Laundry

Just when you thought YOU had a lot of laundry...

Try washing clothes for 180 kids!

In the heat.

By hand.

With detergents that cause your skin to peel after just one day.

With flies buzzing all around you.

Washing sheets that are stained with poop, onesies that are drenched in spit-up, and shirts that reek with sweat.

My roommate Bethany helping with the washing

Your tools: A hose, a couple of buckets and large wash basins, and some balls of soap.

Your dryer: A clothesline on the roof, causing you to have to take many trips per day up and down the stairs, bearing loads of clothes so heavy, it takes two people to carry them.

The dry clothes then have to be folded, sorted, and taken back down the stairs to the clothing room, where there are huge baskets and bins for every size under the sun.

Your work is never-ending.

Even if you did somehow manage to finish all the clothes, your work would start up again tomorrow with a vengeance.

And imagine if it rains!

When Hurricane Sandy brought us four consecutive days of rain, we got a backlog of clothes so large, the bundles started piling up in the schoolroom.

And then--


Do all this with a smile on your face and a song on your lips, a faithful energy and an unflustered spirit.

And you'll be approaching the quality of our laundry ladies.

These two ladies do such a good job!

• • •

Now go take that laundry you've been procrastinating on, dump your clothes in the washing machine, add some soap, start it up, and walk away. While the machine is doing all the work for you, freeing you up to do other, more interesting things, think about these two ladies and say a prayer of God's blessing for them.