life here

I never feel adequate for the situation, not really.

I find myself in leadership positions, and I never feel like I actually should be here, but here I am, and I end up doing a good job of it. I find myself in evangelism teams, with people who are more quiet than I am, not as much energy, and I'm forced to be the leader in those situations, and so I end up being the leader. But, I don't crave that persa, I wouldn't automatically choose to be the leader of the group, because I like to see someone else do it, see how they do things, learn from them.

Jesus is showing me how to be interactive, how to strike up a conversation, and turn it to tough questions, asking things like "Where would you find yourself if you died, and why?". It's been fun to see myself grow in these areas, prolong conversations with people, connect with people, sit down, pray with people I met 3 minutes ago. God is doing amazing things in my life and I hope to continue them when I'm done serving here for the summer.

I'm already thinking of new opportunities to serve, and serve better in the ways I was already serving. I want to be more focussed on evangelism, reaching the ones that are lost. I want to be able to just go up and start talking with someone, make friends with strangers. I want to care less about myself and let my fear of man be lost. To not care what someone else things about what I'm doing, but to think about their eternal salvation. Someone has said before, the only thing we can't do in heaven is proclaim the Gospel to the lost, and so that's what his goal here on earth was; to reach the lost. And I think that's a pretty good perspective to live by. I want to throw my life at the feet of Jesus. I want to mirror God's love for me to the people around me. I want to be ready, spontaineous. When Jesus calls me to be a 'fisher of me' I want to follow. Not my will, but Your will be done.

I'm trying to learn more musical stuff here too. I'm learning to play the drums much better, and I'm trying to learn the guitar and ukelele, and maybe some piano. I want to make the most of the environment I'm surrounded by.


English Vintner

Children

I sit in silence from the world, surrounded by music from my ear buds. Watching a girl of 5 years old dance around in Starbucks without a second thought. From one tile to the next, without a care of who's watching or what they think. Innocence; bliss. What is the real world, is it the cage that we live in, surrounded by social norms, expected to act a certain way? To be a child again, to not know the things you know, the dangers, the cares of the world. To be a carefree child, with no curb to the creativity or the feelings inside.

English Vintner

July 4th

July fourth dawned, like any other day around here. I was asleep when the sun rose, which is typical, since I don’t go to bed until one o'clock most nights. My alarm was set for 8:30am, but after seven hours of sleep I figured I could hit the snooze for a few minutes. I got up at 8:50am, grabbed some clothes, keys, and headed to the car. I jumped in it, which by now was already simmering hot from the sun’s rays. I was driving to Wal-Mart, which I’d been to once before, I knew how to get there, but didn’t have directions, which I thought I might need. I ended up going past my first turn and getting a little bit lost, but ended up not losing much time. I got to Wal-Mart, stood inline at the return counter for about 15 minutes, which is when I realized that today was a holiday, July fourth. I felt bad for all the people working and tried to be as nice as possible to everyone. I got my item returned and weeded my way through the crowds. By now Wal-Mart was starting to get packed, tons of people showing up for last minute shopping. I got the items I needed and headed to the check-out. I greeted the cashier and payed for my items. I made it back to the house a few minutes late for prayer meeting, which ended up not happening, or I missed it all together, I’m still not sure. 

At 10:30am, after I grabbed a sip of joe we headed to our first party of the day. We arrived at the their house, a family who go the Calvary OPC where we attend on Sundays. I already knew the two youngest kids, Marissa who was 13, and Caleb who was a little older. We hung out for a while, chilling. Some people went in the pool, others played bad mitten. Around noon we came into the air conditioned house (an anomaly around here) and ate lunch.

We ate lunch outside, under the shade of outdoor umbrellas. After we finished eating we played a  round of mafia. It was surprisingly fun for the amount of people we had, almost a dozen; but we learned some fun new things to add to the game. It was a good time of bonding with everyone.

We came inside for a little while, Seth and Caleb jammed a little with the guitar and ukulele. Marissa got a group of us together to go play volley ball and later bad mitten. Both were quite fun. Around 4pm we headed back to the Dunn house to quickly change and get ready for the next party. We left to go to the Adleighs for dinner. We arrived at a somewhat run-down looking house, surrounded by several acres of woods, some turned into garden and other fenced into horse lot. It reminded me of my cousin’s house, which is down in the woods, but very country, projects kind of lying around, waiting to be finished. We hung out in a big oak tree, and for supper had hotdogs and hamburgers. Around 7:15pm some of us headed back to the Dunn house to quickly change and head to the evening program, totally put on by the Youth Group from Warrenton VA. The Youth Group did a wonderful job and it was so nice to sit back and enjoy the whole program without being in it. They were very thankful for our support. Afterwards we walked out on the Boardwalk to see the fireworks. There were so many people on the Boardwalk, more than I’ve ever seen. It was hard just to walk through. The fireworks display was good and lasted 20 minutes. Afterwards we went out to the beach and dabbled in the sea water, singing hymns. We came back to the chapel and hung out, talking with people who came by, and hanging out with the YG, singing hymns and talking.

When it was almost midnight we headed back to the house to get some sleep. That was my fourth of July, here at the Boardwalk Chapel.

English Vintner