2017 Youth Mission Trip to MMDC Day 2

Last night for supper we roasted hot dogs over the campfire and made ’smores. The 95 degree temperature cooled off and there was a nice breeze to blow the smoke away.

 This is the new bike shop in the third warehouse. Rims are stored outside, and up above is room to store sewing machines.

Here is the truck from the Iowa Annual Conference that was unloaded first thing this morning. The desks that Jay Cutler's team from Trinity assembled are on the center left.

Here the desks from Trinity are loaded onto a pallet.

Alex and Keely joined Bill in the bike shop today. They inflated tires and rode the bikes to make sure they worked okay.

A new quonset outside the back of the bike shop allows for somewhat protected bike storage. Previously, the bikes were stored outside in the elements--even in the snow during winter.

Bikes are repaired for pastors in foreign countries to get from one parish to another. They also go to those in need. After the flood of 2008 twenty-five bikes came to Cedar Rapids for children whose bikes were lost in the flood.

The back door to the bike shop opens to the area where the quonset is conveniently located.

There were a few flood cleaning buckets in the truck from Iowa Annual Conference, so we got to sort more supplies into bins.

Things got a little crazy as they tried to “dunk” items like clothesline into the bins.

 Josh and Caden built school desks this morning.

Upstairs above the wood shop is  “The Upper Room” is where school desks are sanded and a coat of polyurethane is applied.

After lunch we started assembling one-handled school bags.

Heather packed 16 school kits in each box. During the day we packed 40 boxes for a total of 640 school kits.

 

Caden helped tape boxes of school kits closed, weighed them, and wrote the weight in pounds on each box before they were loaded on a pallet and taken to the warehouse for stretch-wrapping.

 The pallet of school bags was taken to the second warehouse where it was stretch-wrapped on a new machine that wraps it automatically.

At the end of the work day, we ran out of scissors so we quit a little early and cleaned the workroom. Everybody pitched in to vacuum, wash windows, clean bathrooms, sweep the floor, consolidate and carry out the garbage.

Tomorrow afternoon we will be sorting the donations that came from Iowa and Charles City.

 Outside the third warehouse there are stakes to mark the area that a new loading dock will be built.

Before supper Heather and the kids took the van and went on an adventure. They found a park to expend a little energy.

While they were gone, Susan and Grandma Grace prepared spaghetti, garlic bread, and salad which was ready when the rest of the team returned to the MMDC campus. Pastor Jim arrived tonight about 8:15, we had devotions, and now there is a nighttime game of "capture the flag" before quiet time begins at 10:00 with lights out at 11:00. Tomorrow morning we are going to New Salem to see Abrahan Lincoln's boyhood home. Then we will be back to work at MMDC in the afternoon.

2017 Trinity UMC Mission Trip

On Sunday, June 11 we headed to Chatham, IL, for a week's working mission trip to Midwest Mission Distribution Center (MMDC). We stopped in Peoria for supper at Five Guys Burgers where Keely and Alex hopped atop bags of Idaho potatoes used in their endless French fries.

 Since we didn't take a photo when we left the church,  after we unloaded at the MMDC dorm and were headed to the grocery store, the 6 kids and Heather posed by the sign out front. (Top L to R) Keely, Josh, Caden (Front on ground) Alex, Heather, Grace,  Koyer. Sorry it’s a little dark--it was almost 9 p.m.

Heather manned the shopping cart at Meijer's. Everyone was given assignments to go pick up groceries for the meals she planned for the week At the checkout she suggested we each guess what the total amount would be, and the amount closest to the total would win a pack of gum as a prize. Susan won guessing only $1.99 over the total amount spent!

 The pony ride was free, so Alex hopped on.

Caden waits at the checkout counter.

Keely and Caden ham it up. Caden’s big purchase at Meijer was a $4 pair of pajamas--knock-off faux Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles design.

On Monday after pancakes and sausage for breakfast, we headed to the workroom. We handed in our medical forms and went through safe sanctuary training before going into the new third warehouse to sort items donated from Annual Conferences throughout the upper Midwest.

On-site coordinators for this week are Mike and Karen Vaughn. They hail from Texas. Throughout the week they will direct us in our tasks.

First, we sorted items from donated flood cleaning buckets into bins. Yes, donated kits are disassembled to make sure all of the items fit the United Methodist Committee On Relief (UMCOR) specifications. For example, the bottles of laundry soap must be two 25 ounces bottles or one 50 ounce bottle, etc. If it isn't the correct item, it is redirected to other mission projects besides UMCOR.

We filled one of these bins with two layers of laundry detergent!

And these are the 5 gallon buckets we emptied during the first morning. (L to R) Koyer, Alex, Caden, Keely, Josh, Grace, and Grandma Grace. 

Susan reconnects with long-time friend and local MMDC volunteer Marilyn Markus. A local Chatham resident, she and her husband volunteered for years bundling 6 Band-Aids with a rubber band for Health Kits before he passed away two years ago; they’re known as the Band-Aid Kids.

Susan requested senior school desks for an orphanage in Haiti where Alpha Delta Kappa International teachers’ sorority is building a secondary school. They were finished last week at MMDC and await shipping to Dennison, OH, to go into a container bound for Haiti.

After lunch we finished sorting some bags of supplies that came in from Annual Conferences--school supplies, layette kit supplies, health kit supplies, flood cleaning bucket supplies. Then we went into the workroom to roll trash bags finto bundles of 12. We rolled 183 bundles, which equates to 2,196 thirty-gallon trash bags or the flood cleaning buckets.

It was 95 degrees when we quit work at 4:00. Heather and the kids made a run to the grocery store, and Susan and Grandma Grace had naps! Now the kids are playing outside while Heather builds a fire to cook hot dogs and ’smores for supper.

Colonoscopy chronicles--day of procedure

Last night about 4 hours after taking the laxative cleanse, I was able to go a half hour or more without any elimination. I drank 32 oz. of apple juice for a late supper. By the time I went to bed  2 hours after that, I had gone an hour between bouts on the toilet. I didn't wake up in the night with the urgency to go--just normal once or twice overnight.

This morning I got up at 5:00 and took my high blood pressure medicine. Half an hour later I mixed the second dose of SUPREP. Knowing how it tasted made it a little harder to get it down. I think I shuddered more this time from the taste. I also drank 32 more oz. of H2O as prescribed.

Exactly 15 minutes later I began passing the water through my intestines. There isn't any abdominal discomfort because, hey, it's only water.

Colonoscopy chronicles--two hours later

I can spend about 20 minutes in the recliner before I have to go to the bathroom. I became curious after it seemed like all 48 oz. of water came out through the intestines. I did a little research and learned that only about 120 ml or 4 oz. are stored in the bladder!

It's comforting to know that one of my friends is going through this at the same time. She checks into the hospital at 10:15 tomorrow, right after me. Where are we going to celebrate when this is all over?

Colonoscopy chronicles--one hour after starting the cleanse

I'd been back to the recliner for about five minutes AGAIN and felt the urge to return to the toilet. Watery stools twice. Tried to get up, and there it goes again. Not many solids now. Wonder if I'll sleep on the toilet tonight.

Feel free to stop reading if it's too much information for you.

Back to the recliner for 5 minutes. Back into the bathroom. I figured I'd pass urine a lot since I drank so much water, but nooooo....

Guess I'll just stay here a while.

Colonoscopy chronicles, 15 minutes later

And so it begins...I feel a little like passing gas and figure it would be wise to sit on the toilet. Soft BM but it's pale green like I've never seen. (I warned you--TMI.)

I'm playing games on the iPad and go sit in my recliner. Five minutes later I'm back in the bathroom, and now I have watery stools.

I go back to my recliner but that doesn't last but a few minutes. I don't have cramps, and my esophagus still feels full of all that water I drank. More watery stools. Figure I'd better give up going back to the recliner. At least we have a padded toilet seat, if I'm going to be here a while.

Colonoscopy chronicles

So in half an hour I start "the cleanse" for a routine colonoscopy. About 2 years ago the doctor wanted me to have a "baseline" colonoscopy. I got the goop to drink to the tune of $190 dollars (I could hardly believe that!) and the procedure was scheduled. However, the doctor suggested I call my insurance company, just to make sure.

At the time I was retired but still under the school district's insurance. They denied coverage, and, fortunately, the pharmacy took back the kit since it hadn't been opened! The doctor said it would be okay to wait a couple of years until I was on Medicare.

Well, now that I am 65, I decided to make this one of the numerous free tests you can get during your first year on Medicare. The doctor's office set it up here in the ol' hometown with the new surgeon. I was supposed to go for a consultation on the day I was to pick up my mom at the Minnespolis airport, so they rescheduled for a week earlier.

But then the new doctor's nurse called to say he was going to be out of town that day, so they would send me a packet of information and the prescription. Guess I'll be meeting Dr. Fuller in the O.R.

Anyway, imagine my surprise when I went to fill the prescription for this "free" test and discovered that, even with Medicare and a $20 coupon that was in the packet, the prescription cost me over $70! It still costs $190 total and I haven't reached my prescription supplement's deductible in the past 3 1/2  months! But at least I only had to pay less than half out-of-pocket.

The surgeon's office called me 2 days ago to set the time of the procedure for 9:30 tomorrow morning. I could only have a liquid diet today (no milk, no alcohol, nothing red or purple in color). So far today I have had a sip of H2O with my HBP meds this A.M., a bowl of chicken broth, and a bottle of diet 7up for lunch. Guess I'll be dropping a few pounds during this ordeal. (That's a positive even if it'll mostly be poop.)

So I'm off to the kitchen to mix 6 oz. of SUPREP with 10 oz. of water, followed by 2 more 16 oz. glasses of H2O.

Okay, that wasn't so bad. It tasted sort of citrus-y but a little salty. The hard part was getting down 32 more ounces of water as a chaser! Surprisingly, the SUPREP was clear like water, not like the old thick and chalky barium people used to have to drink.