyone has any suggestions as to a good place to start to help me establish my faith, that would be of great help to me.  I feel that God is calling me for something great but I am uncertain to what he wants.  I guess I will have to take whatever God has to offer me, for better or worst.

Overall the trip to D.C. was spiritual and everything afterward has been quite a learning experience.  I had a wonderful time in D.C.  I had great company, beautiful scenery, and delicious food.  I am currently looking for jobs in D.C. and if that is the place that God thinks is right for me then everything else will hopefully fall in place.

July 21, 2009

What’s wrong with me?  I was fully happy with who I am until now…I guess it all came crashing into me and as my friend told me, I was struggling with cognitive dissonance.  It almost sounds like a psychological disorder.  Many times I have known that the person I am today is a mold formed from everyone’s thinking and ideas.  I have grown up in my parent’s home and was shaped by their values, thinking, and taught how to be independent. Throughout my life I have mainly been to Catholic churches and I have been shaped by their teachings, structure of how to live a Christian life, and their religious traditions and rituals. My friends and workers around me have shaped me to be a strong worker, ethical, and have instilled in me a number of skills and qualities that allow me to be a wonderful worker. So what could be wrong with me?

I don’t know who I am, what I want from my spiritual faith, or how to be me because I don’t know me. What had brought this on after 23 years of living in the real world? Today I felt frustrated and angry with the church. I wrote a letter to my first church to help me raise money for this program, and they replied that they do not donate or have available funds for this type of program. I was upset by their response but that didn’t bother me as much. Today, I called a church that I went to during my stay in North Manchester. I thought it would be better to speak to a person rather than write a letter. I called today and spoke with the priest about the situation and we didn’t seem to meet eye to eye. One of things that irritated me was that he had said that the church would not benefit from this donation. Benefit? I didn’t realize that the church needed an “eye for an eye”. I realize that I may not be an active member of the church aside from attending the services, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I am a member and part of the community. It also tells me a lot about the churches that I have attended all of my life.

I was frustrated with this new information of the church needing something from me and that they didn’t believe in helping in a cause that they do not believe I will gain any type of spiritual ground in my religion. It astounded me to hear that and surprisingly a friend was able to help me sort it out and figure that this faith was not me. It’s what I know and what I am familiar with. I don’t believe in everything that this faith has to offer me nor do I agree with some of their religious teachings. I guess I was afraid of disappointing my family for not being a devoted Catholic and I was scared to affiliate myself with another religion that was unfamiliar.

As I spoke to this friend from home, he had asked me numerous questions over MSN and helped me to analyze my situation. I have always felt a pang of guilt because I didn’t live a true Christian life and I have not picked up the Bible in years. I felt bad because my subconscious was not always pure and that I was not active in church, and I wasn’t the innocent girl that the priests always push us to be. I was happy being myself and knowing that God is always with me and that the one thing that I can count on is him no matter where I am or what I do. This life of Christianity, of reading the Bible, spreading the word of God, praying constantly, was not me. Letting others see my faith and talking to me about faith is not a topic that I am comfortable with sharing. My faith is personal and meant to be between me and God. I don’t understand why everyone has to see my faith or place me as a Christian. Throughout my life I have always viewed Christianity as a community thing because together we prayed, attended church, went to Bible School, celebrated traditions, and broke the bread and drank the wine. I guess I expected them to help me and be willing to support a program such as Pathways. I guess my heart sank and my mind was slowly processing the conversation. Did I truly hear what I thought I heard? This is not what I understood growing up in the church or understanding what Christ has expected of us, but I guess we are all humans and we’re fallible.

I am thankful for this wake up call. I have been content with this religion and faith, and yet I had little respect for it and didn’t believe in the same thing as the priest or what the church would have liked me to. Here I am in West Virginia and I am supposed to find my faith. I thought I had found it through talking to the people here, but I only found people who have strong faiths because of their situations. It’s time for me to use this opportunity to find my faith and now that I am free of all those that had influence me, I am supposed to find myself. Now the question is: where to start?

Thank you everyone for shaping me to be a wonderful person and thank you to my friends who have truly help me re-evaluate my mission.

July 10, 2009

I have completed four weeks at the Hospitality House and sometimes it amazes me at how fast times goes here although it sometimes seems irrelevant and also how saddened I will be to leave this amazing place.  Many times I have been told by the guests how lucky I am to be here in a warm and friendly environment.  And I am truly thankful to the Pathways Committee for placing me here.  I don’t think I could have asked for a better placement.  Throughout the last couple of weeks I have been spending time with my co-workers and forming fond memories of each of them.

Last Wednesday, July 1st, the couple that works here treated me out on our day off.  It can sometimes be dull and boring in Alderson when there isn’t anything happening.  The night before, they had taken me out to Lewisburg to listen to some Jazz Music out on the lawn of Carnegie Hall.  There were a good number of people although the music was not that impressive compared to what we have heard from the bigger cities.  The next day we had gone out for a movie.  They had bought sushi from Krogers which we happily snacked on in the park before viewing the movie, The Hangover.  I kind of sat in my rocky chair and blushed a few times at certain scenes of the movie, feeling comforted at the thought at least they found those parts humorous.  I think that being able to see another side of the couple, broke down some of my barriers of having to always be serious.  I think that reading a book about our generation, the Millennials, instilled in my mind that we will never be able to see eye to eye with Boomers or Generation X because of our different ideas and perceptions.  Also the Millennials tend to be domineering and prefer to do things their own way, meaning that they tend to disregard everything that other generations would do.  I on the other hand, would prefer to avoid these confrontations and negativity as much as possible, so I was quiet and kept to myself for the first 2-3 weeks of being here.  But I see myself opening up to them because I am beginning to understand who they are as people and what they expect of me.

Yesterday, was my day off.  It felt wonderful to sleep in (which I tend to do a lot nowadays) and wake up knowing that I don’t have to fix beds that day.  The couple had invited me for a bike ride on a trail outside of Lewisberg.  As much as I wanted to rest that day, I decided that I have never ridden on a trail before and that if the couple can do it then I should too.  I was ready to go with my cap, sunglasses, and water bottle.  On the drive there I fell asleep (as always) and woke up pretty groggy not prepared to ride a 15 mile trail.  That day was absolutely beautiful. I looked up at the sky and it was a beautiful blue with all of the clouds clearly white as cotton and nicely shaped across the sky.  I was excited to do an activity which was new to me.  I keep adding to my list of things that I’ve never done and I sometimes think that these things shouldn’t be journaled about but rather left to the memory to be cherished.

The trail was empty and as one of my co-workers had said, it was almost like riding on our own personal bike trail.  Along the way we were able to see the mountain and woods on our left and on the right was a clear stream running straight down the path we were taking.  I could see the pebbles beneath the water and the water change colors from a light green to gray as I looked farther out.  I kept swerving in and out of the bike trail, there were times that I thought I would either crash into the mountain or fall down the hill into the river.  The trees and brush from both sides covered the sun, so we were able to ride underneath the cool shade, every once in a while getting hit with a speck of sunshine.  How did I ever get so lucky to have opportunities such as this?  I guess I have always been just blessed.  We took a few small breaks and would grab a granola bar or peach to snack on and just gaze at the wonders of beauty standing before us.  I took a few photos to add to my photo book of memories.  At the end of the trip, the only thing sore was my bottom.  I enjoyed the ride but my bottom is not in favor of doing it again unless I buy some padding for the seat or my shorts.

When we came back to the house it was time for me to shower and change for the next event.  It was Tuesday night and it was time for community night at Bethlehem Farm.  The director and I drove over around 5:30ish for dinner.  There were numerous cars lined up on the side, most of them with Illinois license plates.  I met a member of the board of directors for Bethlehem Farm up there who was from Illinois.  We were able to talk about the different areas that we were from as well as things about Chicago and Elkhart.  Yea, someone who understands me about the flat lands and corn fields :).  That evening there were 3 groups from Illinois so it gave me a chance to chat with some of them about home.  Every time I go there for community night I have always been fortunate to meet new people who just love to talk.  That’s great, because I love to listen.  Dinner was delicious.  I always love eating fresh and homemade food that’s, one good for you, and also vegetarian.  Anyone who knows me, knows I love vegetarian meals, although I do appreciate meat sometimes too.

At the end of the evening, aside from being entertained by the volunteer’s with their different rendition of their work day, we all square danced to the Virginia Reel.  I have not done this type of square dancing since elementary school, so this brought a lot of memories back.  I partnered up with one of the volunteers from Bethlehem Farm and we were crashing left and right into the couples next to us.  Nonetheless we enjoyed ourselves, and may I say we did the best job of swinging partners when compared to the other couples.  It is tiring and exhausting but afterwards we finished the rest of the evening with a few games of knock out.  It has been a while since I played basketball but in the first round I did pretty well falling in 5^th place compared to the number of people playing.  I sat out the rest of the games to actually sit and listen to the inspiring music of the three professional musicians as they jammed it out on their guitars and fiddle/violin.  I can’t remember another time when I have had that much fun in a day.  I didn’t take any pictures of the events in Bethlehem Farm but I don’t think I will forget these days….

July 7, 2009

It’s been quite a week.  The work has not been too bad.  Except for yesterday when we mowed the lawn.  I was tired of cleaning the inside of the house so I decided to help the only male volunteer outside.  So I mowed a few patches here and there and then there was the challenge.  We live on an incline hill so to push the mower down the hill is absolutely no problem but to push it up the hill is quite a challenge.  So we had devised a strategy which would involve the strength of two people.  We tied a rope on the bottom of the mower and another rope to hold the lever down.  One person would guide the mower down the hill and the other would pull the mower up with the rope.  I was the person who guided the mower down.  Eventually through the process, I also had to help pull the mower up because the incline was too steep that I felt like I was pulling a large boulder from a canyon.  Although I am the youngest person in the household, I feel twice my age with the continuous stair climbing and outdoor work that entails difficult labor.

This may sound strange, but I feel closer to God and am answering some questions about myself when I am doing intense labor.  Yes, I am cleaning and maintaining the house so that the guests can stay here, but having guests come here is rewarding to me.  They are so grateful for the hospitality house that their sentiments are endless and I am sometimes speechless.  Last night, when one guest had arrived that evening, it was his first time at the house as well as his last.  He was picking up a friend from the prison and he seemed gregarious.  He kept expressing his appreciation and all I could say was that I was just a host.  I gave him a short tour of the house and then we strayed off the topic to about me and my future.  My future tends to be the subject of most conversations at the house since I have just graduated.  He seemed to be a successful business person who has worked for prestigious companies and has prospered.  The overall conversation was about finding a job that would make me happy but mostly if the job matches my mission.  What is my mission?  I haven’t yet thought about my mission because it never occurred to me that I needed one before I was booted into the real world.  I thought I would apply to as many jobs as possible and see if I could land one before the end of this summer.  After working her for a little over two weeks, it seems as if I am being called for something else.  I have enjoyed working with people who have needed me.  I’m not talking needing me as if this was my job, but as a person willing to listen, offer advice, provide moral and emotional support, and being open to sharing my own personal stories.

Growing up, I use to think that God didn’t love me because of everything that I had to endure.  I thought that all the children around me were blessed because they must have done something exceptional to have such a wonderful and normal life.  That is why sometimes it was onerous for me to face God and believe in him.  These last few years I have tried to create a personal relationship with God internally.  I still feel somewhat ashamed to talk about my life and past but when I am here, I feel the bricks that I’ve built up for myself falling bit by bit.  I have no right to judge the guests here and I feel that they have reciprocated the same feeling.  The drama and dilemmas in my life were actually useful for something.  It shaped me into the beautiful person that I am today (hopefully that didn’t sound vain and use my experience and knowledge to communicate with people who are on the same plateau as myself.

Now I must find my mission and figure out what am I going to do with a marketing and management degree.  If anyone has a clue, if you could be kind enough to give me a hint, that would be super!

June 25, 2009

I can’t believe I have been here for two weeks.  Time quickly passes me but yet I feel that I have been at the hospitality house for months.  I’ve already become accustomed to the job and the different people that pass through this town everyday.  I have come to terms with myself and the people that I work with.  Progressively, I am talking more and taking the initiative to do things around the house.  It feels great when a co-worker encourages you and tells you that you’re doing a “rocking job”.

I haven’t had any hard hitting experiences like my last blogs but I have learned a great deal from being out here.  One thing that I have picked up on was that the hospitality house and Bethelehm Farm are very much devoted to the green movement.  Almost everything that we eat comes directly from our non-pesticide garden and all of the food that we do not eat gets put into a compost that is reused to fertilize the garden.  It amazes me to see how we can recycle our own food as well as the amount of waste we save by separating our compost from regular trash which becomes resourceful to the environment and our bodies.  Gardening is a laborious task that involves patience, strength, and it doesn’t hurt to be elated.

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I have been truly inspired this week and overall grateful for this experience.  When the Pathways Committee decided to place me in West Virginia at the hospitality house I thought, “great!”.  When I was told that I might manage the place, again I thought “great!”.  When I arrived and found out that there’s not much to manage, I thought, “how will this help me out with my career?”.  Well, it hasn’t exactly aligned with either one of my majors except that when I speak to self-surrenderers, it almost sounds like I’m promoting this prison camp and the hospitality house.  In a way, I am.  To make them feel comfortable after the duress that each has endured, you don’t want to tell them that they are going to a camp with bars all over the place, the food is inedible, and the camp guards beat you down everyday.  All of this is untrue with the exception to the food.

Actually, the Women’s Federal Prison Camp is beautiful.  I hate to admit this, but I think it’s just as beautiful as Manchester College.  This is not a typical prison that we see on television.  I’ve yet to tour the camp but I have seen it from the outside and I have heard stories from my co-workers.  This is a facility for women who have committed non-violent crimes.  So to all of my friends who thought I would need pepper spray, I have absolutely nothing to worry about :).  Most of the women in the facility are there for abuse of drugs or some type of white collared crime.  Martha Stewart served her 4 months here and came out alive and well.  When we escorted the women up to the camp, we drove on a road that was about 5 miles long.  When you arrive at the gate you can see the large buildings that almost look institutions in England.  The amount of land owned by the prison as well as the maintenance of the place is amazing as well as the programs.  This is a low security prison camp where almost anybody can walk off (but trust me you won’t go far because there’s absolutely nothing here to run to).  They offer courses and trade classes for the women to be certify in and each female has a specific role in maintaining the prison.  This can range from kitchen duty to picking up the mail from town.  The women sent to this prison come from all over the states.  When they are given their location and date, the women who come to Alderson come by through their own transportation.  Some have friends drive them to the prison and other women come a day ahead through the bus or train.  We pick up the women from the transportation sites and they stay with us until the next day where they have to self-surrendor.  The trust that the prison has for these women is stunning and actually allows me to believe that there is some good in this system.

To go off the topic a little, so I can relate the title and why this entry is important to me needs to be written.  Not too long ago, I went to a place called Bethlehem’s Farm.  This is a Catholic community that transforms lives through service with the local community and the teaching of sustainable practices (I couldn’t find a description in my own mind and stole this from the website:  www.bethlehemfarm.net).  The director of the hospitality house invited me to partake in this event in which I was able to meet some other church organizations from Tennessee and Indiana.  The church organizations had travelled down with a group of students to help the farm and other communittee members around the area.  They had helped members with putting shingles on their houses, painting, and picking up crates from the food pantry.  We had a large dinner in which I was treated like royalty.  Volunteers had to pick a member from the communittee in order to get in line for dinner in which a woman from the Noblesville, Indiana area grabbed me and we were the first in line.  She had to bring me my dessert and clear my plates as part of their learning experience of serving.  Each time somebody got up from the table, they always asked if everyone around the table needed refills or extras.  I was astonished by their service and willingness to help.  I felt useless but I understood the motto and the emphasis of being a servant of God at that time.

I always thought that a servant’s purpose was to spread the words of the Bible as well as show people how to live by it.  This type of service that I learned was about man helping man, not converting man into Christian.  You do not need to know the person or have a relationship with them, but just give them a hand without any reason or expectations.  It’s also ironic, that as I was writing about my experience in my journal about being a servant, the quote that I had randomly glued to the page stated:

I believe that the serving and being served are reciprocal and that one cannot really be one without the other.

-Robert Greenleaf

This is a quote out of many that was given to all the participants from the Pathways Committee.

How did I learn to be a servant?  There really isn’t a book called:  Servants for Dummies.  I sat with the self-surrenderers and listened to their stories.  We spoke about the reasons they were here, their families, the government, their jobs, and exchanged stories of our personal lives.  I am not one to share a story with a stranger about my life but I feel it is the least I can do after they have told me their own.  I am not a gullible person, but I honestly believe in their innocence.  At least the women that I have spoken to have openly shared their stories and I can see the pain that they have gone through.  The corruption of the government, the carelessness of friends, the intoleration to first time offenders is injustible to me.  I kept thinking that had we stood before God with all of our wrong doings and sins, he would have mercy on us.  I have come to believe that humans are intolerable beings that lack compassion towards others but themselves.  A woman is in the wrong place at the wrong time and yet she suffers the consequence of being called a druggie as her first time offense.  Another woman is turned in by management who calls the FBI and tells them that her financial records of the company are overstated.  There are others in there maybe with similar stories and we are worried about the dollars supposedly lost from the treasury and that the other is a drug addict although she has no record of being one.  These women are not sentenced right away, but it takes the government and judicial system 3-8 years before they give their verdict.  During that time, family members begin to disown their own family, they are fired from their jobs and can’t find another, and they leave their loved ones behind such as their husband or kids.  How can this be justice?  There are far better things to worry about.  It is no wonder why the United States has the most prisons in the world.

I’ve become hot tempered thinking of man kind.  How can we disown our own family?  How can the government give a lawyer who specializes in drug cases to a woman that they think has committed a white collar crime?  How can a judge dismiss new evidence that finally shows the innocence of a person?  Why are first time offenders punished so harshly?  Why does the government and lawyers extend trial dates over years letting the person suffer in misery?  How can employers fire their employees who have done nothing wrong to them, just because they found out that they have a record?  What is all of this?  Injustice.

I think that this enlightenment has taught me that I went into the wrong majors and the world is truly ugly.  These women who go in with faith, and it has taught me to have faith in God.  They always say, just like my mother does, that there is a reason for everything.  There is a reason that I am placed here in Alderson, West Virginia.  I am not quite sure of the reason, but I am going to do my best to serve others and enjoy the time and experience here.

June 11, 2009

Wow!  I’m here in West Virginia and I can hardly believe it.  In these last 5 days I’ve learnt a great deal about the hospitality house and myself.  Lets start by saying that West Virginia has stunning mountains and scenery although Alderson is quite small.  So for everyone who has complained about North Manchester, Alderson definitely wins by a long run.  This small town is not what I was expecting, but in the words of forest gump ” Life is like a box of chocolates, you’ll never know what you’re goin to get.”  There is a Family Dollar, Dollar General, tiny supermarket, a gas station, a motel/liquor store, post office, fire department, Wagon Wheel Restaurant and one department store.  And lets not forget a Subway (holy moly it’s not a McDonalds.  Shocking, isn’t it).  It’s a shame that I can name all of the sites in the small town on two lines but in this quaint town I have found greenery, mountains and hills, serenity, life, wonderful people, environmentally friendly people, tasty food, walkable distance, southern rural Alderson.

There are 3 workers at the hospitality house, excluding myself.  One is a young woman a little older than me and the other two is an elderly couple volunteering through Brethern Volunteer Services (BVS).  All three of them have worked here for less than a year and to me they seem like pros.  They have a great understanding about the history of the town, how to manage the house, and most importantly, they know each guest who comes in and stays for a couple of days.  These guests may come in once a month or every other month, and yet these three workers know them by name and a little about their lives.  I am astonished by their memory and the amount of work that goes into this place.

Unlike other jobs, the normal business days are from Friday to Sunday.  The other days of the week are downtime and spent preparing rooms for the guests on the weekend.  Tuesdays are my day off. My second day at the hospitality house I followed the director around like a lost puppy, helping and learning about the place as much as possible.  This entailed pulling sheets off of beds and putting them back on; wiping and sanitizing the rooms, cleaning all of the restrooms, preparing the meals, washing the dishes and putting the food away, interacting with guests, and so forth.  More like a bed and breakfast except the guests are not here for a vacation.

I have not been myself since I’ve arrived and that’s probably because I’m still in shock and although hard to believe, shy.  I’m not sure how to communicate with the guests because I am afraid that I might offend someone and of course my sense of humor tends to be on the sarcastic side.  I feel uncomfortable in this environment, not because of the people around me, because everyone and everything is unfamiliar.  I find that I am constantly asking questions about the cities, places, politics, personal, and others that I have no idea what they’re about.  This is like being thrown in the middle of a jungle and then trying to figure out what you’re suppose to do.  You can only hope that the lions and wild animals won’t maul you to death.  Here, I guess I’m hoping that my emotions and the new environment won’t get the best of me.

Lots of praying will need to be in order because I only have a short time here and I would like to get the most out of it as possible.

June 11, 2009