The day my life changed

I am going back in time now. I am going back to the year 2000. The year that everything changed for me.

Part out of my journal...
June 17...

Denver, the beginning of a long and new adventure. After waiting long for our suitecases we went to the up with people booth. We were not the only one overthere. With a bus full of people we went to the hotel were everything would start.First I said hello to the people that I knew from the internet, Brizzen, berbie... and then we went to get our nametag. S here we are, now it is all for real. We had are first meeting and we went to see our hostfamilies. Tomorrow we already have a free day, we will need that to get some rest. I am ready for this adventure...

For the people who don't know what up with people is. It is an organisation who's purpose is to bring friendship and understanding. During the 6 months that we travelled we came in 24 states of America, we stayed in hostfamilies, did a musical but most importent we did community service.

We went in to the communities by staying in hostfamilies and I can't tell you a lot of stories. One day we slept in a big house with a lot of rooms, the other day we stayed in a cellar of an old house with very strange people. Staying with all these people opened my eyes. Everybody is making the best of there life with what they have; with the love of the people that life with them... We had nice meals and we had meals that we were scared of to eat them.

During community service we went to places where we painted houses, we went to play games with older people, we did a fooddrive... we did small things that brought a big smile to the faces of the people we where working with. Those smiles where in enough for us to see that what we did was good and made those people happy.

Even after 8 years I am trying to keep that spirit in me. I still try to help people were I can, doing little things that make them smile.

I still remember one of my castmates telling me on the last evening: I am going back to Africa and I am going to make a difference.

That sentence make me thing that even with little thinks we can make a difference in the neighbourhood were we live.

I can go on, telling about this. I think my blogg would be to small.
But one thing I know, the people that I met during those 6 months changed my life. And even that the most of them live at the other site of the world, I know that they are there for me and they know that I am here for them. Whenever they need me. They are my friends for life. And I hope that I will see most of them again when I am flying to the states in 2010 for our 10th reunion.

Cast A00, we are the best, I miss you and remember you will always be in my heart.

My week to Merelbeke

Last week I had the time of my live. Together with a group of 24 people with a mental handicap I went to Merelbeke, not far from Gent in Belgium, to give them the week of there live.
Of course I wasn't the only one to take take of that group of people. There were 11 volenteers who were there to entertain the groupe and to take care of the people.
It is so rewarding to see those people enjoy. And that gives the power to me to do this every year. The people that are going on the trip with us, are all adults. They all have a different dissability, so that is even a bigger challenge.

We did a lot of things with the group. We went to visit Gent by boat. And for me that was a big challenge. The guy, I will call him P, that I took care of, is a very challenging person to take care of. Especially when we went on the boat. He doesn't like water and boats so we thought that he wouldn't go on that boat. It took us 5 people and some strenght to get him on that boat. And the time we were putting him on the boat he didn't wanted to do that, but as soon a he was on the boat there was a smily on his face. He was enjoying the boattrip. He was waving to all the people that we saw. Those little smiles make my day.

The other things we did were bowling, a trip to the Belgian coast, walking, swimming, coocking... all kinds of stuff.
Most of the adults who came to the trip were smiling all the time. For most of them this is the only vacation that they have during the year. They are so happy that they can come with us to a place that they have never been to.

And for us, it is a very rewarding week. But at the end we are tiered. But at those moments, we have the adults to smile at us and to give us some strengt again to go to the next activity and to do it with the power of the first day.
We came home yesterday, and today we are already looking for a place to go to next year, and you want to know why, because we love to give those people the time of there life.

People

Facebook... maybe you will be thinking, why is she going to talk about facebook...
At this moment facebook is important for me. The reason for that is that after many years I am finding people back.

We all know that friends come in a certain time in our live. Some friends go, some stay. Sometimes I am thinking what happend to that person or what is that person doing in life. Thank to facebook I found some of those people back. It is strange. Some of them I haven't seen or heart from in a long time. But it seems like they still know who I am.
The best story happend to me today. Last week I had send an invititation to some friends. One of them an gu that I lived with in the dorms sended me a message that he is working again in Belgium from today on. And sitting in front of my computer, some one rang the bell of my appartment. It was him. Not knowing the address I was living, he went to the dorms an ask the keeper where I was living. He found my message yesterday and today he was here.

It is so amasing how fast the roads can come together again after a long time. And typing "roads can come together" I have to think of my Up with People adventure almost 8 years ago. Also for that facebook is just amazing. Who would have thought that after those 8 years I would find 75 people back. Some of them that I haven't seen since we left in Boston.

Life can change so much and we will always have friends, maybe they won't stay forever, but if you want you can find them back.
Ils