What a Trip!

What a trip it has been reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin while serving at a place I have never been to before this class has been an experience. For the past few weeks I have been going to Praise Chapel. I have now committed about 9 hours of service making and serving breakfast to struggling people in the bright early morning. The one thing I learned was the ripple effect is strong. Coming to Praise Chapel I met a lot of interesting people that I would have never met if I hadn’t served. There is this family that comes in together and Teresa basically runs the kitchen she cooks and is kind of like the boss. Teresa brings her kids in and they are so helpful. Because of the example Teresa and her husband set by cooking and serving breakfast to the less fortunate their kids want to help. It is so good to see little five year old kids asking to help with dishes and help serve orange juice to the people. The ripple effect is so strong in that area that people that were down on their luck have come back to serve. There is no difference between the people that come in for food and the humble servants of God because most of the time they are like the people of Korphe and help out as well. The ultimate goal is getting everyone fed and then cleaning up after ourselves and they help. Serving the people that come to Praise Chapel on Thursdays in at 730 till whenever people stop coming is one of the high lights to my week. When I was sick I felt terrible that I couldn’t make it in but I didn’t want to get them sick either. My life is richer now that I have started serving at Praise Chapel and I don’t want to stop serving because I may not do much but it’s important to somebody.

Similarities between Korphe and Praise Chapel

During my time at Praise Chapel I saw a few similarities between Mortenson's world and ours. At Praise Chapel people would come in and eat there but there were a select few that stayed and helped clean up. Like how Mortenson came to Korphe and the people were putting themselves to work so the school and the bridge can be built faster. An example of Korphe's hard working people is on page 139 "They know the school is being built by a rich foreigner, so they will work little and argue much. So we cut the stones ourselves."(Mortenson pg.139). Everyone is trying to work together to accomplish the same goal. Another parallel between service learning and Pakistan is at Praise Chapel the volunteers are selfless they spend their own money to buy the food. There is this family that comes in and cooks the breakfast sometimes they even use their own pocket book to pay, that is so extremely selfless. The parallel I found with that one is when Mortenson sold his belongings, so Korphe could have a school. A quote about that is on page 56 "At a used car lot in Oakland, he backed La Bamba into a space and sold it for five hundred dollars."(Mortenson pg 56) He sold his prize possession, his home, and faithful friend, so he could build a school across the world showing true selflessness. Other similarities found between Mortenson's experience in Korphe and Praise Chapel is both Korphe people and Praise Chapel are accepting. Any type of person can walk in Praise Chapel and they will treat them like family, their mission is to make the people that are down and out feel good and get them back on their feet. No one is gonna want to help themselves and then return the favor if they aren't treated as human beings. This parallels to Mortenson being accepted as a part of Haji Ali's family paraphrasing from Three Cups of Tea Haji Ali told Mortenson he must take time to have three cups of tea saying that once he has his third cup of tea with them, he will be family and that they are willing to die for their family. At Praise Chapel people act like family and are truly concerned about the other's well being. During my time spent at my service learning it has been a positive experience every time I go in.