It's the little things...

Tonight my dad took me out to dinner.
A dinner date.
A dad-daughter date.

He taught me how to make a paper airplane. Out of a Spaghetti Factory placemat.
And I guess there's a lot I could say about that. But, when it comes down to it...I just thoroughly enjoyed the moment.

More than four walls and a steeple

A friend gave me this book recently when I was visiting my Mount Hermon home. There are many things I love about people giving/recommending books to me. I love when someone knows me so well that I can say something and they instantly think of the book that is relevant to the conversation that I just HAVE to read. I love people that fall in love with a book and then buy a bunch of copies of it to keep on hand to give to people. The author, Barbara Brown Taylor, reminds me of Anne Lamott. If you haven't read anything of Lamott's, drop what you're doing and go get one of her books. I recommend Traveling Mercies to start with. Both Anne Lamott and Barbara Brown Taylor write in such beautiful ways, putting their journey's of faith into words and inviting the reader to join them. The words are honest, transparent, and vulnerable. I don't know anyone who couldn't relate to what they say about the reality of loving God and others.

She writes a lot about church, and the different places she has met God. It got me thinking of the different places I have met God. I have loved many churches in my life, starting with the church I was raised in and still go to whenever I am in my hometown. Fellowship Bible Church. Where everyone knows who I am and have watched me grow up. Where people gather around you in prayer and lay hands on you when you're going through something hard or leaving to go somewhere new. They are the ones who brought meals to us when my mom was sick, who lovingly and honestly brought our family out of some of the darkest times we've been through, and who me and my dad went to Liberia, Africa with where I experienced God through the eyes of the women who spent all day cooking and cleaning for us, and through the eyes of the little children who held my hand even they didn't even know my name. FBC will always be home.
Then it was SALT, the Christian college ministry I was a part of for 4 years and interned for. I met God in the sanctuary, sitting on the floor, holding the hands of a friend and weeping in shame. In the intern room, with 9 other people, as my belief system got rocked.
Then it was Crossfire, the middle school youth ministry I was a part of for 3 years. I met God dancing and singing loudly alongside 6th grade girls, in a room where those girls shared their insecurities and their doubt in God, and in their accepting embrace every Wednesday for 3 years. They loved me better than a lot of people did and they were only in middle school.
Then it was Mount Hermon. 3 summers on Conference Center Staff I met God in circles of junior high girls on the grass talking about who they wanted to be and why it was so hard to get there. In Evergreen cabin, with girls with anorexia, depression, low-self esteem, and broken hearts, yet with the deepest desire to understand how much God loves them.
Then it was Outdoor Science. In the walls of the A-frame was where I lived when I lost the most important person to me, where I wept alongside a good friend and prayed that my scars would be healed, where I came back to after every class for most of Spring semester and cried because learning how to be a good teacher of something you have no idea how to teach is just plain hard and humbling, and where I was when I came back to Scripture and to the God that was waiting for me all along. My eyes were open to Him in the A-Frame. This was where the blindfold began to come off.
Then it was the Hitch. I met God here in the kitchen, where me and my roommates would gather to cook and have conversation. I met Him on the roof, watching countless sunsets, drinking beer, and listing the good things on the bad days with a great friend. I met Him under the canopies of the redwoods teaching about the root systems and how each tree's roots connect to one another to stay standing, watching 5th graders eyes get wide as they sat in awe of the majestic trees. I met Him on the trail, with 15 kids following me, trusting in me. I met Him teaching Outdoor Science, because once you know a bit about nature you see Him EVERYWHERE.
Then it was West Virginia. In the eyes of 3 people wanting to be led. In the calming voice of a strong woman in her office. In the conversation shared on a piece of grass outside the church at 1 am with a very wise mother of twins. In the hugs and tear stained faces of homeowners we worked with, thanking us for giving them hope. In the laughter of the little kids who walked to Kid's Club each day searching for friends. Yes, I even met God in the office where I worked this summer, in the details, in the never-ending paperwork and finances, and in the phone calls with trip leaders excited and nervous about what they were about to experience. And when I was too overwhelmed to handle it all, I met God on the fire escape where I went to seek solitude and peace.
Now it's home. In my short visit here, I've met God on the deck, where countless hours have been spent just simply "being". I've met Him around a campfire with my daddio, conversing about all that is good and hard and beautiful about this world. I've met Him in the faces of the old friends I have been blessed to sit down with and listen to what He has done in their lives the past 6 months. I've met Him in the late hours of the night when I can't sleep and my thoughts wander to that person, or that time, or why this or why that. He has been there in those fears, in those insecurities and worries. I've met Him in the overwhelming awe of His sovereignty and faithfulness, as all the details come together for me to have a new season of life in Santa Cruz.
Next it will be a red cabin at Mission Springs, with a porch swing and a fire pit, with 2 girls who I don't know much about but already love very much. And in the new job awaiting me and the people I will interact with and love. Yes, He will be there too. And my prayer is that I would find four walls, with or without a steeple, to congregate in with other people who want to follow Jesus and understand how to do this thing in this life together. But I will meet Him in that place. Yes, He is already there.
I know this is a long entry. But when you take the time to think about all the places you've met God...well, you would be surprised at what comes to mind too.

I see Him everywhere. I feel Him all the time. And I love Him more every day.

Hands and Feet

Whenever you're away for a summer doing something fairly awesome, like I had the privilege of doing this summer, you come back home and you get the "questions":

"How was it?"
"What did you learn?"
"What was the highlight?"
"Do you have an good stories to tell?"
"Would you do it again?"

These questions, while very good and necessary to think about and tell your loved ones, are a bit overwhelming. Especially because these questions are commonly asked the MOMENT you get back from your adventure, and you're just thinking "When can I sleep?" I just need to sleep." But, since I've been away from my little West Virginia life for about 2 weeks now, and since I've seen so many of the people I love the most in those 2 weeks, I've had some time to think about the answers to those questions.

I learned a lot in West Virginia.

I learned how to:
- cook meals for 70 + people for a week.
- buy stuff for those meals every week and how to pack "Tetris" style into 2 vehicles.
- balance a budget, for the first time in my 25 years of life.
- appropriatly get the attention of a lot of people "WEST VIRGINIA WHAAAAT???" "YOU KNOWWWW!!"
- lead 3 people the way they need to be led and loved
-support adult leaders instead of youth, which is all that I knew how to do before this job

the list goes on and on

I miss a lot about West Virginia too. I miss:
- Gene, the church's custodian, ringing the church bells every Sunday morning waking us up
- trying to go to the bathroom when you wake up on Sunday mornings and having a bunch of small tikes from the nursery looking at you as you stumble down the stairs in a sleepy stupor
- "I mean...", "Here's the thing...", "Where's Paul?"
- playing computers with my staff till the late hours of the night, saying every now and then "We really need to go to bed...."
- getting pied in the face on Friday mornings and sitting in dairy filth for 3 hours before we got to take showers. Or maybe that was just me...
- Paperwork finishing/scanning/emailing crazy-ness and me literally LOSING MY MIND
- my staff just knowing me so well. when to ask me questions, when to come in the office and when to stay out, when to take me out of the office and away from the Site Director nonsense details, when to make me laugh, and when to just let me be one with the paperwork...
- getting all the groups together on the church's front steps on friday mornings to take a group picture and then taking pictures of ourselves with their cameras
- that one time Kasi shut the cats tail in the van door while 80 people were watching
- talking to Bob every day when he walked his dogs
- drinking coffee and chatting with Pam, the church's secretary, every morning after the crews left about life, God's faithfulness and goodness, why she thinks I should get married and to who, and about the silly quirks of the people around us
- the huge inflatable water slide in the pouring rain. best weekend EVER.
- the Sunday night jambalaya staff meal intro
- calling Tom by his full name
- pillow talk with Kasi
- Paul- "TOMATOES!" Enough said.
- worshipping with a room full of high school students and adult leaders and along side my staff, singing His praises even when we were so tired, beat down, and dragged out, with nothing left to give, missing home, but singing...still singing.
- knowing we would be loved unconditionally wherever we went
- my staff. i miss everything about who they were. and what they meant to me in that season of my life. they loved me so well. they always gave me what i needed. did what i asked. did things before i even asked, actually. saw who i was. who i wanted to be. and accepted me for where i was at. i couldn't have asked for better people to work with. and i saw Jesus in them every day.

I think I could go on for a long time about the way West Virginia impacted me this summer.
But overall, I saw the the people of that state, the groups that came to us each week from all over the country, and the 3 people on my team be the hands and feet of Jesus.

There's a lot you learn from that. There is a lot you are convicted about from that. There is a lot of joy in that.

I'll never forget Mingo County, WV. The little brick church on the corner in Williamson. I am forever changed because of that place.