It is Saturday night. I am waiting for the Utah Jazz game to start. There was a problem with the shot clock in the Atlanta-Boston game, so the Jazz game will start even later than scheduled, about 10 our time. I don't think I'll be able to stay awake for the whole thing, but I''ll give it a shot (wow, that sounded old). Living in the Central time zone makes it a little tougher to watch any late game, but especially Western ones.
Today, I went out for my first day of homeless outreach in Des Moines, and actually my first homeless outreach experience in a couple years. I didn't realize how much I really miss doing it all the time! I went out for the whole day with a small group from church. In the morning, we met up with a guy from Hope Ministries at their shelter in downtown Des Moines. He took us down to the tent camps along the Racoon River. We got to meet some people and talk to them, and give them food, water, and toilet paper. Most of the people are camped below the levee on the banks of the river, which is rising fast and was threatening to flood the camps out by afternoon. We also left supplies in some of the camps where nobody was home.
I would have loved to spend the whole day visiting the camps, but we headed back to the shelter to eat lunch and take a tour. The shelter has been in operation for over 90 years, and is an incredible operation, clean and efficient. The men that come in for the night can choose to stay and go through a program of recovery, discipleship, and work. Hope Ministries has other facilities for women and for guys who are further into the program. One thing that impressed me is how efficiently they put volunteers from all the different churches to work. In general, the churches in Iowa seem to work together really well.
After lunch, we went out to the Eastern edge of Des Moines to Hope's thrift store, and worked hard moving furniture out onto the sales floor and into storage in a semi trailer. It was a workout. I got home in time to play with Asher and do the first full mowing of the lawn for the year. Actually, there is a whole part of the yard I couldn't mow, because it is underwater. As I hinted before, it has been very wet here. It rained 5 inches the other day. The rivers and some Iowa towns are flooded, and everything is soggy. We have a low spot behind our house that never really dries out, but right now it is a pond. I tried to see how far out I could mow, and learned what happens when a running lawnmower suddenly sinks into water deeper than the blade. As you might imagine, there was a loud "Thwu-Thwu-Thwu!" noise and I was splattered with grass, then mud, then water. So, the back end of our yard is still wild for now, with lush grass and plenty of open water. The birds love it! We have had a great variety of birds in our yard this spring, despite the fact that a huge flock of Brewers Blackbirds have taken over. They are big, smart and agressive. Today, there were several doves that were giving them a pretty good battle, though. We also saw our first squirrel stealing from the bird feeders. The wild rabbits like to hang out underneath, eating the spilled birdseed. Asher really loves to see the bunnies, even the big one last night that he thought was trying to steal his soccer ball. The animals are starting to lose their fear of the dog, which aggravates her to no end.
Asher is still singing "take me out to the ballgame" all the time, which is really cute, but sometimes a little startling, especially when he suddenly starts the song in the midde of a store, shouting "TAKE!" Harry Carey would be proud. Asher talks pretty much nonstop now, with a constant running commentary of what he sees. He is hilarious.
The Jazz and Rockets are on now, and it looks like the Jazz might have another tough game ahead of them. This entry is getting really long, so I think I'll bring it to a close. Tomorrow, we don't have anything on the docket except for church. Hopefully, it won't be too cold, rainy or windy. Go Jazz!
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