Sunday, July 20th... Two Days Left

Sunday, July 20th, 2008

Two days left… until I head back to California…

Today we woke up nice and early for choir yet again. We went to a church in Stanton Island, New York. We actually got there in less than two hours- although I had felt pretty sick the whole ride up.

As we waited to start our rehearsal Soley and I sat together and we gave each other a long hug and my eyes began to water until Soley broke the moment without realizing it and said, “I wonder what’s for lunch?” We both laughed and the moment was thankfully gone, but then we looked at each other and she realized that I had been having an emotional moment and she felt bad she broke it. But it’s okay because it was too early to begin crying or to start crying at all.

~
Actually the night before I had tearfully talked to God and I thanked him and praised him for bringing me back to Camden and for everything happening and moving in Camden. I cried because I was sad, but also because I was happy- yet another mix of emotions. I remembered how emotional I was for my last Sunday service last year and how I could not stop crying. So I prayed for strength to make it through my last two days- to be strong and to not be an emotional basketcase... and he pulled me through…
~

We practiced our songs a few times, worked through some difficulties and adapted to the on-the-spot changes. Cleve can be so funny sometimes, but after last summer and last week when you have choir with Cleve you learn to roll with the punches, especially when in the middle of practice Cleve asks Sean to play “Taste and See” on the piano on the spot. Sean went right along after a short hesitation- I was proud, haha.

Practice went really good and we learned a new song in Malawian. We finished practice about 15 minutes before the service was to start and members started filing in.

The coolest thing about the service was that it was the new location of an Urban Promise. Urban Promise Stanton Island. The service went well- several of us even put in donations for the church. I put some cash in as well as wrote a check for this new and struggling church, but I could feel God work and moving and blessing this church. They also announced that camp was now free for kids for the rest of the summer- Praise God! Choir did really well and Kareem’s Bible Rap was precious. Afterward we had pizza for lunch and headed back to Urban.

On the long ride back we had a jam secession once Sean pulled out the ipod speakers. It was fun just to find comfort in the presence of others, especially since I would be living soon.

After we got back I went to my room and listened to some worship music, cried a little, and wrote some of my intern goodbye letters. I changed quickly and looked out the window and saw that everyone was loading up in the van and so I ran down the stairs to catch the van to leave for Sunday service. We were leaving a little bit earlier that I was originally told, so thing I caught the van.

They served salad at dinner! Yay! haha. We (Eastside Interns) love us some salad, especially Sean’s yummy salad. I spent time with Erin Main while the interns broke into cell groups. We then went into service and I cried a little during the service but Me-Linh pulled me through considering how I felt. I felt like crying, but didn’t want to and God helped me hold it together. The less tears the better, but the tears really began flowing when I gave Courtney a long goodbye hug… more like three long goodbye hugs.

We got back and we hung out for a bit and because the Brick House was so hot Me-Linh stayed in my room and we stayed up talking until 1am and then we both figured it was time for bed since we had camp in the morning.