"Volunteering Jason"

I keep hearing from some of you who have worked with Jason through the years that he was always willing to lend a hand. I have a couple of great stories from his time with us last year. I volunteer for American Cancer Society and am involved in Tecumseh's Relay for Life. Last year when Jason was here, he came out while we were setting up our tent city on Friday afternoon. We had already had to change the location from the football practice field with the track around it to the high school parking lot because we had had so much rain that week. Jason came out to help up put up the big tents--like firecracker stands-- heavy plastic tents that are not easy to set up in perfect conditions. Just about the time he and some others were setting up one huge army tent, a wind and rain storm blew in and knocked the tent down on top of them all. They all came out from under that canvas one at a time soaked, frustrated, and laughing. We ended up having to move the relay inside; the only problem was that the Alumni building started flooding. Let's just say that what he volunteered for should have been much easier than what we had to do. He pitched in and helped just as I knew he would. The next morning we needed someone with a truck to take the big tent back to Shawnee, so I asked Jason if he could do it. He came down and found that a bunch of exhausted women were trying to take the tent apart. We eventually recruited a few others, but he kept looking at me like, "What have you gotten me into?"

A few months later our Sunday School class was asked to help another class prepare a meal for the Bible school workers. Our VBS is in the evening, so classes take turns preparing dinner for the teachers. Our class had never done this, so I didn't really know what to expect. The thing that our class has in common is that we all commute to church--anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes. I had some people bring food to me, and some dropped theirs off at the church. As I was leaving the house, I asked Jason if he wanted to ride with me to take the food to the church. He said he'd ride along with me; I thought we were just going to drop the food off and leave. As I said, we had never done this before. When we got there, we discovered that we were expected to serve the food and clean up after the dinner, and Jason and I were the only ones there. Again I kept getting that "look" from him. The funniest thing was that we had cooked Mexican food for adults, not realizing the obvious, the VBS workers had children, so we fed more kids than adults. Jason and I had made a huge bowl of guacamole that those kids looked at and turned up their noses. They would have been much happier with tacos and burritos than with Mexican casseroles, enchiladas, and taco salad. He pitched in and served those kids, helped me clean up and returned home hours later than we expected. I will cherish those memories forever of my selfless, adult son and the "look" he gave me the next I asked him if he wanted to help me with one of my projects.