Days 8-9: Precious Rest

Hopefully it didn't alarm anyone that I didn't post anything yesterday. No, I didn't die; the last two days have been ab it more businesslike and less jaw-droppingly inspirational, though this might just be contrast after reading through Romans. Nevertheless, some fun staff happened that I should probably write about.

Yesterday morning was more training, but this ended by 1 in the afternoon or so. From there, the full-time ministry team of ten visited our first ministry site, Hopewell Missionary Baptist church, where we would be running a VBS (vacation Bible school) for the kids. We knew virtually nothing about what we'd be doing, just general tips from training the past few days. After meeting with the leaders at the church to get a general idea of what they expected, we proceeded to sit down in the sanctuary lobby for three hours and plan, plan, plan. We managed to hammer out some rules and a basic schedule that we could hopefully adapt and reuse for later weeks and ministry sites.

After everyone was pretty much mentally drained, we returned to City on a Hill. After a bit of downtime, during which I separated out the worship songs from past Cru meetings for use here, we returned to Bay Shore Mall for a "fun" event planned by Dave. It was supposed to be a surprise, but Bethany had already given it away the night before; we would be trying to hunt down and find all the staff around the mall. After arriving we split into teams of four and started searching.

As we'd guessed they would, the staff made it harder for us by disguising themselves. It was pretty fun to see someone and wonder, "Could that be such and such...?" and then have your suspicions confirmed. Among the more entertaining costumes: Jeff put on a hat and wig and pretended to be a TruGreen employee taking soil samples, Theresa was an elderly lady in a wheelchair having a friend from church push her around, Bethany and Kara were goths, and Dave got a pretty drastic haircut and acted extremely creepy. (He looks bizarrely like Dwight from The Office now, even after de-creepifying)

In total, we managed to find eight staffers. We all gathered in the food court, where we got to see everyone's costumes, and then ate dinner. After some Applebee's boneless wings I returned to COAH for game time! This actually turned out to be singing worship songs along with Jack and his guitar, but I eventually got roped into narrating some games of Mafia, which was fun. (I prefer narrating to playing, as I'm not political enough and I get to think of crazy ways for people to die)

This morning was discipleship time with Dave, which was great for recapping and remembering some of the more important things God has taught and shown me thus far. If I had to sum up what project has been teaching me thus far, it would be something like: the size of your problems or challenges is unimportant; what's important is fixing your gaze on God and His sovereignty.

After we got back it was time for another meeting with the ministry team. We went over more specifics, like games to play, crafts to do, songs to sing, and the skits that were to accompany each lesson. (I think we have some great actors for them) We got lots done until we ran out of steam and the meeting turned into practicing fun Bible songs. I'm a bit nervous for ministry since we have no experience yet, but it's looking like it will be tons of fun.

In the afternoon nearly everyone went to the beach. In the time they were there, I had a good amount of time listening to music (a first since arriving on project) as well as find Bible verses for the rest of the worship songs I collected and cut my hair. This last task involved lots of time in the bathroom with my electric razor, but apparently it turned out pretty well judging by peoples' reactions. I'll stick with barbers when I'm back home, but this should do for now. People are still returning from the beach, but hopefully tonight will be fun and relaxing before church and more meetings tomorrow.

One month until my birthday!

Composed ~6:30 PM, Saturday, June 19th