Dogs and Service!!!

Hello blog readers,
It has been a while since I have updated, and there are several worthy updates worth sharing.

Firstly, two weeks ago I was preparing for my comprehensive examination (the second of three major exams in grad school). One night, as I was walking home by myself, it began to snow quite heavily. My mind was still on my studies, and for the most part I was in my own world as I was walking along. Because of the snow I was also looking down at the ground for the most part to avoid snow flakes perpetually bombarding my eyes. Just as I had crossed a not-so-often-used street, I decided that it was time to look up. There before me was a woman with two golden huskies. Beautiful looking dogs. She was graciously moving off the sidewalk with the dogs as I began to pass her. Well, just as I was passing her, the dogs began to bark, and try to pull away from her. Being huskies, and she of smaller stature, they won the tug of war. One of the dogs cornered me in front playfully biting my glove (didn’t sink through), and the other did the customary sticking of the nose in my butt routine. The lady quickly corralled the dogs, apologized, and I began to move on. However, about a block or so further down the road, I began to realize that my rump was hurting a little bit, and the more I walked the more I realized that it hurt more and more. When I arrived at home I inspected and sure enough, that dog had sunk his tooth into my rump (I still wonder how he pulled that off). No worries though, all is well. I took my comps on the next day and all went well.

Secondly, for the past week I have been in Wheeling, West Virginia with our church youth group on a mission project. It was a great opportunity to serve God, and to build relationships with the community and the kids. Wheeling is an extremely impoverished city that seems to be vanishing. Over the last 30 or so years about 40% of the people there have moved away. Everything is run down, and really probably should be condemned and raised. However, there are still people living there and in need of so much of the basic things in life that we (at least I) take for granted on a regular basis. I can certainly say that this trip has helped serve as a personal reminder not to take for granted all that I am blessed with. The amazing thing is that despite the poverty, and what seems to be such a hopeless situation, there is still hope in such a bleak environment. I had the privilege of working with two groups there that are committed to helping kids with after school programs, which many of these kids attend daily with diligence from 3pm to 9pm. They are using what they have to reach these kids, which in one case meant using an old abandoned church that was literally falling apart. Still, the love, the food, and the lessons that they receive there will undoubtedly make a mark on them for the rest of their lives. This trip has also made my studies here in school seem so very trivial—and I’ll just leave it at that for now. I have done service projects before, but they always seem to open my eyes in a different way each time, or at least re-open them.