Should I Be Nervous?

I’m finally getting fingerprinted tomorrow so that I can begin volunteering in the refugee transition house.  While this is exciting, I can’t help but be nervous about the background check.  Why?  Well I’ve never technically been in trouble with the law, however my ex from Texas led me down the wrong road of writing bad checks.  I’ve never really had the capability of taking care of the checks that were written on my bank account there, but I also left Texas before anything ever came of it.  Technically I’ve never been convicted of anything since I was not there.  I’m still worried that something will pop up preventing me from being able to volunteer for church.

Not only that, my job is now requiring that all employees have a background check completed.  If that doesn’t go through, I’m in trouble.  *sigh*  I’m probably worrying over nothing. 

First of all, the guy that is in charge of the bad check department at the Lubbock DA’s office knew my ex.  He knew that my ex did a lot of the things that I had nothing to do with.  I’m thinking that nothing will come of it.  A lot of the checks that were written weren’t even written by me.  My ex would write checks and then sign his name.  Who know’s how many he wrote.

Second of all, I’ve had background checks run on me in the past.  When I first came out to California with Jacob in 2004, I had to have a background check done to work at the temp agency I was going through.  Nothing had come up from that, and then I had to have a background check run on me when I started at STS.  The STS check was only for Santa Clara county though.  But the temp agency had complete the past 7 years of addresses that I had lived at which is the type of check my job is doing.  Guess I’ll just have to hold my breath and pray for the best.

Friday morning, I’m going to try and get up early enough so that I can go get my TB test done.  Last time I had my fingerprinting appointment set up, I forgot to go.  The TB testing is just done at a walk-in clinic, so I’m going to try and get in there before it gets to busy.

God willing that everything goes through without a hitch, I should be able to start volunteering in a week or so.  YAY!!!  I’m excited. 

I’ve heard so much good stuff about the people that are in the house.  Sue was telling us the other day that when she went over to the house with Andrea after the first refugee was supposed to have moved in, that they walked in the house to see if he was there yet.  Andrea called out "hello" while they walked through the house.  The young man came out of one of the rooms, and they got to talk to him.  He’s a Butanese refugee from a refugee camp in Nepal.  He had lived there since the time he was 6 years old, and he just now got out of the camp at the age of 23.  They started talking to him and asked him if he had gone outside at all.  He told them that he hadn’t gone outside simply because he didn’t know how to use the door.  These are the type of people that are coming to the house.  People who have never seen or used modern conveniences that we as Americans take for granted on a daily basis.  I am so eager to jump in and help them wherever I can.

So he was the first refugee to move into the house.  Now the house is full.  There is somewhere around 12 people living in the house.  I think Andrea said there were some more Butanese refugees and some Iraqi refugees as well.  To be able to help these people is going to be such a blessing in my life.  This is something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time now, and I’m so thankful that I found my church when I did.  My prayers have been answered.