Wednesday, September 15

Extreme Home Makeover


I spent the evening on the other side of town watching a couple hundred volunteers rebuild a school with Extreme Home Makeover. This school had been flooded in the spring floods earlier this year. If you watched any news footage of Nashville back at that time, you probably remember a portable classroom floating down the highway. This is the school that is now being helped.

I had gone in hopes of volunteering after school today, but when I got there, I was told that there were already too many volunteers for the evening. Good problem to have. So I did the next best thing and stood along the spectator fence. I probably stood for about an hour, watching the volunteers put together pieces of the project. Everything was well organized. The volunteers were happy and glad to be there. The evening air was warm and beautiful, the sunset full of color. There is something wonderful about the smell of lumber, and even more wonderful is the sight of a community working together.

I thought about the fact that at one point...this whole project...this whole show...was an idea in someone's head. When shared, this idea then sparked the ideas of a few more people. I wondered if at some point they had even imagined that the value of their idea would inspire the hard work and dedication of hundreds, even thousands, of others across the country.

I thought about the ideas in my own heart. I thought about the differences between the ideas of these producers and my own. They probably have a lot to do with vision, resources, implementation, and hard work. Nothing is impossible...it just takes follow through, it takes not giving up. It probably takes believing that the ideas and the dreams are worth running after.

In between all of those thoughts, I longed to do something bigger than myself. I longed to make a difference and love other people well.

PS - I also wished to see Ty...or someone from the show...lol. Maybe tomorrow. :)

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