(Rewriting this from memory – this is my blog from Thursday 10/16. Lost when my phone froze up.)

Today was our first day in Mendenhall with our full team of nine volunteers. Four people continued (and completed!) work on sealing the deck, while I led a team of five in cleanup of The Nursery.

The Nursery building had been damaged three years ago, as Katrina ripped off a large portion of its roof. The town had been evacuated prior to the hurricane, so upon their return, the staff found a building that had been flooded for three weeks. It took three years for the team to raise money, fix the roof, and do their best to repair the interior. Now, a stench of sewer gas still permeates the building and it has never been thoroughly cleaned.

Meanwhile, the K-12 school building is overcrowded, with its population approaching the legal limit for the facility. So it’s imperative to find an additional space for some of the school’s students, and the Nursery holds promise – IF it’s ready.

So our team had a lot of work ahead: we needed to scrub down bathrooms, walls and furniture, mop floors, paint a few walls, and air out the entire building. It would take all five of us, and it would take likely more than one day to complete.

Throughout the day, half of our team of teenage girls worked very hard. The other half, well, didn’t. They worked a bit, in between breaks, snacks, headaches, drinks of water, and hair emergencies. I became increasingly annoyed with them throughout the afternoon, making up my mind on which girls I preferred and which ones I would prefer to avoid.

In the evening, we were invited to spend the evening at the home of a local resident. After dinner, we drove to the home of Sharon and Gerhard, a retired couple who spend half of each year in Berlin, Germany, and the other half in Mississippi. Sharon, an African American woman from Philadelphia, met Gerhard, an accountant from Germany, while volunteering in Mendenhall in 1972. They have spent the last 36 years together, living around the world – in France, Tanzania, Rwanda, among other countries.

I was completely enthralled with Sharon and Gerhard. Questions flowed to my mind faster than I could ask them – and certainly faster than they could be answered.

But, this couple had a plan. Their intent was to learn about us, not answer our questions. Sharon and Gerhard led the conversation, taking time for each of the volunteers to describe why they came to Mendenhall, their impressions to date and a little about themselves personally. Some of the girls remained irreverant and self-absorbed, but I learned more about them in 90 minutes than I had in the last 24 hours of working with them side by side.

And so, I felt guilty. Convicted. These girls, whom I had written off for their lazy work habits, were on the same journey of self-discovery as I was. They had taken this trip to make a difference in the world, just like me. But I was oblivious to them. All it took to learn about these girls was curiosity and time.

This realization hit me hard. I was struck by how different each of us are, how our perspectives all have value, and how it takes each of us to make up this world. The world is not a place – it is a collection of people. A mosaic, that takes each of us to complete.

All it takes is the willingness to engage.