Eye Opening

Monday, June 09, 2008

After my 8:30 a.m. staff meeting, Meri Whitaker, gave the mission work team that’s here for a week a tour around the Cookson Hills Center and Anna and I tagged along.

I heard some heart breaking stories:

A little girl came into Cookson Hills to get school supplies her parents couldn’t afford to buy her. The mother saw a bunch of canned food on one of the tables in the room and asked what they were for. As Meri explained that they were for families who couldn’t pay for food, the little girl broke out into tears and said she ate only salad dressing for dinner the night before.

Every year Cookson Hills sets up a store for parents to get Christmas presents that the United Methodist Women donate. Someone donated a statue of an angel one year and the Cookson staff joked around about how a child probably wouldn’t want that, but they laid it out nonetheless. Around that time, a home caught fire and the parents and two babies died in it; however, the two older children survived. The children were sent to stay with their grandmother, who was only bringing in $5000 a year. The Department of Human Services referred the grandmother to Cookson Hills so she could give her grandchildren Christmas presents. After she picked out her grandchildren presents, Meri said that she should take something for herself because it wasn’t fair for her not to have a gift. So, the grandmother took the statue of an angel—she said she was going to use it as a temporary headstone for her other two grandchildren because she couldn’t afford a real one.

While getting a tour around Cookson, I got to hear some of the staff’s stories. I met a recovering alcoholic who took his last sip April 3rd of last year. He’s going through drug court right now and has to serve 2 years at a non-profit organization. Because he didn’t have his license, he hitch-hiked 30-some miles to Cookson Hills every morning. I heard someone say today that Cookson Hills “employees the unemployable”.

As I have talked to a few recovering alcoholics, I’ve noticed that they can all tell me the date they took their last sip. A gentleman from the mission work team said he took his 17 years ago.

Speaking of the mission team—they are a singles group from Chapelwood UMC in Houston, Texas. Anna and I have had an awesome time with them. We went to the store with them and they bought so many things for the day care Anna is working with this summer. They even invited us to eat dinner with them and I had the best peach cobbler.

Because we stayed up late tonight and finished setting up the daycare area, some of the people from Chapelwood walked us back to the trailer Anna and I are staying in. On the way back, we saw the most beautiful sky. Stars that traveled on forever and a moon that shined so bright just filled the sky. It’s strange to think about how such a beautiful area can hurt so much.

Meredith