In a Broken World: Truth Matters

Dear Fellow travellers,

I hope this blog finds you well. I have had a beautiful past few days. Truly beautiful. Belita and the rest of the staff have collaborated to mark out some kind of a schedule for me and my time here. So I have assignments! teehee. YAY! I'm really excited for what's to come, for sure. Bethany, a fellow intern at Palmyra, PA, managed to get free tickets to Hershey park. So if all goes according to plan, she and I will be going to Hershey park next Saturday. yippee!! We shall see, but I am completely excited. :0)

Thursday was a good day, as many days are here. I got the chance to talk with Josiah in the morning about the youth, and our lives. It was a great time. He's really easy to talk to, and I know he's going to be a great friend. In the evening Josiah, Kim, Doris and Roy Frysinger, as well as Romayne Reeser went over to Janet's house to eat some awesome food and gab about the approaching VBS week in July. I guess that's about 4 weeks out now. It was a really great time. Here is snipet of conversation between Kim and Josiah that I couldn't help but write down:

Josiah: I bet you've had rabbit.

Kim: Bet I haven't.

Josiah: How often do you eat Chinese?

Kim: Often.

Josiah: Well there ya go.

Kim: No, that's cat.

Josiah: That's pork.

Kim: The cat is pork?

Josiah: Yeah, and the chicken is rabbit.

Kim: Well I'll be.

0_0 Note to self: don't eat Chinese over here. hahahahaha. Worry not, VBS was discussed as well. Josiah and I are in charge of the little skits that go along with each day's scripture. I'm pretty excited to put it all together. There are a lot of unknowns, but it'll all fall together. I'm excited to see what it ends up looking like. I've already started brainstorming ideas.... teehee.

Special Mention of the Night: Doris Frysinger, bless her heart, is suffering Cancer. From what I understand it's been awhile, and she's not doing so well at the moment. A few that i've talked to fear they are close to losing her. Please keep her, and more importantly her husband, Roy in your prayers. She is going through cancer, and he's watching it. Soon he'll have to deal with losing his life's love. As she and Roy were leaving at the end of dinner, i caught a glimpse of what her t-shirt said. "Truth Matters." *ponders* Something about those words on a woman facing death really struck me. Truth matters...oh yes it does. It doesn't matter how old, young, full of life or staring straight at death. It's never too late or too early for Jesus, for a Truth that can turn your life upside down and backwards in the most beautiful way. I don't think i'll be forgetting that anytime soon.

Friday was a busy day. BCM's Bible study in the morning went really well. More and more I am getting blown away by the people I am meeting. Met a sister who was living with her boyfriend, on her 40th birthday he beat her, like he does every day. She pulled up her sleeves and showed us baseball sized bruises on her arms. Broke my heart in half. Everyone around the table immediately offered help. One woman said she knew of a safe house to escape to, I gave her the numbers of a few different hotlines hidden in a lipstick container so her boyfriend wouldn't know she was trying to escape, another big man said he had friends in the police and was willing to make himself available to help as well. She kept saying, Jesus just tests us. I said, "Sister, Jesus does not want you in that relationship. It's not good for you." Truth Matters. She gave me a hug, and hopefully is running as I'm typing this. I'm praying i see her next week to see how she's doing.

Folks, I would ask your prayers for the people living in Allison Hill, and more specifically for those who live on and around Hummel Street. From what I understand from community meetings, and the news, there have been many shootings in the area. One on Hummel which left a 19 year old in critical condition, and another that involved a police officer shooting a kid in the cheek-maybe leaving him paralyzed. This place needs Jesus, needs a revival, a change. Pray for that and expect it to happen. Most of this violence is probably drug related, with young people paying to fill a hole that only Jesus can fill. Pray for the leaders in the area, for the mayor, the police men(who are actually invested in making this town safer) and the religious leaders. Pastors Belita, Gerald, Josiah, Marisel and others in the area, Pastor Liz of the Ridgeway COB. As i meet more of them I'll post names here. They need wisdom, compassion, and the right circumstances for the Holy Spirit to move. Truth Matters.

Well I'm off to practice for tomorrow, and get some stuff in order. Thank you for reading, for joining me for a moment in my passion. I really appreciate it. I love you.

Love

~ME

Love Across the Storm

"A harp stood in the calm, still air

Where showers of sunshine washed a thousand fragrant blooms;

A traveler bowed with loads of care

Struggles from morning till the dusk of evening glooms

To strum sweet sounds from the songless strings;

The pilgrim strives in vain with each unanswering chord,

Until the tempest's thunder sings,

And, Moving on the storm, the fingers of the Lord

A wondrous melody awakes;

And though the battling winds their soldier deeds perform,

Their trumpet-sound brave music makes

While God's assuring voice sings love across the storm."

Dear fellow pilgrims,

Today was a spectacular day. I had the opportunity to pour love into every single aspect of the day. This morning I went to a wrap-up meeting going over the final assessment of a Walk for a Healthy Neighborhood that, of course, I wasn't here for. It was really cool to be a part of a lively and positive meetings. There were flowers given, speeches made, awards presented to the biggest fund-raisers and the most improved. It was really cool.

It made me forget that I got lost on the way there, had to get directions from my hostess, and then went into the wrong building once I got there and I had to hike across the landscape to find the room! ;0)

After the meeting, i got lost coming home. NEWS FLASH. Harrisburg West Shore is FULL, completely FULL of one way streets. Got that? ONE way. *sigh* I think i made three circles before landing on the right street to take me across the bridge. lol. Believe it or not, I actually had a lot of fun. I surprised even myself. Jesus was totally with me. Kid you not.

In the afternoon I hung out with Marisel, and did some work for her to try and make her life less stressful. That was lots of fun. I folded Bulletin covers, and made a spread sheet. I am also continuing to file, and teach her how I'm filing, as the process continues.

Then the fantastic Kim made us lunch! Spaghetti, and a Boston Creme Pie (which she swears she made herself... haha, her partner in crime was the store. ;0P) It was delicious, no matter where it came from. lol. She did make the spaghetti on her own though, and it was pretty spectacular.

*Brief pause while Jen goes to sleep for the night*

Good morning!!! :0D

Later that night we had Agape-Satyagraha....translation? Unselfish Love-Truth Force. It's a program that helps kids control their anger and sharpen conflict resolution skills. It was developed by Pastor Gerald to help the urban kids, and now it is spreading across the nation. Pretty cool huh? Well I worked with a young girl, of 12 who was only coming out of 5th grade. Her name is Samera (rhymes with Sara). She was the hardest attention in the world to keep focused!!! Finally, by the end of our time together I started making up a metaphor to help her understand and remember the different elements of what we were going over. get this=

Firework = Samera

Anger Trigger = Lit Match

Anger Cue = Sparks.

Believe it or not...she got it by the end of the night.....now....will she remember next week?!? This is yet to be determined. lol.

After Agape, I got some reading material from Pastor Belita that I'm pretty excited to read. Woot woot. and went off to Praise Band practice. This was, up and away, my favorite part of the day. BY FAR. :0D I think i've fallen in love with Jesus, guitar, and singing all over again. Since our regular praise band members are away on vacation for the next few weeks, it's the dynamic trio of Mr Mitchel (Belita's husband) on the keys, Josiah on the Bass, and Myself on the Guitar. Josiah named our little band Occam's Razor. teehee. Ever seen the movie Contact?

Anyway, we are singing some really cool songs. I was surprised that I could play them all half decently. I still have some chords I have to learn by Sunday to be spot on, but I'm super stoked. :0D

Best part of the night: one of the songs we are singing is called "Guide my Feet" with Mr. Mitchel leading. So Josiah and I follow him. When we were done singing through the song Josiah goes, "That was pretty good for never having sung together before." I said, "Jesus knew what he was doing." And we all giggled. it was fantastic.

Well I best be off my friends, I gots to eat breakfast and be off to work.

I love you. I miss you. Take care,

love

~ME

**Worship

Touched by an Angel....then saw a mouse....

Gooooooooooooood Morning Vietnam!!!! (name that movie.... HINT - i gave it away....)

Hope this blog is read with happy eyes. I love you all so dearly, and I miss you just as much. To start off with, the homesickness is completely bearable now. I'm just a little hungry at the moment... which has nothing to do with homesickness. So thanks for praying! It'll probably pop up again before the summer is out, but for now I'm doing alright. :0) Jesus is so cool.

For purposes later in this blog:

Kim = a member of First Church, she lives literally next door to the Church and makes sure the building is locked every night and that the parking lot is locked on the weekends. She also serves on various committees.... I'm not sure what she does beyond that, but she has a lovable edge to her. Most people are afraid what's going to come out of her mouth, but she is great with kids and does her best to live the best she can.

Marisel = i've already talked about, but she's my homegirl for sure. teehee. She's the Pastor of Hispanic Ministries, and the part time Administrative assistant. She's superwoman. lol.

My day today was quite pleasant. I woke up, got my booty to church and worked on the church directory until 12, when Marisel, Kim, and I went to Pastor Belita's for lunch. Now lemme tell you something my dear friends, Pastor Belita is a true Brethren. teehee. She found out what my favorite kind of lunch was, (grilled cheese and tomato soup, for those inquiring minds) found out the kind of cheese I like, and then she went and made it for lunch today! But it was like gourmet type of food my people. It was also, like a three course meal!!! To start off with we had watermelon and honeydew (which I called green stuff, until Kim corrected me with a giggle), and some wonderful homemade iced-tea sweetened to perfection. After this beautiful beginning, Belita brought over the Tomato soup....oh my dear goodness. It was the best tomato soup ever.... i ate it right up. It was all creamy, and tasty and GOOD. lol. The sandwichs came next (which i promptly started dipping in my tomato soup) and they were scrumscious. yuuuuuuuuummmm. And just when you think you're done...Belita brings over some homemade cheesecake with choice of blueberries and strawberries. Needless to say at the end of this meal... i was STUFFED. but oh man it was great. FANtastic. *happy sigh* Us brethren and our food....wowza.

The rest of the afternoon was great. I had a date with the filing cabinet in the office, and man did we tango. I got that thing in a whole mess of order. teehee. I finished with that thing around 4:30, and then started doing some stuff for the newsletter for the church called "The Growing Edge". Catchy huh? I got it all proofed, and Belita and I figured out how to make it into a PDF file. Woot woot, go Pastor!!! and then I got it sent out to the Masses. It was swell. I feel like a got some stuff done today. :0D Huzzah!!!

Then I came home and turned on the T.V. to discover. "Touched by an Angel" okay...now who remembers that show? I LOVED that show as a kid. It was probably one of my favorites. I just loved Monica, Andrew, and Tess. They were like my heroes. I hadn't seen that show in such a long ol' time. Watching it now, i realize the acting is somewhat horrible, and the writing is.... also pretty bad... but the messages meant to be conveyed are totally awesome!!! Today's episode was kind of a rehashing of many episodes focused on Tess, kind of the mother angel. There was a filing and permanent records clerk from upstairs, who had read all of tess's files and totally loved her... so he wanted to be just like her!! But Monica and Andrew were trying to convince him that, we all serve God in different ways. This guy could turn filing into a way of Praising God, just like Tess turns every song into a prayer. It was just cool. A good reminder, for this intern, that the grunt work is a great way of praising God too. It's just as important to the Church as hanging out with Kids and singing in the Praise Band. :0)

During "Touched by an Angel" I saw.....dun dun DUUUUUUUNN.... A mouse!!!! I think there might be two of them now actually. I am going to name them Mickey and Minnie Mouse and try to make friends so they don't poop on my stuff or try to crawl up on my bed and sleep with me. I'm not a fan of that. They can have their corner...and i'm going to stay in mine. YIKES. I need to get my food up where they can't get to it...... hold on..... *brief pause* okeeday... I'm back and hopefully my food is safe. Phew.... close one.

Well I had better go before this gets too long. I love you all so so so dearly, and I can't wait to see you all again at the end of the summer. I love you!

Love

~ME

p.s. I love Matt.

Defeated by a Stapler...betrayed by my sunglasses...

Hello ya'll. :0D

Today was my first monday at work. I know right? I've been here round abouts two weeks, and it's my first monday. That's what we get when we go home for Sister's graduation. lol. Oh well, it was well worth it.

So I get monday morning's off, which means I don't have to go into work until 1pm. YAY!....? lol. i went in at 11:30 today cause I didn't know I didn't have to be in until 1pm. Well....life happens. So i slept in until 9am this morning, and then got up...ate some foodies... and got out my guitar and played for about an hour to so. probably longer... like until 11. so about an hour and a half. Special shout out to my super hero of a boyfriend for teaching me how to change a guitar string over the Internet. I love you!!!!! :0*

Work today was shockingly like work back home. I got dive head first into a filing system that is in desperate need of medical attention. lol. Not really, but it needs help, and so I'm trying to help it. My favorite moment with that filing cabinet so far was finding a baby consecration bulletin inside the funeral bulletin folder. 0_0 It was fantastic. I laughed. But I managed to make a lot of headway in the re-filing of that cabinet, and i was actually sad to leave. Though i could have stayed longer if I wanted to....this whole flexible hours thing is new to me.... and i think i'll just have to adjust to it. I was also needing to staple something and the stapler was jammed.... hahha, so i tried to fix it..... no go. it was stubborn and horrible. Pastor Belita was working on it when I left. lol. and also...my sunglasses fell apart. one of the screws came loose and fell out. So no more sunglasses for Jen. Et tu Brute!!!!! *sigh*

I think the best part of the day was getting to debrief with Belita about what happened at youth group the previous night. What happened? you may find yourself asking...what happened was this...

The kids were all crazy. I think, unfortunately, it's a regular occurrence. They were bouncing off the walls, and refused to respond to orders. It's REALLY hard not to raise your voice when they are getting completely out of control. It took Josiah about 30 minutes to get a game started for them to play..cause they wouldn't stay still or stay quiet for longer than a minute...and not even then. It was a madhouse. The bible lesson Josiah tried to give them was not listened to. They talked, or did cell phone stuff, or made eyes at one another from across the tables. I don't even remember what Josiah was talking about because i was trying to gage whether anyone was taking in what he was saying. Maybe one kid was...maybe. Something has to change in this youth group. It is SO clear to me. But i can't change it on my own. I can't wait to sit down and chat with Josiah about the kids and brainstorm ideas to make it better. *ponders*

We are supposed to go bowling next week, but Josiah said that if they act anywhere near how they acted last night, they aren't going. Jeepers.

So it was really good to talk to Belita about that, and also run down through some of the other ministry experiences went. I am beginning to see how I am supposed to fit in here, and it's going to stretch me..that's for sure. I'm up to the challenge and I can't wait to see how things play out.

Thanks oodles from you Praying bunch. I still miss everyone loads, but the homesickness is getting better and easier to deal with. I'm trying to put my energy into my job description and creating tasks to do with in that description. We shall see how that goes.

Well i am getting pretty darn hungry... so I'm going to go get some food, and then do some homework. lol. I am leading the music for sunday school hour for the next month while the regular person is away on vacation, so i have that curriculum to look at. And then also, i got a folder full of info from Pastor Gerald in terms of Agape-Satyagraha, which is the conflict resolution class taught at the church on Wednesday nights. So yay!!! We'll see how far into those i get....

I love you all, and I hope to hear from you soon!
Love

~ME