Bed and Breakfast?

I suppose that we are going through normal growing pains, but for a girl who doesn't trust easily anymore (not that I ever did) I have to wonder what is real and what comes with a catch.

My youngest son has made friends with a little girl across the alley, which is fine.  She is a total cutie and very precocious for five.  Her parents are also really, really nice.  Too nice maybe?  We live in a world where finding the good in people is sometimes difficult.  Let's face it, you can no longer get angry at someone on the highway in the event that the other driver could pull a gun.  "Nice people" in this day and age can turn out to be rapists or murderers or child abductors.  We live in an age where you can't necessarily take people at face value.  I wish I could, but there is always that little niggle at the back of my mind wondering what the bigger picture is.

So, the neighbor guy  has fixed a plumbing issue in our basement that would have cost us about $800.  He would only charge us for materials and the Brit managed to give the guy's wife money to go out and buy really good steaks for their dinner.  Now he is going to help put up the shed  out back.  His wife has hired my oldest son to help her out this summer and they have had both the boys up to stay the night.   My older son has hit it off with another boy that helps out the wife and I can barely keep track of the comings and goings through my house.  Not that I mind, except when I am put on the spot to have someone stay the night, who I have never met before and who is now standing in front of me while I am being asked this question.  It's a little awkward and though I have given the speech about the chain of spend the night or stay for dinner command, they don't quite get it yet. 

So I'm very torn between really liking these new neighbors and feeling a tad bit wary of them and it makes me a little bit sad.  I mean, I, on occasion, do nice things for my neighbors; homemade goodies for Christmas, loan out a tool, watch their kids for an hour while they can run to the store and I don't expect anything in return.  It's who I am and it's who I know other people can be too.  But it is sadly just so rare these days to find folks who don't want anything for their good deeds, but yet I don't want to be that person waiting for the other shoe to drop and land on my head.  So, I'm trying to be laid back about the whole thing and at the same time, keeping a watchful eye on it.

Did some work tonight on VBS sets at the church, and there is still more work to be done.  Truth be told, I'll be glad when it's over and the mission trip is underway.  Though I enjoy VBS, I live at the church that week, what with being employed there and then having to return a few hours later.  I am actually, really, really looking forward to a week of hard work with no monetary pay.  There is just something to be said about doing something just to be doing the right thing and the payoff is very personal.  Relay was like that.  Though it was miserably hot, there was a reason to be there and I feel like a better person for having been a small part of something that meant something.  I look for the mission trip to be more of the same and that I will be touched not only on a personal level but on a spiritual level as well.  When you are led into situations like that, you just know that you are about to be a part of something great.