Special Doesn't Begin To Describe It

Last week, we took the opportunity to volunteer with the Special Olympics. Some of us had served in this capacity before, but we thought it would be fun for all of us to participate together. We are trying to find more opportunities to serve as a family and this seemed like a good fit.

I know this is a blurry picture, but this will prove that we were all at MCC together helping to celebrate the accomplishments of some very special people.

One of our jobs was to be sure that the participants had plenty of water to drink while they were patiently waiting to be called for their event. Not to brag, but we did such a good job, that many of the participants were jumping around during their competitions because they really needed to go to the bathroom. Oops! But, most of all, they were jumping around because they were so excited and so happy and that was really a wonderful thing to see.

We had lots of time to talk with the participants and get to know them. What humble and honest people they are. If everyone in the world were that open, honest, happy and grateful what a different world we would live in. Each of the people we met that night were heroes navigating through a very difficult life experience with grace and humility and it was really inspiring.

Here are some of the participants waiting to "walk" their race. They were told to walk because they didn't want anyone getting hurt, but you couldn't keep some of the entrants from running because they were so excited to participate.

It seemed like most of the evening was taken just waiting for the actual sporting events to happen, but the participants were so glad to be there and so patient. They came from all over the state of Arizona and some told us that they were going to get to stay in hotels and that was really exciting to them.

Everyone was happy for each other, no matter whether they won or not in their competitions. We came away from the evening knowing that we really had been allowed to participate in something very special. Let us know if you are aware of any other family service activities that we might participate in and if you haven't had an opportunity to work with the Special Olympics we highly recommend the experience.