Love Your Neighbor!

So, every year... my little town has a [dwindling] festival the third week in June. They shut down one street and have a food court. In the evenings, they shut down part of the main street and have different activities... pet shows, concerts... ummm.... that's about it. The parade on Saturday lasts like 10 mins. Ok... maybe I'm not giving it enough credit. It honestly probably lasts 15 minutes. (LOL!) It has just gone downhill MAJORLY due to some.... power issues, in my own opinion. Anyway. Last year on "church night" (where all of the churches in the community are supposed to pull together and have activities, etc)... Some people from my church and I (having previously planned and prepared)... loaded up Murray (my vw camper--shown top right *sigh*) with all sorts of paints and supplies... and hauled on down the street to where the Church of God, the only church who seemed willing to pull anything together in previous years, had a stage set up for their praise team, etc. We unloaded the van and set up easels (kindly made by a guy at church)... and pulled out "pieces" of the mural (Cory and I had previously drawn/painted the outline on another night--and then the big sheets of plywood/signboard were cut into pieces). We laid out plastic on the street and had all different paints (donated by many people and a couple of businesses)... and started inviting people into our space to paint. The only rule was the they weren't supposed to write any words... and they had to stay in the lines. Other than that--they could use any color, pattern, etc. It took a little bit for people to come over and get the jist of it... but once a few people started... they started FLOCKING! It was great! I was a little stressed, I admit. It took a lot of planning and preparation... but I think it went really well. Here is the finished product, which was put on a big frame and displayed in front of my church on Main Street for like a month!

This year, the Church of God is sending a team to Romania on a mission trip. (My sister's husband is part of the team!) SOOOOO... they have taken a step back from organizing anything--like their praise team and puppet groups, etc--to be on the street at this years fest. Luckily, the lead guy from the church pointed the Festival Board people in my mom and my direction... so we are kind of heading it up now. (If that's how I should put it!). Sooo... if you read my previous post... you'll know that we want to try to get Enter the Worship Circle (wooooot!!!) and also would like to have a drum jam, the community mural, an interactive board game (using people as the game pieces) on the street... AND... ??? We aren't sure what else! I think we might have some face painting too. Does anyone have any ideas? I am really really trying to think of more... but I have so much on my plate with the mural... its like my brain is fried! Also, I am coordinating the vesper service which will be held that weekend also. We are going to invite people after the parade - to walk down to the local dam... where we will have some speakers and praise and worship. I am kind of lost on organizing all of this! We would like to entice people to show up by offering free hot dogs and maybe drinks (depending on donations, etc). The vesper service is another thing that has fallen by the wayside with the festival. I would appreciate any suggestions or ideas! AND also prayer!! I stress quite easily.... and I just want to make this happen for HIS glory!!!

On another note... today was a strange day at work. Despite the BEAUTIFUL weather--it was kind of hectic because of some mistakes that were made (my coworker is training.. and made a pretty big BooBoo... but it was able to be fixed--PHEW!)... and some, how should i say... shouting between a couple of coworkers made for some tears and frustration. The main thing that happened--was me... going out to the one forklift early in the morning to go move some parts around. I get in the forklift and try to pull the seat up a bit for my short legs. I couldn't find the handle... but I noticed something.... odd. There were 3 (thankfully unused and unwrapped) tampons laying on the floor. I was a little baffled, but my coworker, Cathy, has been driving the forklift a lot and so I thought maybe they fell out of her pocket or something!? I didn't know. So, I tried to turn on the forklift. I don't know what my deal was--but the stupid thing wouldn't turn over. I reached down to my right hip to grab my radio (yes, that's right.. "breaker breaker 1 - 9"--haha).. and couldn't get the slip off of my pocket... so I look down to undo it... and see, like, 10-15 more tampons scattered on the side of the seat (not really the floor--you'd have to know what the inside of a forklift looks like to know what I mean). I immediately hopped out and went over to my office to tell Cathy. My first thought was... 'someone doesn't like us girls in this forklift--so they were playing a little practical joke--which was NOT funny'. Cathy thought it was immature as well. So, I called my supervisor. He told me to call the Human Resources lady. Well, I ended up seeing her in the hall at the main office and gave her the run down. You know what her response was? "Well, we can't prove who did it." THAT irritated me. It may seem stupid, the whole situation.... which I agree its definitely just totally ridiculous--but having the feeling of someone being LOW enough to throw tampons all over the forklift... just didn't sit well with me. So, I saw another coworker outside and he walked over and saw the evidence...
(which I REFUSED to clean up!).. and he immediately thought the same thing Cathy and I did. We were just so disgusted and annoyed by it. --sigh-- So, as the morning went on... a coworker in the warehouse made mention of "what was in the forklift"... and I made mention of how I thought it was "rude and ridiculous". SO THEN.. the TRUTH comes out. I honestly had a hard time believing him when he told me... but I couldn't imagine him doing it on purpose to be mean--so I am kind of leaning toward his story... but I can't imagine the culprit! Here, yesterday, when he was loading some skids on a commercial truck, the driver apparently had a busted load that had spilled numerous feminine products in the bed of the truck. So, he grabbed a handful of them from the floor and shoved them at my warehouse guy and told him that he "didn't want them to go to waste". So, still having to drive the forklift, this guy ended up putting them beside the seat and some fell to the floor--which I found this morning. I was skeptical... and still kind of am. First of all.. the truck driver in question has always been super nice to me, talks about church and going to hear speakers... even lent me a tape of a sermon that he and his wife really liked!! Just seemed like a good guy. He is also married to one of my coworkers cousins... who couldn't imagine him doing something like this either! It just seems so odd. And it doesn't add up that the "shouting match" earlier in the AM which was between Cathy and the warehouse guy was about her not moving the parts to the right areas of the shop quick enough (she is NOT a forklift driver--but is filling in for the time being because a guy got fired--and she can hardly even get a forklift because other guys always take them first). Also, another coworker saw a guy (he wouldn't tell me WHO) carrying a suspicious brown paper bag to work. LOL! (that's a stretch for evidence, i know)... and THEN, if the warehouse guy got handed the "products" by the truck driver... and he set them down--he should have picked them up and tossed them when he got out of the lift. Instead, I had to find them! So--yeah. It was just so weird. It's really not a big deal... I just don't want to have people pulling crap on me and Cathy. It may not have been that at all--but we still aren't sure... and it is just disrespectful. SO... that was my strange occurence today.

One final note--I talked to Cory last night on the phone (and again today).... but he mentioned that a guy from MY town... who lived above the Scarlet Cord (where we volunteer)... who has had my dad do work on his car.... was IN ALASKA... staying with people Cory's friends know. WHAT A SMALL WORLD! He was only a few doors down from where Cory was staying! I guess he was there for the Sled Dog Race or something. Just kind of tickled our funny bones! LOL!

Welp-I'm off to call Cory and get some SLEEP!