Here's Jenny, Canal Street's awesome administrative assistant, and her husband Michael. And just in case you were wondering, they're not that tall! We were on the church steps and I was about 2 steps below them.
Pastor Mike himself giving me one final sermon before I took off for the airport!
Ever since Mikey got bit by that spider he's never been the same... oh yah and that's Rusty in the middle - the volleyball player and fisherman that provided me with a healthy break from the 50+ hours a week of interning. He's a champ!
Probably the best intern picture we took together. Mike actually smiled!
Well my time in NOLA came to an end Tuesday afternoon as I departed from the New Orleans airport gripping my forehead as the plane left the runway and praying that the steak burrito I had just inhaled for lunch from Juan's Flying Burrito wasn't going to end up in my lap. As usual I felt nauseous and tired during most of my 5+ hours in the air, but I thankfully held down my food. (This motion sickness deal will be interesting when I go to China considering we have 5-6 flights within a 2 1/2 week period.)
Anyways, the last few weeks of my time spent there were busy but enjoyable. The second week of dance camp thankfully ended up being a lot easier than I expected. It was a smaller group of older kids who didn't need as much supervision as the group of 30+ grade schoolers did the week before. Our primary role as interns was to take care of check-in/check-out, share with the kids a devotional based on the dance instructors' themes for each day, and to make lunch for about 50 people. Therefore we gave devotionals on the themes of Identity (in Christ), Family (of God), Rebuilding (house/life on a Rock instead of sand), and Faith (in God's faithfulness) and made spaghetti, clucks and fries, hot dogs, red beans and rice, and pizza. Everything went smoothly and almost every day we had the exact amount of food necessary which was awesome. We also fortunately had a lot of help in the kitchen from Jenny, the church secretary, and some other "mom volunteers" from the congregation. Aside from those roles there really wasn't a lot of other responsibilities we had so we spent some of our time writing thank you notes to all of the people who helped and provided meals for us during the summer, and made "Interns 2008" T-Shirts out of puffy-paint (boy did I feel like a girl but they turned out cool!). Oh ya and we told the kids we were professional dancers and taught them a "very difficult" dance routine which consisted of three moves to this video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOxR7rTYuSI
It was great.
I also concluded the "volleyball side of my summer" victoriously. I was given the opportunity to play on a coed 6's volleyball team during the Friday night league all summer at Coconut Beach with Rusty and his wife Cassie, Jenny and her husband Michael, and a girl named Krista. We played on the second most competitive net on the beach - Court #2 of about 15 courts. Our win last Friday night secured us "Best of the Net" which means that I should be getting a champions t-shirt in the mail here shortly. =P Furthermore, I also played in a men's doubles tournament on Saturday from about 4pm-10pm. I played in the AA bracket which had 13 teams (I usually only play in the A bracket) with a 20 year-old guy named Nick who I had met through Rusty. We had never played together but our similar style allowed us to gel well together. We went undefeated in pool play and battled our way to victory in the play-offs where we played 3 tough games - 2 of which we only won 25-23 and 25-22. As a prize I took home $110 pair of Bolle Sport sunglasses and a thankful heart for God's faithfulness in giving me the grace to play the sport I love for this brief season of my life.
Sunday morning's church service was also an important part of my last few days down there. Pastor Mike had asked the other interns and I to share with the congregation what we had experienced and what we had learned during our 10 weeks of serving. I spoke for about 8 minutes and talked a lot about how a theme for me this summer was really about looking for Jesus in the eyes of the people we served as Grant, the intern from last summer, had encouraged me to do when he was down there with his home church during our first week in the field. I can honestly say that I was able to understand what Jesus meant in the parable of the Sheep and Goats in Matthew 25 when Jesus, talking about helping those in need, said "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." The look of gratitude and joy I saw in the people's faces was what kept me focused and kept me going amidst exhaustion. After the service we ate cake in the fellowship hall and said our fair wells to people in the congregation. Soon after, Candace and her boyfriend Lindo and Anna and her parents took off for home on their 24 hour road trip back to Colorado. I, on the other hand, stayed until Tuesday and spent some quality time with my host family and with Mikey before heading home.
On Monday Mikey and I got the incredible opportunity of going on a fishing trip with Rusty on his 22-foot fishing boat. We woke up at 3:45am and after an hour drive and a 15 minute boat ride we were fishing literally in the area where the eye of the storm hit from Katrina in 2005. We primarily fished in the marshes in about 2-5 feet of water and experienced what Rusty said was probably the rainiest and windiest day he'd ever fished. The winds were at times blowing at 35-45 mph and the rain drenched us multiple times. With just board shorts on, mother nature delivered the coldest weather I experienced all summer long. Thankfully I could sit on the side of the boat and keep my feet warm in the murky 85 degree water while I casted. We used raw shrimp for bait and ended up catching over 150 fish, though many were small salt-water catfish or red fish that were too small to keep. By the end of the day we had 6-7 red fish keepers which were 2-5 pounds each. This for Rusty was considered a horrible day, but Mikey and I were just grateful to be out on the water and had a blast fishing in the Gulf of Mexico.
Finally, while I'm pretty sure this experience will be one I continue to learn from as the Lord reveals things to me (right now it in some respects just feels like a really long dream), here is a list of what I learned:
- I gained a fuller understanding of what true sacrificial hospitality looks like. As I have mentioned before, the host family I stayed with had 2 boys – 16 and 18 years old - who gave up their air conditioned room for 10 weeks and slept in the basement that was gutted after Katrina (no lights/sheetrock/AC/etc) which is basically like sleeping in an old musty garage (3rd John 5-8 comes to mind regarding their hospitality)
- I learned to eat cereal fast. For if I didn't, the 85 degree kitchen warmed the milk and ruined the bowl.
- I learned to delegate tasks to teenagers and adult leaders that I hardly knew, and to improvise when things “weren't going as planned"
- I have began to grasp the challenges and the tension that exists in a small Presbyterian church (around 40 members) with a tight financial budget and differing views on church government and procedures. (my home church growing up was 1500+ people)
- I learned that the “strawberry” and “wedding cake” syrup flavors mixed together with ice and creamy ice cream in a snowball makes any bad day better.
- I learned to establish friendships quickly with people on the various work teams. To pour myself out and genuinely care for them and try to get to know them with the full knowledge that in less than a week I would say goodbye to them and likely not see them again until we reminisce in Heaven of our week serving Him together in New Orleans. (This was challenging because one team of 25 would leave Saturday morning and 10 hours later a team with 45 new names and faces would arrive.)
- I learned (and will continue to learn no doubt) to be flexible and patient. I had no car which greatly limited where I could go and when I could go there and leave there. I also learning to be frugal. Living on a ministry budget helps differentiate between “needs” and “wants” quickly.
- I learned to see God's sovereignty in the midst of brokenness. I saw how families and friends are uniting to work on each others' homes, and how the body of Christ from churches all over the United States are continuing to be Jesus' hands and feet helping those in need.
Kyle
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