Work Day

Today we really worked. The morning was spent learnin

g about and working with the Delaware County Housing Coalition, a not-for-profit that works with the city of Chester to help improve neighborhoods. Sometimes they purchase run down houses and relocate the family before renovations and reselling it to a first-time home buyer. Sometimes they buy a whole row of houses that are too far gone to be renovated and build new houses in their place, which again go to first-time home buyers. (By city definition, these buyers have to make under about $40,000 for a family of four.) Often they do work like we did today at Mr. McDonald's home.

Mr. McDonald has had health issues and is not able to do much. He is on the end of the row houses, and a car knocked down his fence that was covered with ivy. The Housing Coalition replaced his fence, and today we pulled out the tr

ee stumps and ivy that were still there, raked the soil smooth and planted grass seed. We also cleaned up the trash, installed a window A/C unit and planted some shrubs.

When it was time to leave, Mr. McDonald came out and joined us for a prayer of thanksgiving for the chance to serve, for his allowing us to come and serve him, and for the ability to share the love we have.

Then we ate sandwiches we had made this morning at the church as we drove into Philadelphia to meet the RND team at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). We met with the psychiatrist who works with the program first. She explained the role of psychiatry in the program and talked to us about stress, how it effects our bodies and how we can manage it.

Then we met Dr. Sherri. What a fantastic guy. (He reminded me of the doctor Robin Williams played although I cannot remember his name right now. . . . anyone?) We talked about some serious stuff, and he explained it all without any appologies. The whole time he was making us laugh with jokes and marvel with magic tricks. There is a picture of him with our group in today's gallery. You will undoubtedly agree that he must be the cutest doctor (in the world or was it just CHOP?). After all he kept mentioning that, so it must be true!

OUCH!

Then we went to the basement to meet with OT and PT teams that work with Dr. Sherry's team and the RND patients. They got us all involved in the exercises and we were amazed at how challenging they were even though we didn't have the stress of really having to perform, and we didn't have the pain the RND patients have to work through.

Dr Sherri's team spent a total of almost 4 hours with us. That was a remarkably generous gift of their time, and it not only helped us understand Steph and RND better, I believe it fit well into our week. We have been learning about issues that keep certain people from living life the way we do. RND does not discriminate based on economics or education or race or anything, but in some ways it keeps people from living the same generous and happy life we most often do. The courage and stregnth it takes to deal with this invisible pain, and even more to intentionally make it so much worse in order to rewire the nervous system is phenominal. Dr Sherri used the example of feedback in music. When the microphone is put in front of a speaker, it creates a loop of sound that gets louder and louder. This is what happens with RND and even the lightest touch. The signal gets feedback from the brain and the sensation is amplified and doesn't get turned off. Was it hard for the OTs and PTs to push children through such pain to rewire their nerves. "No, because we see that it works with the children who come out on the other end and can get back to a normal life." These are truly special (and cute) people.

be peace.