COP (Capuchin Outreach Program) 2006

Capuchin Outreach Program
This was the second service week of our volunteer year. During the day you go out to different ministry sites in the Hudson Valley area and do service and then at night you come back and theologically reflect and socialize with each other. One of the main goals of COP is to make the connection between service to others as part of your faith.

I got the opportunity to work at Mustard Seed this week. Mustard Seed is a place run by these two nuns, Sr. Pam & Sr. Fran that works with migrant kids. They have a place for these kids to go in the summer to interact with other kids, learn, play and just be kids. I really could not have asked for a better site this week. I got the opportunity to plan a week of camp. Plus I got a tan from being in the pool all week.

Rita joked that I looked like I had gone to the Caribbean for vacation instead of working. I told her that it wasn't my fault that the kids all wanted to be in the pool, and needed to have adults with them.

One of the most rewarding experiences this week was teahcing Melissa how to swim. On Monday she would scream and hold on to you around the neck and not let go. Then Tuesday we got her to be in the water with her floaties on. Wednesday she was kicking and putting her head into the water. With the help of Ali on Thursday we got Melissa to put it all together and swim by herself. She was so excited to show everyone what she had learned.

This picture has, Kevin on my left and Melisssa on my right. Kevin was my little helper, he was always willing to do whatever needed to be done.

I truly love kids and it is so important for them to feel loved and have a place where they can be kids and enjoy the simple pleasures of the summertime.

One final thought on COP. I enjoy doing week long retreats and service projects because you get to know the teenagers much better. Yes Teresa you are one of the ones I enjoyed being around as well as my teens at Mustard Seed.

Hit the Deck!

Today began with a 4:30 am wake up call and a 5:00 am departure from the Red House. You ask why would you be up that early on a Thursday morning, well the reason is that the Moore family took us white water rafting today.

I had never been rafting so I was not quite sure what to expect. We arrived at the outfitter, and all got in our wet suits. Then we pilled on to a bus complete with our paddles, helmets, and PFDs to the put in site.

After arriving to the put in site we got our commands for paddling, like all forward, or all backward, or my personal favorite HIT THE DECK!(where you could fall out of the raft so you hunker down on the inside of the raft) and were put into the Hudson river.

I was sitting toward the back of raft and so for quite awhile I managed to stay pretty dry as Pokey and Carolyn got drenched up front. Although we did switch it up and I too got pretty wet. Also during the rafting tirp we got to do a little swimming and jump off a large rock. It was about 10- 15 feet in the air.

Our trip was pretty tame but we did paddle through some decent size rapids and even had a couple commands of Hit the deck. After about 5 hours of rafting we came to the end of our advenrture. Our guide did an excellant job and gave us some rougher water along the way.

On the way home we stopped at Panera Bread for dinner. One little catch, we needed to do community prayer. So we all shared about where, and through whom we had seen God that day in our rafting experience. It was neat to share our community prayer experience with Pat and Carolyn. They got an inside look at our Lay Assistant communtiy.