We are on the Schedule

We arrived here on Sunday without a single wrong turn. Judy, the long-term volunteer coordinator, met us and gave us a quick tour of the apartment and the storage areas of the Inn. As we were unloading the car, Leo, one of the new Franciscan Volunteer Ministry members(FVM) came by and offered to help us unload. He also invited us to eat with the FVMers at their house, and meet the other volunteers assigned to Camden, NJ and Wilmington, DE.
We quickly took stock of our storage and put everything away. There is a bureau, but no closet, just a few hooks on the back of the door. There is a microwave, and intermittent television on a few channels (the elevated train obscures the signal when it passes.) There is no AC, but a good window fan in the bedroom and ceiling fans in the downstairs room.
We walked down the FVM house, and met the volunteers who will be working with us this year. There are 12 in all, and 4 assigned to the Inn, 2 males and 2 females. We were warmly welcomed, and had a nice time hearing their backgrounds, assignments as well as eating good food.
Monday we were given jobs to do. Mark went along on pickups. The summer intern is leaving Thursday who has been doing that job, so Mark will be doing lots of those in the days ahead. He goes to various bakeries and grocery stores to get donations of food. I was assigned as “troubleshooter” at the Inn, which meant that whatever needed to be done, I tried to do. I helped prepare the meal, answered the door, put salads in cups, washed pots, and got things ready for the evening meal. Mark served during the meal and I kept the tea pitchers filled for the servers. We had 355 guests for dinner. Since all these people eat in 1.5 hours, you can imagine that the turnover at the 12 tables is pretty quick. After the clean up, we had Mass, then a community meal, prepared this week by the friars. Monday is the only day we have Mass in the evening. The rest of the days it is at 8:30 am. I can tell you we returned home after the meal, very tired and ready for a good night’s sleep. Despite there being a lot of street noise, plus the elevated train passes almost over our house, we are able to sleep pretty well if we have the fan on high and our white noise machine turned way up.