ENUMCLAW — Meet the flockers.
They’re dressed in black, armed with flamingos and bound for a slum outside of Johannesburg, South Africa.
When the last light has drained out of the day, and, preferably when the moon is dulled by clouds, they venture into the streets of Enumclaw, and occasionally Buckley.
Arms full of recently harvested pink plastic flamingos, they pile out of their vehicles and, in a matter of minutes, stake the fake birds into the lawns of unsuspecting residents.
Then, desperately suppressing their laughter, they sneak back to their cars and roll off into the night.
This nightly trafficking in lawn ornaments has earned them about two grand since April 1.
For $25, an Enumclawer can sic the Presbyterians on a friend, neighbor or attorney.
For $35, an Enumclite can get on the protected list and be assured of a flamingo-free enumclawn.
The cash helps cover the mission trip 18 members of Enumclaw’s Calvary Presbyterian Church plan to take to the Johannesburg slum of Finetown Township in July.
Granted, $2,000 is birdseed when you’re trying to raise $72,000 to cover airfare, ground transportation and lodging at the Good News Nazarene Conference Center, but you can hold only so many garage sales, auctions and spaghetti dinners.
Flamingos are a different matter.
Enumclovians’ appetite for, or fear of, the flashy pink lawn stakes appears to have no bounds.
The effort was intended to last only a month, but the demand outlasted April and appears to have the long, skinny legs to make it through May. Perhaps beyond.
Two years ago, Lane Eldridge led a mission trip to Zambia. This year, she is making the arrangements for 18 fellow church members to spend two weeks working with AIDS patients.
“We’ll be working in a hospice center,” said Eldridge. “Once people are infected, they’re left by their families. A lot of times they’re alone. We’ll also do home-based work, delivering medicine and food.”
They’ll also be working in schools, said Ronda Henry, a special education teacher and cross-country coach.
There are preschool teachers there without any education,” she said. “One of our tasks is to teach them how to be better teachers.”
Though such short-term missions are popular among congregations and denominations, Hardy’s fielded criticism. What right do they have to do faith-based work in a country they don’t know? Why don’t they do work at home?
They do work at home, she replies. Abroad, they are tackling unmet needs.
Coincidentally, live flamingos are native to South Africa.
Plastic ones, not so much.
“We bought them from Home Depot for $2 each,” Eldridge said.
A mere $2 per bird?
“The bigger the bulk buy, the cheaper they get,” explained Henry.
“I didn’t know you could buy flamingos in bulk,” Bibiana Van Dyk said, surveying the flock of 25 bobbing in the wind on her lawn.
Another 25 were on duty at another, undisclosed, location.
Van Dyk didn’t hear a thing the night before when the flockers hit. Hootie, the Van Dyks’ yellow lab, did not live up to his name.
That’s always best, said Henry.
“We were out flocking in Buckley, and a guy came out with a gun and, I think, an ax,” she said.
He promised not to do it again the next night when the flockers returned to transport the faux birds to their next engagement.
The first the Van Dyk family knew of their plastic migration was the next morning, when 10-year-old twins Chase and Colby ran to catch the school bus.
She should be pleased, Henry said. “It’s a real honor to be flocked.”
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