Mission Trip 2008, Rockford, IL

July 2008

By Shannon Gruhlke

Photos by Mission Trip Participants

I was a bit bummed out by the fact that two awesome adults were not able to come on the trip due to unforeseen circumstances. As you may recall, we had our huge storm in the QCA on July 21. Mike Walters, AKA Dubs, our resident arborist, decided to stay behind and help those in need of tree work around the Quad Cities. He assured us he would do mission work with us in spirit. His body seemed a little bent over on that following Sunday from doing so much work. I hope he has recovered. Heidi Hulme, AKA Sleeps-a-lot (she has narcolepsy), got extremely ill and was forced to stay home and get rest. That didn’t stop us from mentioning the aforementioned. Sunday evening on our trip up to Rockford, Dubs called to say that he wished he could be there with us. Also, that evening before turning in to bed, we were at 2nd Congregational Church (where we slept and ate), making our sandwiches for next day’s lunch and Debbie Newcomb calls me “Heidi” by mistake. It was bound to happen at some point. Heidi and I seem to be interchangeable.

Our first home we worked on was located on Lakin Terrace in West Rockford. We were charged with scraping paint, sanding, painting, installing an air conditioner, repairing doors, adding screens to doors, adding weather-stripping to doors, and securing a beam to the porch roof. Shirley Morton also weeded the outside of the house. We named Charles Curry MVP because he brought along a three-prong plug-in adapter, which we ended up by using. Way to go Charles!

We also made new friends there. Oh, did I mention that the new friends were a mother bird and her three babies? Charles Curry was the first to greet these feathered friends. The mother bird would come and squawk at us; we then knew it was time to leave so that the babies could be fed. At one point the mother bird had a baby snake in her mouth to feed the babies, but somehow mother bird didn’t like that Jess Carlson was standing so close to the babies, and she decided to drop the snake on Jess instead. It was quite humorous for me, but of course, I wasn’t pelted with the snake.

One of the youngest occupants of the duplex home was Steffen. I think he really wanted to help us paint. He would have had to fight Emalee Bealer and Annmarie Ulrich for the paintbrushes and rollers. Steffen would come out and check on us from time to time. Shataya, the owner of the house, was very friendly and purchased popsicles for us on one of the hottest days we were there.

We were at Lakin Terrace until Wednesday before lunch. After lunch we drove over to 6th Street and 9th Avenue where we met Dorothy. Dorothy is a wonderful person. Dorothy led us in prayer before starting our work, which consisted of scraping paint, scraping paint, and scraping more paint on a very large picket fence. Oh, we also painted the fence and the wheelchair ramp. Dorothy had purchased bottled water for us and we were very happy to accept her hospitality. I found out from the crew that stayed on until Friday evening that Dorothy had purchased pizza for them for lunch on Friday! Such generosity!

I didn’t want to be in charge of the group. That was supposed to be Heidi and Mike’s job. Early on I tried to make Charles in charge, which sent Debbie and Joe Newcomb to break out in song to the tune of “Charles In Charge” from the 1984 sitcom. Many of you may not remember that show and it’s title tune, but it was quite funny to hear everyone sing. Speaking of in-charge, we elected Scott Griffith as our van driver. He did an exceptional job.

We had no radio to speak of on the job sites, so we created our own. We sang everything from Disney songs, to disco songs (of course!), and Debbie retold Grimm Brothers’ tales such as Snow White and Cinderella. I think I had been in the sun too long that day and the stories seem to run together. I think that Debbie may have put her own spin on each story.

I got to know the main drag, or State Street, in Rockford because of frequenting my to-be-favorite place of the week, Nicholson’s Hardware. Rockford Urban Ministries has an account there and we were able to go and get items we needed. I think I made five trips in one day.

During the first two days of the trip I kept hearing Debbie and Joe Newcomb “honking” to each other. I asked if the rest of us were going to find out what “honk” is. At dinner that night the explanation for “honk” was given. Debbie and/or Joe picked up a book one Sunday, which was on the Flood Relief book sale table in the library at church. In this book it stated that geese fly in V-formation. The geese toward the back of the V-formation “honk” to the lead goose to give encouragement. So during the remainder of the trip there was a lot of “honking” going on giving everyone encouragement, even when we started to get dog-tired. It was such a great theme for the week! Thank you Debbie and Joe.

All in all, work is work. I dislike doing these types of tasks around my own home, but I feel different when helping others. Showing God’s love and compassion through this ministry fills my soul. I feel very fortunate to have established the bond between the nine of us that went. HONK!