The end of an adventure, but not really.

Twelve hours from now I will be patiently waiting for our internship graduation ceremony to begin. There will be some speeches, we will all get certificates saying that we have completed the program, we will have communion, and we will do all the rest that they have planned for the ceremony. Then this part of the adventure will end.

But its not the end, most of the interns will go on to do their field training at the end of the summer or be moving their family overseas to do full time ministry. There is still plenty to do and learn and grow in.

I have decided to not do my field training for the time being. I have several reasons for this decision, which I will probably unpack in a future blog. I will be taking 2 and a half months out of the office even though I will still be doing 10-15 hours of office work outside the office for most of it. Then in August I plan to start back in the office working mostly on our Member Care and Refugee Care teams.

I intended to go through my blog posts that I have made through the course of the internship, getting rid of the posts that I posted only because I needed to post something that day and keeping the posts that I like and are good posts. I plan on continuing my blog but posting less frequently but more thought out posts.

Grounding Techniques

Four things I can see

Maps on the wall, red chairs around the table, a glass of water on the table, ceiling fan

Three things I can hear

Dishwasher, Pandora commercial through earbuds, friends talking in the other room

Two things I can smell

Coffee, clean laundry

One thing I can feel

Keyboard under my fingers as I type this poem

My Mama

This is a little late but I have already wished my mom a Happy Mother’s Day over the phone and with a gift. Anyway this beautiful woman is so smart, witty, courageous, loving, so much more and best of all she is my Mama. I love you, mom. I am happy I get to see you in person soon!

Grateful

I am so grateful for my loving, supportive and helpful parents.

This weekend I went to get my oil changed in my car because I was past due for a change and I am driving home this coming Sunday and wanted to get in done before than. I went thinking it would just be the typical 30 or so bucks and I would be on my way. While I am waiting for it to be finished the mechanic comes to me and said there was a problem with my oil panel and it needed to be replaced. He explained to me the problem and even showed it to me. I don’t know anything about cars and I don’t think I could accurately explain what was wrong. Anyway I needed to replace the whole unit or I would risk leaking oil and my engine blowing up.

I drive my car every single day. The job that I have that pays for me to be here is a twenty minute drive across town on the interstate. I can’t risk losing my car.

They told me that the repair would cost several hundred dollars. Moving to this internship, I completely depleted my savings and I don’t make enough money to drop that much unexpectedly.

I immediately called my Dad to ask him what to do and if him and Mom could help me out. He wasn’t happy about the situation, no one is happy when what should have been a simple oil change turns into something worse and more costly. We were both worried that the mechanic was just taking advantage of me because I am a young woman who obviously knows nothing about cars (not saying that is the case for all young women but it is for me, I admit I know very little about cars). That is a common enough problem that it is possible that that is what happened. However, we decided to get the replacement instead of risking my engine blowing up, especially as I have to drive this car home through West Virginia and Kentucky in four days. And realistically my car would probably just be totaled if the engine blew up.

Anyway I am so glad that I have the relationship with my father that I felt comfortable calling him early on a Saturday morning for advice and with such a big financial request. I am so glad that I have parents who are in a position that they could help me with this and were willing to.

A lot of the time I get frustrated with myself for having to rely on my parents so much financially at 24 because I want to be independent, but I am so glad that I have the option. I am so grateful for my parents and their support, I don’t know how I will ever make it up to them. Thank you, does not feel like enough to express my gratitude, but thank you Mom and Dad.

Donuts and Tailgates

Today we took a break from the office to get free donuts from The Sugar Shack, a local donut place that often posts on Facebook deals to get free donuts. The deal today was if you commented on their post about your mom and why you love her, you get a free donut. Which was easy because my mom is great and I am so proud of her. So after we all commented about how great our moms are, we piled into Kris’ truck’s tailgate and went to get donuts. It was fun.

Fishermen

Most of the stories I wrote for this curriculum were in just plain story format but this one is more of a skit. Sometimes it can be fun to have the kids act out stories.

Dare to Make the Wise Choice: Change

Jesus Calls His First Disciples

Matthew 4:18-22

Instructions: Choose 5 students to be:

• Jesus
• Simon Peter
• Andrew
• James
• John

Have the students who are playing Simon Peter and Andrew on one end of the stage pretending to be in a boat fishing and have the students who are playing James and John doing the same thing on the other end of the stage. Have the camper playing Jesus walking around in front of the stage until instructed in the story.

One day there were two sets of brothers who were fishermen fishing in the Sea of Galilee. One set was Simon Peter and his brother Andrew and the other was James and his brother John. To the brothers this day seemed like a day like any other day, they did not know that the man walking on the shore was about to change their lives.

You see, the man walking on the shore was Jesus and he was looking for some men who would be His disciples. Disciples were very close followers and friends of Jesus who he taught while He was on earth. As Jesus was walking along He came up to Simon Peter and Andrew’s boat that was near the shore. He called out to the brothers, “Come with me and you will become fishers of men.” Simon Peter and Andrew left their boat with their crew and followed Jesus.

(Have Student Jesus walk over to Student Peter and Andrew and motion for them to follow him and have them walk down to where Student James and John are fishing)

The three of them continued walking down the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Soon they came across another boat where the brothers James and John were fishing with their father Zebedee. Jesus went up to their boat and said, “Leave what you are doing now and follow me. I will make you fishers of men.” James and John left their father on the boat with the crew and followed Jesus.

(Have Student Jesus walk up to Student James and John and motion for them to follow him and have all five students walk away from the stage with the disciples following Jesus)

These four men were the first of twelve who would leave everything they knew to follow Jesus and learn from him. They dared to change when they dared to make the wise choice by following Jesus.

Memory Verse for the week:

Hebrews 13:8

“Jesus is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Burrito Bowls

As part of our internship, we have to make and serve a meal for the people in our office for $8 or less. Over the nine months I have watched my fellow interns complete this task, some times dreading, other times looking forward to my turn. Welp, the day is finally here.

I have thought a lot about what I would make for my $8 meal. At first I thought about making Kugelis, a potato and chicken Lithuanian dish that I learned how to make while I studied abroad, its pretty simple but some of the ingredients are a little bit too expensive to make the dish on the budget I needed to follow and there are several vegetarians in our office, so that was a no. Then I thought I would make veggie soup, that can easily be made for under $8, but I just made that recently for Love Your City Soup Day and I as much as I love veggie soup, its too soon.

So I decided to do build your own burrito bowls. Very simple but yummy.

• 3 cans of Kroger black beans at $.59 a piece = 1.77
• 2 bags of baby spinach at $1.49 each = 2.98
• 1 bag of Kroger rice at $1.39
• shredded cheese at $1.23
• tax =$.18
  • = $7.55 leaving .45 for miscellaneous spices

Enjoy!

Bananas

A little while ago I bought these bananas and crushed walnuts, thinking I would make banana pancakes. Well I did make banana pancakes, just not very many, but I still had so many bananas.

So today at lunch I made banana walnut bread muffins. I am kind of proud of myself because at the beginning of the year I had felt really anxious about cooking/baking. Cooking and baking still make me a bit anxious but the muffins turned out well and tasty.

Splotches

Tonight I spent some time doing something I don’t think I have ever done in my adult life. I painted. Its mostly just splotches of paint on paper but I think some of the splotches turned out pretty cool.

Its just 50 cent paint from Walmart, so nothing special but it was fun and therapeutic.

What do I like to do?

What do you do for fun?

What do you like to do?

These are all questions that, recently, I have found myself trying my best to shy away from, because I do not know the answers. It has been awhile since I have had time to think about the things I like to do, let alone do the things I like to do.

What do I do for fun?

What do you like to do?

Surely there are things that I like to do, that aren’t things that I have to do because it is my job to do. Some times my brain feels so foggy that I can not remember what I like to do. It has been a long time since I have had time to do things that I find fun.