Post #6: Wish List

In my last blog, I talked about the camp I attended two weeks ago called New Wilmington Mission Conference. I went back to read my last post and realized that I got so busy talking about how other people were making a difference in the world, I forgot to talk about what I did while I was there. Each day I spent at camp, we had a mission hour.
My first mission experience was a trip to a local nursing home. My entire small group played BINGO and engaged in some interesting conversation with the patients for 2 hours. I met a woman named Iva. She had no children and had been living in the nursing home for a large number of years. She told me that she was raised in Illinois. She was the little old lady who always had a smile on her face, always had a story to tell and was friends with everybody. I was sad to leave when our 2 hours were up. The patients were thankful that we came and our group was more than happy to keep them company.
My next mission experience was the Walk Around the Lake. For every person that walked around the lake, 10 dollars went to the conference. They used this money for the Summer Service Team that the camp sends out every year. It was about 95 degrees out, sun shining and almost a 2 mile walk. I'm still not sure if it was worth it, ha ha.
Another mission experience I participated in was in a garden digging ditches. My group hiked a mile back into the woods to reach a garden. We found out that we would be digging ditches for a memorial. The memorial was for a woman who recently died that attended the New Wilmington Mission Conference since she was a little girl. Our work consisted of chopping roots with and axe, digging the ditches, and pouring rocks into the ditches. I also got to drive a tractor filled with dirt and dump the dirt in a giant pile. After our 2 hours of digging were up, we had to hike another mile back to campus, yay!
Now, I am moving on to what I have been doing this past week. The first thing I did for my bettering the world project was sent letters to St. Jude Children's Hospital. In response to my letters, they sent me a wish list that the children made. I saw the list and knew I had to make a child's wish come true. Last week I went out and purchased coloring books, markers, journals, white boards, books and puzzles to send to the children. I am really happy to do this because I can imagine the looks on their faces when they receive what they wished for.
Next week I am selling root beer floats at Kroger to raise money for Easter Seals (my Mom's work). My project is coming along great and the joy it brings me is the best reward there is.