‘m not positive that I’ve ever been so worn out in my life! I know it’s not good to say that often, but in this case it’s a good kind of tired. This week is Vacation Bible School at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Keokuk. We’re doing the program in conjunction with 4 or so other churches in town and we’re loving it. I just finished Day 3. Besides being in charge of recreation, I’m also lucky in that I get to help with X-treme Team, which is a group of middle schoolers who meet from lunch until 2:30 that also help with the younger ages.
For the past two days I’ve gone into the church at either 6:30 or 6:45. I’ve worked on setting and resetting up a game called MapQuest. This game has giant maps of Iowa and Egypt (yeah, I know, a little random — but it goes with the themes of the bible school) where the youth have to go through and discover sequences of traveling between cities and locations in each of the areas. It’s taken a lot of time and energy to setup, but the results are pretty fun. At first I was thinking I would be tired of getting there so early and working with the youth for so long afterwards. Surprisingly, the morning time setting up is the best alone-time I get during the entire day. It’s nice to have a great chance to reflect that I normally wouldn’t have.
I also figured out one of my creative outlets which I haven’t been able to do so far this summer. Cooking! This internship is really aimed with younger college students in mind. Housing is provided and meals are wonderful and huge. At the end of this week I’m moving out of Rodger and Lucille’s house and going to live with the Sieberts. I was looking ahead on my calendar and saw again that every night I’m living with people this summer they’re wanting me to have dinner with them. It’s a great problem to have — meals provided and cooked. Little did I know, however, that during this past year (really ever since Harvard) cooking was one place where I was usually alone and was able to try new things. I miss it a little. Then again, the meals provided are fun; Rodger and Lucille and I talked after dinner for at least an hour — just sitting at the table without any plans or structure (REFRESHING).
One thing this summer is provided me is a wide array of lessons. I’m not sure how much ministry in congregations is like this, but this summer is full of SO many types. I’ve not only done a mission trip with the youth and adults, but I’ve also done a communion meditation and pastoral prayer in worship, led Sunday School classes each Sunday, helped prepare the powerpoint for the later service each Sunday, done two hospital visits, watched a wedding behind the scenes, planned and worked a lot of vacation bible school in terms of both curriculum logistics and artwork for every room.
While all of these things are great, there’s so much more that I know is coming up. I’ll counsel a week of camp with middle schoolers in tents in the middle of the woods, help work on technology (maybe even teach a workshop) at a youth conference in Illinois, do some jail ministry (Tom, the one I’m moving in with next does stuff at the Fort Madison prison), hopefully do a lock-in where a bunch of us spend a weekend working a lot on the new church building, and do more hospital visits and sunday school classes and worship leadership.
I’ve now been here for almost four weeks and I’m still loving it; I’m eagerly awaiting the rest.
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