By ThinkJP.Consulting™ Copyright© 2015 - All Rights Reserved
Our foster people loved to go shopping and they loved to eat out. It was our
goal to integrate them into our local community so I made a real effort to take
them out at least once a week. It
seemed there was always something one of them needed anyway.
Shopping with them was a real challenge because one had, “sticky fingers”, and
had to be watched closely. Another
loved to push the emergency exit door and set off the alarm, so he too had to be
watched and “reigned in” whenever we were near one.
Most of them couldn’t read and needed help with sizes and prices, etc.
When I first started taking my group into the community, people would stare and
whisper with each other about us, or, laugh and point at us.
Initially, I was bothered by their ignorance and rudeness, but later
decided it was their problem to deal with, not mine.
I continued to integrate my folks into our local community until people
began to know and accept us. We
were such regulars at Taco Bell, that two of my special folks eventually got
jobs there.
Many times people would listen-in on our conversations and would often comment
on our saying Grace together. Since
all of my folks loved to say Grace, they were always extremely excited
when it was their turn. It didn’t
bother them to say Grace in public places, and they would not be denied their
turn, regardless of where we happened to be eating.
People would often stop us on our way out and tell us what a great job we
were doing and commend us for caring so much for these special folks.
The truth is that I usually ended up having as much fun as they did.
On this particular day, I was taking all of them shopping and of course we would have lunch out. Since we got a late start, I decided to stop at McDonalds since it was right on our way to the store. It was a chore to get all six of them into the restaurant and settled into their seats. Three of them could order on their own, but I had to order for the others.
Finally, our orders were complete, our food was in front of us, and we bowed our
heads for Grace. We had barely lifted our heads from praying when a customer
came running in and frantically announced that a van was on fire in the parking
lot. I ran to the window with
everyone else, and there, before my very eyes, my van was burning from under the
hood. For an instant I thought that
I might have absentmindedly forgotten to turn the engine off when we got out,
but one quick check proved that my keys were in my pocket.
Someone called the fire department and I was impressed at how quickly this
volunteer squad arrived. I called
Jack and he would come to rescue us as soon as he could get a car that would
hold us all. I watched them haul my beautiful conversion-van away, burned beyond
repair. We later learned that a
windshield wiper motor had shorted out and caused the fire.
I went back inside to wait for Jack with my insides feeling like Jell-O.
I went back to the family and was surprised to see that they were almost
finished eating. Apparently, they
were unaffected by the whole thing and continued to enjoy their meal as if
nothing was wrong.
It dawned on me exactly how unassuming and trusting they really were.
They didn’t have to worry about the “what if’s”, or how they were going
to get back home. That’s what I was
for, and they let me do my job without giving it a single thought.