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Week 5

A post meant for last week...

This week it was my responsibility to ensure that all the kids who wanted to go to Crossfit had rides there (meaning I went to Crossfit four times this week).  Overall, I am enjoying the Crossfit program as it provides an opportunity to connect with students on a regular basis and is helping me to be in better shape.  One of my favorite parts about Crossfit is getting an acai bowl in the adjacent grocery store/juice bar (an occurrence that has happened only about 3-4 times since I have arrived here).  An acai bowl is a large bowl filled with a thick, cold, smoothie like combination of strawberries, bananas, peanut butter, and acai (possibly yogurt too).  This is then topped with granola, fresh cut strawberries and bananas, chocolate chips, and honey.  Simply put, it is delicious.

I had the opportunity to deliver a message to the high school students this week.  I spoke on the story found in John 8 (the woman caught in adultery).  I chose this story since I remembered hearing a message on it back when I was in high school, and thought if it stuck with me this whole time, maybe it has a chance of sticking with these kids.  The one thing I really remembered from the message back when I initially heard it was the youth pastor slowly clapping his hands to resemble the sound of the stones hitting the ground.  At the end of my message, I combined this idea of using sound with a spoken word piece, or rather retelling of the story from the woman’s perspective assuming she had lived to also see the crucifixion and understood how it related back to her story.  Overall, even as I begun the talk, I wasn’t sure if I would read the piece at the end, yet I did and am glad of it now since it seems to have connected with a few of the kids.

July 3rd was particularly crazy.  The interns took a group of middle school students out to the U.S. Military base to see a firework show.  We arrived at the base around 5, and the fireworks didn’t start till 9:45 (in hindsight, we did not need to arrive as early).  After a 15 min. firework show, we were all tired and ready to head home.  We got off the beach quickly and moved back to where the two whales (large vans) were parked.  With the kids in the vans, we pulled out of the parking spot (or rather spot on a grass field) and waited on the field in a car grid-lock for almost two hours, not moving anywhere.  We blasted country music and more popular music (at least popular among the middle school students) and waited.  The kids ran back and forth between the vans (I was slightly surprised at one point when I looked back in the van to discover all of the six/seven kids who had been in my van had quietly exited the vehicle and went to the other van to hang out with kids there).  Eventually I, immensely thankful not to be the one having to drop off all of the kids at their respective homes, made it back home around 12:45 am.  Youth ministry continues to be an adventure.