USE YOUR GIFT

Yesterday's work project was something of a learning experience for me.

We left the hotel for our trek to the Superdome, just a mile away, to meet up with the buses to take us out of the area to our outdoor activity. The City Park is one of the largest parks in the U.S. The football stadium a few hundreds of yards from where we got out was under water as high as the goal posts.

The area where food supplies are brought in has a new wood fence around it, Our assignment was to spend five hours priming the fence so it could be painted by others today.

We had about 20 people in that assignment area, so we took paint brushes and paint pints and were pointed toward the fence. As expected, each person just started painting.

I looked at the area where I was working and realizes that I didn't want to sit on the ground to paint the bottom part of the fence where I was. But Erica was already doing that, so I suggested that we team up. I would do the "up" part, and she would do the rest.

After making some adjustments so I wouldn't be adding white splotches to her golden hair, we moved along well. "You are short. You probably think at time that your height is a problem, but here it is a real gift," I said. "Use your gift."

About two hours later on, when we finished our six hour work project, the site manager asked us if we liked pulling weeds. I sat and watched as others leaned over to pull weeds out of the ground. I hydrated and observed how people would take handfuls of weeds about 100 feet to dump them in a dumpster.

I saw some large plastic pails with handles, and it occurred to me that they could be useful. I gave one to a weed puller who was able to fill it in about 2 minutes. Then I brought over another empty pail and called an available teen to tote the full one away and dump it.

The idea caught on, and in a few minutes we were filling the dumpster so much that I asked a really tall teen from Wisconsin to use his height to reach into the dumpster to make room for more weeds. "You're tall. Use your gift," I said, and he smiled and said, "Good idea."

I must admit that as the crew moved ahead I started feeling guilty about being in a "supervisory" role until I heard my own words echoing in my mind, "Use your gift." One of my gifts is organizing available resources to get things done. I feel better now, much better.