Sunday, July 13, 2008

any given Sunday

here's the latest from Lexington, KY!!

i attended "big church" on Saturday night, which was really awesome to finally check out. the lead pastor is currently on sabbatical, so one of the associates is teaching a series on Romans 8 this summer. he's a really cool guy--led the student ministry for quite a long time, played laser tag with us the other day. when he got up to begin speaking, he literally was tearing up as he spoke of God's great love for us. it was really beautiful. we also took communion--they do that every week. afterwards i went down to the XSM room with Derek (the other intern) & we ended up talking about creative team stuff for awhile. i'm super pumped about this! it's going to include the worship & tech teams, but also a general "creative" team that will focus on drama, visual arts, etc. the vision is to help kids find the God-given creativity that is within them & help them express it in a worshipful way. this is definitely right up my alley, so I'm very excited to go to my first meeting tomorrow night. I met a couple of the girls who're interested in doing the skits, and I think it's going to be great!

and this morning i finally got to meet the youth & see what XSM is all about. this week i was in the middle school room with a great volunteer named Greg (Tim usually leads in here but he is in Bolivia with a mission group). He showed me the ropes--we did a couple worship songs with Derek, then played a game, did Bible "drills" (who can find a given verse first), and then i did a little "talk", just introducing myself. it went really well--i even found a few tar heel fans in there :) i even got to play mario kart & rock band with them--yes friends, they have video games in the lounge/MS room (and a Wii in the lobby). Nintendo for Jesus?! Anyway, we're having a little ice cream social on Wednesday for the MS kids, so it will be good to hang out with them some more. I haven't really been around middle schoolers much since I was one (cue screeching horror music)--i forgot that they still worry about cooties & can be terribly shy. they need lots of love--i hope i can give it to them!

small group girls--shout out! steel magnolias is on tv :) kristen G, you need to see this!

so it was really good to finally get to the meat & potatoes of this ministry! i'll still be glad when all this transition mess is over but i've almost been here a week now, so that's something! haha plus Greg told Derek that his "honeymoon" period was over (he's been here about 6 weeks)--so maybe I should think of it that way & enjoy it ;) I've also been doing a bit better & haven't felt like moping quite as much. I joined the Y & started the day off there yesterday--they have an indoor lap pool which I'm so pumped to be able to use--even though I'll smell like chlorine 24/7 from now on. I also went to see an outdoor Shakespeare play on Friday & went to the mall with one of my roommates, Crystal, & her friend. I found out that the college-aged ministry meets on Monday nights & it sounds like they do a lot of great activities plus the weekly Bible study, so I'm definitely excited to check that out! Over the past couple days God has been urging me to trust Him more through this transition, and believe that He wouldn't bring me here just so I could miserable. Finally seeing all those kids this morning definitely helped me remember that there is work he brought me to do.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I was excited to read this post! Thanks for keeping us up-to-date on your adventures, and I hope you're getting lots of bonding time with roomies, workies, kiddies, and other important people. Miss you!