On Thursdays, my team volunteers with the Salvation Army Day Camp, but I've been coughing for a week and I wasn't sure if I should spend the day with a bunch of kids. When our team got there, it turned out that they only needed 10 out of 14 of us. I stayed for a bit to see if they needed any help, then opted to go home and take a nap to rest and to keep my germs to myself.
At first, I felt really odd going home early. I had close to perfect attendance throughout my K-12 years and almost never missed class in college, even when I was sick (I coughed my way through a final exam once, much to the annoyance of my classmates). In essence, I just don't know how to take a sick day, so I was a bit unsure of what to do with myself after I woke up from my nap, since it was still several hours before I had expected to be back at the hostel.
I ended up prepping for my training/activity I'm leading tomorrow and then chilling in my room, not doing anything in particular. I'm glad that I did take a sick day, and I'm I'm glad that I'm learning to slow down and take things easy when I'm not feeling well.
Today we had another day of outreach at Cal, asking people for their stories and their spiritual backgrounds. Stephen and I met Peaches, a 26-year-old homeless woman from south Georgia who was diagnosed 3 years ago with terminal brain cancer. She figured, "Well, I'm going to die -- I might as well make the most out of life while I can."
And she has! She's hitchhiked over 27,000 miles from south Georgia up to NYC, across to Seattle, down to southern California, and all the way back to Florida. Even more precious though, was getting to hear her share about how her relationship with God has deepened as a result of living with cancer. I'm amazed and encouraged by her faith and her trust in his goodness, his provision, and his timing in the midst of suffering, and I hope that others will be encouraged by her story too.
One of my favorite parts of project is getting to mentor young women on the team. Every summer, I get to walk with them through the myriad of emotions and things that God reveals to them, whether about themselves or about relating to others. It's such a joy to come alongside them in their journeys!
Sometimes, these nudges toward adulthood come in small steps. Tonight, it was helping my freshman Kelly figure out a bedtime. She's super outgoing and loves to be around people....at the cost of her sleep. I empathized with her fear of missing out (or FOMO, as we call it here on project) and told her it was great that she wanted to get to know people, but it was also important to take care of herself.
With a few questions, we set up some guidelines for herself - nights when she has to work on her online class homework, a time to be back in her room, and a time to go to bed. She's learning and growing, and I'm glad I get to watch this portion of her process.
I forgot to take a picture today, but today I celebrated Stacy (fellow bridesmaid)'s birthday and then headed to the airport with my boyfriend - me back to summer project, and him back home to Portland. My flight was delayed for 3 hours because the fog was leading to poor visibility at SFO. However, the fog delay turned out to be a blessing in disguise, allowing me and Jayson to spend extra time together at the airport :)
So I don't actually know what happened on project, but today, I got to stand with my friends Eunice and Clarence on their wedding day :) It was such a beautiful wedding and a fun time of celebrating!
I left SF for the weekend to be a bridesmaid for my friend Eunice....all the way in DC. I was excited to celebrate with her, but not too wild about the cross-country flying. Thankfully, that was pretty smooth. And the cherry on top of the cake? I got to see my long-distance boyfriend (who's one of the groomsman) for the first time in months!
We had a pretty emotionally intense training time that morning, so it was a relief to have a relaxed project social in Dolores Park with some games and just time to chat. Thanks to Gima's tutelage, I learned the basics of skateboarding! I can now get on, get off, and pedal a skateboard. I can also turn in theory...but that's yet to happen in practice :)
We're volunteering with a Salvation Army kid's day camp once a week. The kids rotate through 4 different classes (Math, English, Arts & Crafts, and Music/Dance worship), and I got to help with the Dance Worship class today.
I had so much fun learning the choreography and doing it with the kids. Some of them are rowdy and demand a lot of attention by making trouble, but others are shy little sweethearts that opened up with some coaxing.
We had dinner together at Brenda's, this cute little French soul food/Cajun place near Civic Center! The crawfish beignets looked amazing. I'll definitely come back here!
At dinner tonight, we were talking about foods we like and dislike. When it was Grace's turn, she said, "I don't like mushrooms or raw tomatoes." As soon as those words left her mouth, her soup arrived...topped with tons of mushrooms and tomatoes (I guess she didn't read the description of the dish too closely?). She was brave though, and ate all of her soup - icky vegetables and all.
Steve, former Epic staff who lives in the city, took us on a tour through Chinatown, exploring its history and how the gospel speaks into themes that are prevalent in the Asian story - hiding part of your identity for survival (e.g, paper sons and exoticizing Chinatown into a tourist attraction to keep it from being torn down), suffering, and shame.
My job today was helping our ops director process checks and paperwork during registration. Later that night, our team had our first dinner together, with some getting-to-know-you games and questions. The most interesting question we asked was, "What is an irrational fear that you have?"
Some of the responses:
porcelain dolls
spiders
sleeping on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed (for fear the person on top will fall on top of you)
getting sliced in half upon entering or exiting an elevator
discovering someone behind a closed shower curtain
falling and/or dropping one's phone/keys through a storm drain or steam vent
1 day before students arrive & our designated day of rest
I've been craving fruit, so I went to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building with Tabby in search for some peaches and strawberries, which I remember being quite impressed with from last summer. The entire back plaza behind the Ferry Building is filled with tents of farmers selling their produce and inviting people to sample their goods.
I randomly sampled a Gold Dust peach from Frog Hollow Farms and IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING PEACH I'VE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE. They're insanely expensive, but I bought some anyway. It turns out that this is the same peach farm that my Bible study leader in NYC was raving about when he and his wife were here last year!
Today I found out which 3 women on the project I'll be mentoring/discipling for the summer. Margaret (our project director who's overseeing women's development) gave us these super cute file folders so that we could take notes or tuck in resources for our students.
Home-cooked staff team dinner, courtesy of Jonathan (left) and Daniel (center)
We're staying in a hostel with a kitchen (hooray!!). After a long day of staff meetings, Jonathan and Daniel made us a dinner consisting of several different culinary traditions- the classic Chinese tomato and egg dish, a chicken dish from Hawaii, and oven-roasted brussel sprouts.
I've always considered myself a very responsible person. Other people tell me that, and when I took the Strengths Finder assessment, Responsibility ended up being one of my top 5 strengths. However, it seems that through the month of January, God wanted me to stop using "RESPONSIBLE" as the primary identifier for my life and instead, start using "SAVED BY GRACE."
I had gone to Texas on vacation to stay at a lakehouse that belonged to a friend of a friend. The family who owned it was incredibly sweet and hospitable - they picked me up from the airport, drove me to the lakehouse 2 hours away, stayed with me the first night, then offered to let me stay there by myself for the rest of the week -- even leaving me a car to use!
They left early the next morning, and as lunch time approached, I realized I needed to go grocery shopping. I got in the car, as I backed out of the garage, I hit the corner of the wooden retaining wall on the lawn and scratched the car up pretty noticeably. >.<
Shaken, I continued to the grocery store, and noticed on the drive back that something felt weird, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Hours later, when I went outside to take out the garbage, I noticed that I had knocked over a post...which had exposed some nails....which punctured my back tire, which was now hopelessly flat.
I was MORTIFIED. I was freaking out, mentally scolding myself, "HOW COULD YOU BE SO IRRESPONSIBLE??? They haven't even been gone for 24 hours yet and you've already broken something! They didn't even know you! They trusted you on a recommendation! You should probably go home right now because I wouldn't let me stay here!"
Trembling, I finally mustered up the courage to call the family. When the husband picked up, he asked, "Is something wrong?"
"I'm afraid so" (eeeeeek!)
"What happened?"
(I told him)
"Ok, so the tire's flat and the bumper's scratched up. Are you safe?"
"Oh. Yeah, I'm fine." (Wait....I'm more important than the car???)
"Good, that's most important. We knew that if anything happened to the car, you'd be safe." (Wait, you're not sending me home? You're not assessing my entire character on one incident?)
A bit reassured, I started sharing a bit of my internal lecture about being irresponsible. His answer has stuck with me to this day and radically changed a whole paradigm of thinking: "You weren't irresponsible. It was an accident. Accidents happen."
I wasn't irresponsible. What a HUGE contrast between what he was telling me and what I was telling myself! Here I was, flipping out, and to him, it really wasn't that big of a deal. He even offered to come out the next morning to change the tire - even though he had just driven home 2 hours away that day! (He ended up not needing to because they had AAA)
Over the next 4 days, I pretty much sat and stared out over the lake trying to wrap my mind around this grace he had shown me. I had felt so safe with him that I felt like even if I had taken the car the next day, totaled it, I could have called the family back without being afraid of getting kicked out of the house.
As I reflected on that security I felt with that family, I realized...this is the safety and freedom I'm supposed to feel with God because I have accepted Christ's trade: He died and took God's wrath for my sin upon himself, and I asked him to take over my life, and got off scot-free with his blameless life that warranted no divine punishment.
Romans 8:1 tells us, "Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." I know it's true because it's scripture, but that is definitely not true of my experience with God. I live (and have lived) in constant condemnation. And then I realized....I live in condemnation not because God condemns me but because I heap it on myself...
...just like Dobby the house-elf from Harry Potter. Take a look:
It's not entirely clear in this clip why Dobby has to punish himself, but the book explains a bit:
"Dobby will have to punish himself most grievously for coming to see you, sir. Dobby will have to shut his ears in the oven door for this. Dobby is always having to punish himself for something, sir. They lets Dobby get on with it, sir. Sometimes they reminds me to do extra punishments ... " "But why don't you leave? Escape?" "A house-elf must be set free, sir. And the family will never set Dobby free ... Dobby will serve the family until he dies, sir ... " (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
Like what I wrote in my last post (It's already been paid for), my sin has already been punished and paid for. I no longer have to bang my head against the wall when I forget to invite my students to an event, or "iron my fingers" because I didn't tell anyone about Jesus that week. I'm free, and I understand that on an intellectual level, but somehow, I find myself living like an enslaved house elf looking for things to punish myself for.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set you free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1).
Oh, for the day when my dense little heart finally understands what my head acknowledges!
Are you living in that freedom? If not, what keeps you?
.jpg)
