A.C.T. Day Five

March 24th

I'm certain that today by far was my favorite day spent at ACT. We all woke up a little sleepy from the night before at the movies, but we were really looking forward to making our very last day count.  When we got to the site my goal was to talk to as many of the clients as I could, and spend as much time with them as possible, since we would be leaving in only a few short hours. One thing that happened that morning really touched me. One of the clients who had a lot of motor troubles told us to meet him outside a vending machine area around 9:15. Here, he surprised us all with beaded bracelets he had made and thanked us for being there that week. Though to an outsider this seems like such a simple, meaningless gesture, it really touched us all because knowing all the physical disabilities this person had, and knowing he made all these beaded bracelets all alone was such a task to have completed. He probably spent hours doing this all for us, and that really meant a lot to us. I also spent a lot of time today with a few of the kids I really connected with throughout the week. It was so hard to say goodbye to them! The children made us all cards with their handprints on them saying thank you, and I was very happy to know we had impacted them in some way. After saying our goodbyes to the children, we were off to say goodbye to the IMPACT clients. This I was not looking forward to at all. Our week here went by way too fast, and I was not ready to say goodbye to these great people I had gotten to know so well over the week. After a ton of hugs, pictures, waves, and a few tears, we finally said our goodbyes to the IMPACT room. It was hard to leave them, but I really think we made a difference in them, even though it was such a short time we were there.
The ACT staff was so great during the week, and they even took us out to an amazing lunch on our last day. We went to a wonderful little mexican cantina restaurant, and the food was incredible. We got to talk a lot with the staff over lunch and got to know them so well. I felt like it was the perfect ending to the week we spent there. We were stuffed to the brim on leaving that delicious restaurant, but still wanted to do a few things since it was our last day in Dallas.
We drove up to Fort Worth today and decided to look around TCU's campus. It was beautiful, but nothing like being a Jayhawk of course.  Next, we decided we HAD to go back to the Stockyards because we had so much fun there a couple days ago. Here, we shopped at little western shops, and even saw a few people with KU gear on, which made us all feel welcome.  At four, there was a cattle drive down the main street of the stockyards, which was really neat to see. The town was so authentic to old western times, and we really enjoyed it.
Next, we made our way to downtown Dallas and walked around and explored. We got icecream and then went back to our church for some downtime before the big NCAA game!
Around nine, we made our way to Buffalo Wild Wings to check out the games! It was a blast. The place was packed and we even found ourselves running into some Jayhawk fans. It was a close call, but the hawks pulled off their win, which was a sweet, sweet ending to our day.
We got back to our church completely exhausted tonight, but I feel really good about today, and this entire week in general. Though, I am very much looking forward to returning home, I am so glad that we came to ACT and did what we did. I learned so much about myself and really tested my limits. This week was a wonderful learning experience, and I am very thankful I was granted this opportunity.