Keokuk Internship: Middle of Vacation Bible School

‘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.

Keokuk Internship: Distractions

OK, I’ve found some fun distractions during the past couple of days which are reenergizing me. Two nights ago I got to have some fun with Matt Hunt, the Associate Minister at Keokuk. After the church’s cabinet meeting (chairs of the committees), I went over to Matt’s and helped him with a 3-minute video he had to make for something he was applying for. He is by far one of the goofiest guys I’ve ever met.

Last night I was lucky enough to get off of work at 2pm and I drove to Fairfield to meet my grandma. We then drove up to Des Moines together to have dinner with my dad and watch my brother play soccer. Even though he plays for Drake, he plays for a semi-professional team, the Des Moines Menace, during the summer.

The teams ended up tying at the end of regulation, so my Grandma and I started the drive home and my dad called me when they found out the score. Sometime in the first overtime period, the other team scored and the Menace were behind. Then with a short bit left in the second overtime period, the Menace scored and went to a shootout. There, the Menace won on penalty kicks. I ended up getting to my Grandma’s around 12:00am and then drove on from there to Keokuk where I’m typing this.

Both distractions ended up being exactly what I needed this week.

Keokuk Internship: Stifling Creativity

I should have known this from my college atmosphere, but there are some hours of the day where my creativity and work pace just lag behind. My mornings are great. Before I take lunches I’m usually on fire. Nighttime is usually also great. At campus it was because I’d work out in the Rec Center and then do another couple of hours of homework. Here in Keokuk, however, nighttime is usually when I get reading done and when I also prepare for the coming day’s work. One of the problems is that the YMCA isn’t open as late as the Rec Center at TCU.

So when is my stifled period of work?: 2:00pm-3:30pm. That hour and a half can rarely get many of my mental juices flowing as fast as I want or need them to. What a frustration! Those are usually the clearest hours of the day that I spend in the church and the ones when I need to work the most.

I’m also afraid that I’m reaching a burnout point. To some extent it’s a burnout feeling because of the hours that I’m working, but more than that, it’s really an absence of what I like to call ‘recreative’ moments. At college I had a set of rituals I could do and locations I could go to which would spawn a ton of creativity. Sometimes it was taking two hours to do some computer programming. Sometimes it was taking an hour and doing the Stairmaster. Sometimes it was going to the depths of the library to mentally concentrate on something else to let the subconscious start moving faster.

One of the hard things I’m having trouble with in Keokuk is finding not only places but also things to do which can bring on the synergy. Rodger and Lucille’s house is great for reading, sleeping and fellowship, but it’s hard to stay in touch with some of my normal relaxation outlets. The church is great for when I need to help or get help from Cathie, Matt, Sharon, Lea or Bill, but it’s not great for individual work. Part of it is the space limitations which will be solved by the new building (which they’ll move into after I leave). One of the issues is that I’m used to a lot of desk space (space for computers and printers). I’ve lucked out so far since Bill was gone for my first week, last week was the mission trip, this week Matt is taking some time off and next week I’ll be really tied up with Vacation Bible School; desk space has shown up. When everyone is working, though, I’m basing out of a chair in Cathie’s office with a laptop actually on my lap (yeah, I know, completely ironic concept nowadays).

For the past summers I’ve been able to stay connected with the rest of the world at a pretty intense level with the internet and instant messaging. I never realized how great of an extent a town like Keokuk, however, was still based on slow internet. The church is using a dial-up connection that usually gets only about half of the speed of a normal 56K connection.

While I have to adopt for this summer, it’s really affecting what I’m thinking about for my future in ministry. I know that I’m wanting to do ministry, but the limitations of a small, isolated town are making me even more conscious of having to choose what type. For most of last fall and spring I admired priests because they could have do so many types of ministry: some serve not only as parish priests, but also as school teachers, missionaries, authors, chaplains and business managers in their lifetime. Ministry is a chance for them to serve God while not limiting their job possibilities for the future but expanding them more than they could otherwise.

This internship is really geared at preparing me for pastoral ministry. I’m already having fun and learning a lot. I keep asking myself as I’m going through it why I can’t do more. I know in many situations it’s a time factor; my energy has to be focused in order to do things well. Why is it that this is wearing me out faster than expected and I’m not getting my usual recharge? Part of it is due to my introverted nature and my setting’s lack of time that I take for myself. If I lived alone in my own apartment I wouldn’t be tied up at nights (don’t get me wrong though, Rodger and Lucille and their kids and grandkids are the people I’d most like to be with in this situation; they’re great). The internship isn’t really set up with introverts in mind. Hopefully at the end of the summer I can offer some advice from experience on how the church can at least offer some options for future interns.

So what’s my game plan for surviving burnout for the rest of the summer? I’m starting to do some of my forward visioning. At school this forward visioning is usually focused around papers due in the next month and seminary options for the distant future. Now that I’m in the internship, I’m needing to concentrate on something for the future so the rest of me can work at the job-at-hand. My senior year of high school I was scoping out Flash technology (namely 2Advanced Studios – http://www.2advanced.com). Now in my senior year of college I’m starting to read about digital photography labs and techniques online (hard to do without high-speed internet) and also stay up to date with my online magazine subscriptions (America – http://www.americamagazine.org and Interpretation (a journal on biblical studies)).

I’m going to have to post again in a month to see how I’ve adapted and whether or not the internship will still be draining my creativity as much as it is.

Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Project Descriptions

Description:
Picnic Grove Shelter House
Description: The shelter was designed by Tom Burns and when we got there we had 14 holes, 14 6″x6″ posts and no written plans. By the end of the first day, we had concrete bases poured into the holes and three of the poles set up with dry concrete poured around them. The next day was rain and by the end of Thursday we had the remaining poles set up and a brace nailed across one side. By the time we left for Adventureland on Friday afternoon, we’d done the brace on the other side and set the trusses up as well as cutting and placing many of the supporting 2″x4″ beams. By Saturday at lunch we’d finished the supporting beams and had nailed 80% of them in. All that remains is the sheeting on the roof and the shingling on top of that. The camp staff is planning on that being a service project later in the summer for the high school camps.
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Chi Rho Village Kitchenettes
Description: Over the week our team not only put up all of the tents in the rustic Chi Rho villages and cleaning the living areas, but we also built dish areas which will be used by the campers for cleaning dishes after meals. They built kitchen cabinet frames and counters which have sinks that eliminate the dilemna campers were going through before by having unsanitary dish areas and supply tents (think rodents and you get the picture — although I don’t have one of the specific animals). They also worked on framing the roof so tents covered the areas without hanging so low that dishwashing campers had their heads smacked by vinyl coverings.
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Cabin 2:
Description: One of the Christian Conference Center’s programs is a cooperative project with congregations where the congregations get to “adopt” a cabin as an outreach project. Keokuk adopted Cabin 2 when the program began and has been fixing it up since then. Over the week we had a crew carpet one side of the cabin’s concrete floors. A group of adults and a couple of youth helpers also tore out most of the components in the bathrooms. The space is a tight 12’x12′ fit, so the redesigns are intended to allow for the maximum amount of privacy while using the space as efficiently as possible. There used to be four toilets, which we took down to two (one per side). The space is now enclosed off with some walls and a door. They also redid the sink areas.
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Name Tag Construction:
Description: During our day of rain (Wednesday), many of our groups had to find projects to do inside. We had a system set up where a large group of girls cut, sanded and drilled over 1100 wooden name tags for the camp to use for the summer. It’s great to see that this will just about account for all of the campers and counselors going through the Christian Conference Center this summer.
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Reorganize Craft Room:
Description: One of the other projects for the rained out groups was to reorganize the craft room underneath the great hall in the lodge. This is a perennial project for the camp and our youth saved the directors, counselors and interns a lot of time by taking care of it before the summer officially started.
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Intern Living Quarters:
Description: The female interns this summer are located in the old craft room, now fixed and re-christened “Peaches’ Suite” in honor of Phil ‘Peaches’ Kinton, a longtime director at the camp. During the rain day we had a few of the adults finish a shelving unit for the interns to use for storage. Butch Hendricks also kindly redid some of the wiring in the suite to allow for more outlets.
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Reconfigured Box-style Furniture
Description: Many of the furniture pieces created during the Spring Assembly ended up sitting too low to the floor. A group reconfigured the cloth seat bases and tightened them up an inch.
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Rocking the Miniature Golf Course
Description: One of the great new additions in the past two years to the conference center is the miniature golf course. We had a group put gravel around each of the holes to make it easier to care for and distinguishable as a mini golf course from a distance.
Picture: Picture still to come.
Resupplied Wood Racks
Description: By each campfire and in many of the villages in the Chi Rho rustic area are wood racks for the fires. A crew of youth split logs and carried them over to refill the wood racks.
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Doll House
During the cleaning process of the craft room, some of our group found an unassembled doll house. What better project than to assemble it for little kids who visit the camp? Sure, you can probably think of several, but we were needing something to do during the rain.
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Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Day 5

Well, we’re done at camp and on the way home. The mission trip was a success. We ended up getting all of the supporting 2″x4″ beams in place between the trusses and about 80% of them nailed in.

Up until 20 minutes ago, four other adults and one of the youth and I were planning to stay and work on getting the roof nailed down and the black weathering tarp nailed down to it so the only parts left would be shingling and laying the concrete floor slab (which we were planning on having done afterwards the whole time). Unfortunately, the wind picked up and we realized it was too dangerous to be handling 4’x8′ sheets of plywood around 15 feet in the air.

Click HERE to read descriptions and see pictures of what we accomplished at the camp!

Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Adventureland

To cap off our week, the Keokuk mission team went to Adventureland for a much deserved rest. I know that it’s sometimes lame to wear matching group t-shirts, but these ones were fun:

Adventureland isn’t a new experience for me. I should have realized going in how much it would change me though. Some people in our group have never been to an amusement park! The sparkle in their eyes were like what you’d see from people who’d never heard of religion and then had a mystical experience: pure amazement and fear and wonder at the same time. Every new ride they did they wanted to repeat over and over again. Here are some pictures I got of some of our group who did some fun rides:

I’m glad that so many had fun. I even enjoyed some of the rides that I didn’t like as a kid, like the Dragon (one that goes upside down with two loops) and the Tornado. Both of them were ones I was afraid of as a kid and now seemed absurdly tame compared to what I remembered. When we first got there it started raining. We were afraid that the entire night would be ruined. It turned out, though, that many left the park and the lines for the rides were incredibly short! When we got back we found out that the rain we had was only a foreshadow of the real storm that came and hit Newton and the campground. Luckily some had stayed back and were able to “close the hatches” before too much damage was done (surprise floods and such). We’ll have to wait and see how the work sites are tomorrow morning.

Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Day 4

Progress: it’s a remarkable thing. Today was great because we got a ton done. This morning we had breakfast at 7:30 and got to work right away. Noel Brown (who’d been heading up most of the work with the shelter house) stayed with us until 10:15am and then left to go on a fishing vacation with some of his relatives. When Noel left we’d just finished putting the brace on the other set of the posts. By lunch time, we’d put up five of the seven trusses:

This was fun since the trusses marked a significant improvement; it finally started looking like a shelter. After lunch, we finished putting up the other two trusses and put up around half of the supporting 2×4 beams between the trusses. Do you ever have that feeling knowing that you’re running at the maximum efficiency possible for the situation? It’s SO refreshing! We had three crews of youth up on the top of ladders measuring the distance for the beams. They were all calling out measurements and Leah was cutting the beams and a couple on the ground were delivering them to be hung. It was phenomenal how systematic and rhythmic the team was working. This is the view I just took a picture of:

We’re now off to Adventureland (the Des Moines area amusement park) for a cap to our mission trip. The shelter is getting there!

Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Day 3

Morning progress is something I wish I could simply replicate and clone for the afternoons. This morning the group I was in working on the picnic shelter finished setting nine of the support pillars for the shelter. Tuesday afternoon we’d only done three and after lunch today we finished the other two fast and then worked on putting a plate around the outside at the top of the poles.


The plate was taking quite a while and it was at that point that I wished we’d maintained our speed and efficiency of the morning. Granted, with work that high up we could only do it at the pace we did since most of the youth are under 5’10” tall. I guess it’s just one of those things I have to accept. After we finished working, we got cleaned up a little and then drove for 50 minutes and had a cookout and a pool party at my house. It was great to see my parents and brother again. My parents had come up on Tuesday to bring me some stuff for camp, but I only visited with them for a short time. It was also fun for me to let a bunch of the people from the church see the horse farm and understand some of the context of what makes me ‘me’. My family and my home are a huge part of what shaped me. Tomorrow is a busy day (hopefully we’ll get the trusses onto the shelter house and start laying the roof), so I’m getting some sleep.

Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Day 2

Today I was a floater (NO, not the toilet type). This morning when we finished breakfast we looked outside and saw dark, dark skies. We pulled out the laptops and used the camp’s high speed wireless internet (yeah, definitely enjoying it) and saw that we had a pretty big storm cell heading for us. The cabin group was still able to work on the bathrooms, but the rest of us weren’t able to do our originally planned projects.

So I floated around between several groups. It was great for taking pictures, but not for knowing exactly what I was to do. We did get a crew set up cutting and sanding and drilling all of the wooden name tags that campers use during the summer. We also had Butch (Lea Hendrick’s husband) who did wiring in the intern’s room and a set of youth who went and worked on the kitchenettes in the afternoon.

My big adventure for the day was a car ride during the rain. In order to get the name tag crew going, we had to get a sander from Bert’s (the lady who helps run the camp) garage. We took one of the trucks and picked it up in the middle of the storm. We found a tarp to cover it, but ran into a problem since it was setup on its stand. So, after driving for 20 yards, I realized that I had to stand in the back and hold it down while we drove back to the camp. Bert only drove at 20 MPH, but I still got completely soaked and cold. It was insane. When I got back I changed into dry clothes 30 minutes later. Writing this I still haven’t warmed up since getting back around 10:15. Yikes!

Keokuk Internship: Mission Trip Day 1

I’m just plain exhausted. We met at the church today at 8am and drove for 3 hours to our denominational church camp in Newton, IA.

At the camp, our main project is to build a shelter house at the picnic grove area. There are other projects we’re also working on and getting done. For instance, our camp has a mini golf course that the Disciples Men group decided to put in and congregations helped with. A group of our youth put gravel around the holes. We also have groups working on redesigning the bathrooms in one of our cabins and another group working on kitchenette-esque wooden areas in the rustic villages the middle schoolers camp in. I know that kitchenette and rustic probably aren’t two things you hear together often — think a lot of wood in the middle of woods crawling with animals and you can get close to the picture. I worked with the group doing the shelter house. We got about four hours of work in before we finished for dinner. In that time, we filled 14 holes with concrete bases and then set three 14′ tall 6″x6″ poles in the ground and cemented those in. We have a 11 left to do before we can put an outer perimeter and trusses on the top.

It’s always great to be at camp, but it’s especially fun being here with this new group. While few in Keokuk’s group are new to camp, I’m not used to being part of their group; it’s fun! Tonight I was on the clean-up crew for dinner and they even let me resume my old duties of working in the dishwashing room. I loved it! I saw once again last night why I love washing the dishes so much: it’s making order out of chaos at a rapid speed. :) I finished swimming before I came in to type this, so I’m going to go back to the cabin to check some stuff out.