On Kaiizen and service

Kaiizen!! Yea!

I have always loved my involvement with Kaiizen and finally did something with them again. They helped out at the Utah half iron man down in Provo on Saturday. Wonderful is probably the right word to describe my feelings about the event. I wasn't feeling wonderful the whole time, but that's just part of being PREGNANT. I've never mentioned that on here.. but I am. That is also quite exciting. (I was tempted to wait and see if Jake would announce it if I waited long enough. He loves announcing it. I don't. But we're both super excited about it and are almost through the first trimester--Hallelujah!--so chances of a miscarriage are decreasing rapidly. Maybe after that I'll love to announce it too! We'll have to find another way to get Jake to post on here..) So anyway, back to Saturday. It was a cold, wet, windy day. They started the race 45 minutes late and almost cancelled the swim because of the wind. They ended up cutting the swim in half, and then they had the biking, then the running. (Probably close to the following distances: Swim .6 miles, Bike 56 miles, Run 13.1 miles)

I arrived probably 10 minutes late for my group which ended up to be quite serendipitous. No one really knew what was going on. I waited around for a few minutes before my friend Luke from Kaiizen showed up. Oh how glad I was to see Luke!! We waited around for a few minutes and then it was constant work from then on! We were placed at the first and last aide station for the runners. They all passed our station 6 times through their two lap run! So we were of vital importance and appreciated the help some of the supporters gave us. We filled drinks, cut bananas, handed out drinks, and treats, and directed the runners along their path.

Towards the very end of the race, we heard a story about one of the people in the race, Kyle Garlett. He had a heart transplant a few years ago after battling 3 separate forms of cancer. Our very own Lance Armstrong! He is training for a full iron man in October. So that was another pretty cool part.

So what was so wonderful about it all? It was cold, wet, hard work. And my goodness, for the most part those runners just treat us volunteers like crap. They won't stop to actually take a cup from you and don't care if there is a trash can. They throw their trash down and just expect that someone less important than them will pick it up. Wow. That took some getting used to. But several did thank us for being there and helping them out and many were polite. It wasn't the runners. It wasn't Luke's constant jokes. It was the feeling of serving! I am blessed to have a job and a church group where I am continually in the arena of serving, but it's SO DIFFERENT when it's something separate from all that. Something I never would have had to do. I am energized and rejuvenated when I get involved with that kind of service.

I was so grateful for the reminder of what Kaiizen meant to me and how lucky I was to get involved with them. I was able to go down to Mexico with them on 5 trips and those were trips I will never forget! Para los niños!!