Most Exhausting Weekend

The 30 Hour Famine was this weekend at church, led by Wendy and the Young Adults (band name!).  All the games and activities revolved around what life would be like in the aftermath of a natural disaster such as the earthquake in Haiti.

There were some really cool lessons, like a tag game where the taggers symbolized slave traders who kidnap orphaned kids and sell them into work or sex slavery.  Those who were tagged were either sent out of the game with a card explaining what had happened to them or put in the game as a new tagger, because sadly, a lot of those kids grow up to become the monster that enslaved them.

We built cardboard homes to spend the night outside.  The guys used trees and hay bales with their materials, but the girls just made a massive circle of cardboard, set a cardboard pole in the middle, and made a roof of tarps duct-taped together.  It was pretty impressive, and easily fit all 11 of us.

Before the weekend, my boss warned me that the kids would hate me if it rained.  I launched into a stirring speech about how they would learn empathy far more after experiencing something like that rather than just hearing about it.  I prayed that it would rain and the kids would learn what it would really be like to live in post-disaster housing.

I should have been more careful with my prayer (isn't that often the case?).  I laid in front of the door so I would know if anyone went out or in.  That meant all the cold wind swept right into me throughout the night.  It wasn't too bad at first, because I was wearing sweats, had a hoodie pulled up, and snuggled entirely into my sleeping bag.

Girls had to go to the bathroom, so probably six times in the night, someone tugged on my leg or stepped on my hand and asked if they could go out.  I was usually about to fall back asleep by the time they returned and asked me to move so they could come back in.

And it rained.  I was lying directly beneath the line where two tarps were taped together.  The rain separated the tape in some places, and there was a line of water dripping onto my sleeping bag.  Not a huge deal, because it's semi-water proof.

Until Ashley sat up and said, "Somebody wake Natori up!"  Her foot was shaken, and she opened her eyes.  "Oh craaap," she sleep-moaned when she saw the tarp bowing under water to within two inches of her face.  She crawled out from under it, and not a minute later, the tarp gave out and splashed water where she'd been sleeping.

That happened to be at my feet, and the last foot of my sleeping bag was completely soaked.  I curled up for the rest of the night, and every time I would try to stretch out in my sleep, it was like dipping my feet into cold, wet socks.  Ugh.

Around 4:00 in the morning, a hole opened in the tape above my pillow.  For a while it just dripped, and I avoided that side of the pillow.  I was deep asleep when a bucket of water fell directly onto my face.  I spluttered and felt my pillow.  Completely soaked except for a couple inches of one side.  I flipped it so I could lay the top of my head on the dry part, curled my feet out of the wet bottom of my sleeping bag, and tried to keep my face covered my face from the wind.

Unpleasant.  And uncomfortable.

I figured everyone was suffering similarly, but when I woke up I found out only two other girls had gotten wet, and that mine was the worst of it all.  Of course that was the case, since I gleefully wanted them to learn a lesson, and obviously I needed to learn it instead.

And I did!  We came with nice sturdy cardboard, strong tarps, and duct tape, but still, our house fell apart from a light rain.  I can't even imagine how people live in less during worse conditions.

I was semi-cranky the rest of the famine from lack of sleep and a hunger headache.  But we went out to neighborhoods to collect canned foods for our food pantry, and that was overwhelmingly successful.  And when it came time to break our fast, we sent the kids outside to look for their picnic.  Wendy had put sandwiches, chips, and cookies in ziploc bags, then put everything into trash bags with actual trash and thrown everything into the dumpster.  I thought it was incredibly cool.

When everything was picked up, I went home, barely stayed awake to watch Community and Parks & Recreation, then showered and went to sleep by 9:00.  I went to church this morning, then came home and took a three hour nap.  I hope I'm caught up on sleep now.

I Found A New Hero

Okay, if I ever get to be a full time missionary, I don't know what I'll name my blog, because this girl already has the best title. 

Even though I spent most of my time with Stephanie my last year or so of college, we are not exactly very similar at all.  Who I AM similar to is her roommate Elizabeth.  Seriously, sometimes I worry we are the same person living in two different bodies.  We are cynical, hilarious, intelligent, and awesome.  Yeah, I went there.

Anyway.  She is the one who told me about this blog, and I'm so glad she did!  Jamie sounds like exactly the sort of person I want to hang around.  She casually throws curse words and Jesus into her posts.  I LOVE HER.  She loves fiercely, she has a witty personality, and she's committed to sharing Jesus with people in Costa Rica.  Can I be her?

AND ALSO.  She is married!  And has kids!  Y'all know I have serious issues with boys and marriage and especially kids.  I tend to see that whole process as separate from missionary work.  My brain can't fit the two together, despite seeing people like the Forsythes do exactly that.  I guess Kim just seems too perfect (though weird! and obvs, I love you Kim if you still read this).

But Jamie?  Like I said.  She discusses boobage and says rat's ass before waxing poetic about Scripture.  If she can be that open and honest and fantastic while married, well then, SIGN ME UP.  I never knew I could still be cool if I were a missionary AND married.

Read her.  And if you are offended by the ass thing, then...I'm sorry.  The rest of her blog is well worth a word or two.

Psychology, TV, Boys, and Some CAPS LOCK

I was watching my vampire show, like I do, (no, not Buffy.  I'm watching Vampire Diaries now.)  Okay, stop.  Mini rant.  While I appreciate how the interwebs allow me to find people who like the same things as me, it just makes me think, "Why are my RL friends not more like me!?  Why do I have to go to my computer to do some quality vampire analysis?"  Sad.

I was watching my vampire show, like I do, and I had an epiphany.  For those who don't know (which is everyone I speak to vocally) Stefan is the good boyfriend who respects Elena's wishes and treats her like a capable adult who can make hard decisions that he may or may not agree with.  This is fantastic, no?  This is a great boyfriend!  So why do I love Damon so much, when he rashly makes decisions for Elena, forcing her into positions she hates, all because he "loves" her?

See, I even know that he doesn't understand what love really is.  So again, why do I root for him instead of the ideal?  I have two thoughts, one obvious, the other more personal.

1)  Perfect people on television are BORING.  Your girlfriend chooses to sacrifice herself and you just...let her go after a nice conversation?  NO.  You lose all TV drama points.  You yell a lot and when that doesn't convince her, you force her to drink your blood thereby forcing her to turn into a vampire if she goes through with the dying thing, which is the one thing she really really doesn't want to do?  YES!  That is how you make good television!

2)  I have very conflicting opinions on boys.  With every given story, there is no telling who I will like.  In the City of books, I was entirely on Jace's side (hotheaded and wounded) and against Simon (healthily normal).  But in the Hunger Games, I was 100% for Peeta (healthily normal) and not for Gale (hotheaded and wounded).  Why?  I don't know!

Sometimes I like two characters in the same story!  I love Harry.  He is awesome, and if he were real, I would want to be his friend/love interest.  And despite a childhood of abuse and an adolescence of escaping and defeating evil, he is pretty well-adjusted and normal.  But I also love Draco!  He is spoiled, and he is a coward.  But he wants so badly to be important that he puts on this show of violence and superiority.  He is broken and messed up, and I love him so!  What happens when Harry and Draco fight?  I root for everyone and no one.  The fact that they came to some kind of agreement in Deathly Hallows is one big metaphor for my dualistic boy opinions reconciling (thanks for that, Jo).

What I've decided is that Boy Stereotype #1 represents the superego, and therefore MY superego likes him.  And Boy Stereotype #2 represents the id, and therefore MY id likes him.

How to unify them with the ego?  BRING IN SPIKE, OF COURSE.

Because Spike is all about covering up his pain and insecurities with a show of snark and joy.  But he also supports Buffy, knowing that she's twenty times better than he is, and he loves and respects her for it.  So.  With Spike, I get it all.  Is it any wonder the interwebs are in love with him?  (And here we return to the sad fact that I don't know the faces of the people who agree with me.)

Hypocrite Me

I am a skeptic and a cynic.  My grandpa just finished reading this book about a little boy who dies, goes to heaven, and then is resuscitated.  Grandpa is over the moon about this book, and raved about it to me.  My response?  "Well...kids have crazy imaginations, and I'm sure his pastor father had told him about heaven.  Anyway, it would be more convincing if everyone who died and went to heaven experienced the same thing.  And what happens to Muslim or Hindu people when they have near death experiences?"

He was not pleased.

BUT I have found my soul mate!  Jason Boyett wrote O Me of Little Faith, and within a paragraph or two, I knew I had found a C.S. Lewis friend.  ("Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What!  You too?  I thought I was the only one.")  Boyett is funny, doubtful, intelligent, skeptical, and devoted to Jesus.  I intend to write more about his book in a later post.

What I want to talk about right now is how I am a hypocrite.  One of my favorite passages from the beginning of the book is this:

"If my flight gets canceled, perhaps it's just the result of a backlog of delayed flights thanks to a major storm somewhere.  I'm seriously hesitant to assume a master evangelistic plan behind flight delays, but many well-meaning Christians really do place so much value on a single soul that they have no problem believing that God whipped up a thunderstorm over the Dallas/Forth Worth airport, piled stress on airline employees, and inconvenienced hundreds of travelers for the purpose of engineering a conversation of eternal significance.  My honest assessment of most 'divine appointment' language is that it is self-centered.  Especially if your divinely appointed evangelism is at the expense of a bunch of other people who just want to get home in time to tuck in their kids.  (Right: I'm a soulless twit.)"

I laughed and mentally fist-bumped Boyett.  So funny!  So accurately conveying my own confused opinions!

And then tonight I totally pulled the divine out of the mundane, and I knew I was lying the whole time.  In Team Kids, we talked about being lonely, and how a little MK prayed that God would give her a friend, and she made a friend!  One of the adults asked if I was lonely in Senegal, so I said, "I was so nervous to leave all my friends and family!  I prayed really hard that I would make new friends in Senegal.  And it turns out that I clicked with my housemate, and she became one of my closest friends!  I really believe that God gave me a friend because I prayed."

That is all true, except for the last sentence.  I made it up because it sounded spiritual and lesson-centric.  But that is ridiculous to even the most uninformed listener.  Liz would have been my housemate whether I'd prayed about it or not.  We still would have had similar personalities whether I prayed about it or not.  So we would have been friends whether I prayed about it or not.  I don't think my prayers kept her from being killed in a freak horse-cart accident, thereby leaving me friendless in Senegal (and this is all not even considering my friendships with Holly and Kim etc).  My prayers are not that powerful (or self-centered, see my agreement with quote above).

I don't understand prayer.  The best I can come up with is that by praying, we open our eyes to see God working.  My prayers didn't cause anything to happen, but it made me turn to God with 1) my problem, and 2) my praise.  That's enough for me for now.  There might be more, but I don't get it.

So why did I claim more?  Because I was raised to think that's the sort of thing spiritual people say, and I wanted to look good.  Instead, I was a hypocrite.  I'd really like to stop that, and I want to try to own up to my failings and my doubts.  Coming soon, I guess...

The Weekend of Awesome is Over

When I was in youth group, my friends and I used to joke about how awesome it would be if we could have a Woodland High School, where we spent all day every day together.

This weekend I felt the same, but on a larger scale.  Spending Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with my church family?  Awesome.  If we made Woodland into an apartment complex, I would be first to sign a lease.  Moar church now!!

Affirmation Service

I've not wanted to go to any part of Lay Ministry Weekend.  Even after a good time last night and this morning, I was reticent to go this evening.  Christina would say that is spiritual warfare, and probably she is right.  I have renewed my dislike for spiritual warfare, because it's stupid.  Why not want to go to something I have consistently enjoyed?  Stupid.

In another case of stupid (and a little hypocrisy), this afternoon's session was an Affirmation Service.  I didn't know what they meant until someone passed out a flyer about encouraging people.  I sat in my pew and saw that there were two chairs and a microphone at the front of the sanctuary.  Oh crap, I thought.  We're going to affirm people?  Publicly?  Like right now??  I wondered if I could somehow sneak past Lindsay without her realizing I was disappearing.

Some of you might remember that I talk about the importance of honesty in the church, and how integral I think community should be among believers.  Internet Me would say an affirmation service is the kickingest idea around, but Real Me is terrified of vulnerability and public speaking.  But unwilling to succumb to hypocrisy (in this instance), I stayed.

Mark got up and said, "I thought if I could get the shyest person to start us off, everyone would realize it was no big deal."  My panic restarted.  Did he know I was the shyest person in the congregation?  Was he going to call on me?

No.  He was making a funny, because Susan went up to start us off.  She told a little story, then said, "I'd like to ask Tricia McGarrah to come up here."  What the what?  Of course that would happen.  And let me say right now that it was wonderful and encouraging.  Having someone I respect tell my church family that she thinks I'm cool is pretty awesome.  But GUH.

When that was over, I sat in my seat, safe in obscurity.  But then I realized that being affirmed is incredibly easy, and basically all for me.  If I really believed that we needed to work on church unity and encouragement, then...didn't that mean I needed to work on church unity and encouragement?  Crap, I thought again, because I knew what I had to do. 

I grabbed Rose and took her to the front.  I sat beside her, because having someone affirm you from behind where you can't see them was awkward.  And also I didn't want to stand in front of people.  But I told her how I appreciated her relentless admonishment for me to be patient.  I think I've actually learned that lesson for now.

The rest of the affirmation service went awesomely.  There was some awkward pauses, because everyone was so unused to the idea.  But I learned about some people's service that I never knew, and I saw the love that has been created between some really unexpected church members, which was entirely cool.  I hope we can make this a semi-regular thing, because despite my panic attacks, I really think that public affirmation is a valuable thing for the church to support and make time for.

Lay Ministry Results

I always either have nothing in my thought box or EVERYTHING.  Right now it's the latter, but I'll try to stick to one topic, which is the Lay Ministry Weekend.

It's all about discovering your gifts and figuring out how you can minister in the church and outside the church.  But ironically, what I've decided after tonight's sessions is that I will be giving up a ministry.  I over-committed when I returned to Woodland, and this year I have steadily lost fire and drive and passion.  So I'm going to tell Mark that if someone else wants to teach the college Bible study on Sunday nights, I'm out.  I won't just quit and abandon them while they are a fledgling group, but if someone else feels led to teach (and I think someone does), then I'm out.

And that sucks.  I love eating with the people in GASS--all my friends are either in high school, college, or teach GASS.  I love studying the minor prophets with a group of people who mostly contribute and start meaningful conversations about theology and life and God.

But what giving up a ministry really means is this:  I want to commit more fully to being the junior high girl's Sunday School teacher.  I want to do more outside of class with them, and I want to be more available to talk to them and minister to them.  I would rather give 100% of my energy to them rather than divide it in half to two groups. 

I was also reminded that counseling is something I need to keep in my brain.  I feel like I'm good at learning, and I'm learning to be good at teaching, and I've always been very non-judgmental.  Combining that with my interest in orphanages (and especially working with victims of sexual slavery), um, there's kind of a huge need for counseling.  So while I'm not jumping to go back to school right now, this was a little nudge to help me remember that ability.