Friendship Visits on the Hope

As difficult as the biking could get sometimes, I always knew that at the end of the day there would be a crowd there cheering us in. I didn't get it at first, how much we meant to the people we visited with, but over time through more friendship visits, I realized that many of the organizations we met with eagerly looked forward to our arrival in their town much of the year. The friendship visits ranged greatly in the activities that we participated in as well as the number of clients we worked with. Some involved going to a baseball game, singing karaoke, games like bowling, puppet shows, dances, bike rides, and more. Some also just consisted of dinner or lunch and good conversation. The friendship visits were almost always a blast though. I had some great conversations with some very interesting people, and got to learn about all that was happening in their lives. I got to work with all ages, ranging from young kids to elderly adults. In the few hours we had at the visits I would try and learn as much as I could about people, but there is only so close you can get to someone in that short of a time period. I guess that is one of the downfalls of always being on the move, is that we are so mobile that we have a very limited amount of time to impact each town. We got to spend time with people who excited to see us, interested in what we were doing, and happy and excited about life. Working with people with disabilities certainly reaffirmed what was important in life, and reminded me to never take the little things for granted. Life can change in the blink of an eye, and so every day should be valued. We worked with people with varying types of disabilities, both mental and physical, and varying degrees of disabilities. Some had disabilities so minor you could not even notice unless they pointed it out to you. Others had disabilities that were quite debilitating and greatly limited functionality. What was important to take note of though is that so many of the people we worked with who had disabilities that limited some aspect of their life, had more impressive abilities that pushed them to be interesting, intelligent, contributing members of their community. Many times in our culture people who appear different are so quickly pushed aside and excluded because of their differences, when what makes people different from others, defines them and makes them that much more interesting. My experiences this summer have taught me to always dig deeper in all relationships, and don't take whats on the surface at face value.