Oil, Kids, and more kids

Today hasn't been much of an exciting day, its been busy but not very exciting. I started my day off by arguing with a woman at a car dealership about an oil change. I had to get the church van's oil changed. My secretary was supposed to arrange everything and I was supposed to take the van's. Well I show up and the lady hands me a bill for $30. I told her it was supposed to be charged to the church and that should have been arrange by the secretary who made the appointment. She storms off, comes back huffing and puffing, then hands me a receipt and no thank you or anything and says a bill will be sent.

Then it was off to the Melting Pot. I talked with a woman there for about an hour. I see her at the coffee shop a lot but she would never talk to me. She had plenty to say today. She is a foster parent and I asked her what it was like to have them and what a person has to do to have foster kids. Its all really sad. She has been a foster parent for 9 months and has already had 19 different children live at her house. For the most part they stay for a couple days or weeks and then return to their homes but right now she has 2 girls that have been living with her for four months.

The sad part is some of these kids if they come from a home where the parents use Meth show up at her doorstep with nothing on but a hospital gown. Due to the chemicals used to make meth the kids are not allowed to take anything with them when they leave their house, they have to go to the hospital to be sterilized and then dropped of at the foster parents house. This lady told me on several occasions she had to go to wal-mart at 10 o'clock at night with a kid wearing only a long t-shirt. That's it, no shoes, no underwear, no socks, just a big t-shirt. Then the foster parent has to pay out of their own pocket for the clothes the kid needs. Most of the time they do not get reimbused and if they do it takes around 3 months to receive a check from the government.

I though it would be cool if the church did a gift card drive to wal-mart, or k-mart, or target so that if a foster parent gets a call in the middle of the night and a kid shows up in a hospital gown they could call the church and receive a $25 or $50 gift card for clothes. I'm not sure how to get it done but I'll be talking to some people around here and maybe get something going.

I also ended up at the elementary school in town today. A man in my church who is a conservation officer did a presentation on hurricane relief work that he was a part of to all the 6th graders at the school. I had a wonderful conversation with a group of kids after the presentation about how a person would go about hunting an alligator. One kid concluded, "I'd just get my grandpa's shotgun and blow his head off!" as all the other kids cracked up laughing.

I'm pretty sure he was serious though.

Pictures of my dog will be up hopefully tomorrow, sorry for the delay.