Prologue

We stayed at church to help prepare for Vacation Bible School. VBS would start tomorrow, so we had a lot of work to do with decorations. We had a "jungle" theme, which involved making tall palm trees out of wood, cardboard tubes, paper, and wire. I had helped produce a large number of "leaves" for the trees a week ago, so we were mainly cutting the final leaves out, taping them to coat hanger wire, and then taking them to the people building trees to attach at the top.

In the morning, I had taken Benadryl to help get rid of something bugging my eye. I'd been bothered in the past by allergies that made my eyes red, itchy, and watery. Because I was taking Benadryl, my eyes were clear but my head was foggy.

I had been interested in getting another chance to go to Louisiana, and I had read the Servants Unite! blog a couple of days ago. There, I saw a post about another team heading to Louisiana. There was mention of some kind of news crew, but the arrangements weren't definite, and that fact did not stick in my memory for long. What I hadn't realized was that the meeting was today at 3:00 P.M. It was impossible for me to get there on time, since we stayed to work on VBS decorations until well after 4:00 P.M.

I considered the trip prayerfully, and recalled being told that I had three "personal" days left for this year. We use those "personal" days to handle things that aren't "vacation" time, like family emergencies, events that come up unexpectedly, and other similar things. Since they expire just like vacation days at work, I had to "use them or lose them." Anyway, I sent an email to Servants Unite! and asked if I could know the details of the trip and told them I would sign up if I could get permission to take my personal days off.

They sent me a reply that the trip would be for one week, just like my first trip. Arrangements might change based on needing to add more people to the crew, but in any case, they welcomed my coming along. All I had to do was get permission from work.