Okay okay, don’t get too excited. I
volunteered at a hospital, I was not taken there because I was
sick.
But the title got you interested
didn’t it?
The Adventist hospital offered
several areas in which to volunteer. The primary area they wanted
help in, however, was to collect money. This is what I did for the
month.
Sounds fun right. An introverted
foreigner is going to walk around and ask sick people for money?
Actually……..it was fun. And here
is why: purpose and attitude. We were asking for donations to raise
money- (and I think awareness more than that) for children to get
heart surgery when they could not otherwise afford it.
Somehow, it just did not seem too
difficult to ask for help to save a childs heart.
The first day on the job, one of my
teammates, Kat, led the charge. Having done similar fund-raising in
the past, she set an example that I could learn from. After that, all
of us presented our pitch at various times. Strangely, I found myself
talking a lot. Maybe even more strangely, I began to like it.
Which brings me to attitude. There
was a lot of attitude going around- but in surprising ways. I
would get to the hospital
and have absolutely no desire whatsoever to get out and collect
donations. I didn’t want to smile, or
to
be cherry and talk. Especially
later on when we
were all fighting colds. But
I would
begrudgingly ask for a better attitude. Then
while talking
to the first person- after
slapping on a happy
attitude- magically it
would become real. I would feel happy 
and pour out my happy vibe. The
cool thing is, It seems like people can sense that and respond to
a good spirit–
like you could cheer some people up by sloshing joy onto
them.
Honestly, that was what gave the task life. The attitude of the
people we were asking for donations from. There they were, in a
HOSPITAL for crying out loud! Facing who knows what kinds of
problems, and yet, so many of them gave. More often than not with a
smile. I never expected that.
One day Ashley and I
gave our speech to a woman who had a little girl with her. The girl
was probably around six, and it looked like she had hurt her arm. As
the mother dropped her donation in the box she told us about her
daughter. The little girl on her lap was one of the children who had
received the heart surgery. What can you say after that? Crazy
