A Perspective of Allendale

I’m helping out with Sender’s T-ball team. It’s been fun to run around with a handful of 5 – 7 year olds, and it turns out that two of his teammates live right down the road from us. After practice one night, we stuck around to play on the nearby playground, when the grandfather (who I have talked with once) of those two kids walked up to me.

“Are you staying here long?” he asked.

“No, sir. We’re about to leave. Why? Can I help you with something?”

“I needed to go to Fairfax, and I was going to ask you to bring my grandkids home when you were done.”

So, a man that I had talked with once before was about to entrust me with his grandchildren. It was encouraging (that he saw something in me that he could trust), but still a little shocking.

Then again, we had a great opportunity to trust our home and our kids in the hands of some other strangers. You can read more of the story my parenting blog, in the post Strangers in the Night.

Here were two guys traveling around the country, in search of stories from real America, and in search of answers to the question, “What is your philosophy on life?” They accepted my invitation to come to Allendale, and created the video below.

They said this had been the most difficult video to put together up to this point, and I did not want myself to play such a prominent role, but I think they did a good job capturing a lot in a 5-minute video — from stories of despair to aspirations of hope.

You can read more about the video here, read a more personal journal about their experience here, and see a few pics here.

What do you think about their video, and their project?

Related Link:

• Hospitality Is Not What You Think It Is (CBC Talk — Part 2)