Week 2: Laughter around the campfire

I’ve now spent two weeks of my life in Joplin, Missouri, and I have to say the place has really grown on me. I’m accustomed to a much more urban feel, and the smaller town atmosphere actually makes me really happy.

Bags of t-shirts we rolled this week

This week has been a ton of fun. We’ve been working harder – not as many meetings, lots of getting ready for our first sessions! We’ve rolled about 1,500 t-shirts, so we’re pretty much pros at that now. I’ve also gotten to work on schedules, housing, had some money matters entrusted to me (eep), and on Friday we loaded up a truck for our practice session yesterday! We’ll be rolling out next Thursday and heading to our first event in Ohio. 

Some of the highlights of this week in terms of non-work related things were both Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, we went to the CIY office in the evening to make Oreo balls for a cookout at our boss’s house the next day. They were delicious, by way, and super easy to make – you can find the recipe here. 

Just singin' along to some Lion King

Pretty great guys we get to work with

At the office, there’s a small kitchen, and next to that is a conference room with a huge TV. We all helped with the Oreo balls for a while, and as there got to be less to do, Caleb went into the other room and pulled up YouTube on the TV and began playing Disney songs. As we cooked, cleaned the kitchen (S/O to Sully for being awesome and not only willing but eager to clean), and sang and danced along to classic Disney music (S/O to Caleb for knowing all the words to every song), it occurred to me (and Becca, as we discussed later in the week) that this was really what Christian fellowship and community is all about. It was a fun, carefree evening, and made my heart so happy.

The next day, we went to a staff member (Rachel)’s house for a cookout with the whole Engage team. The entire evening was fun, but the best moment by far happened when we were all sitting around the campfire towards the end of the night. We were all talking, and the boys were, as usual, being pretty silly, and all of a sudden Codey started laughing his belly laugh. The thing is, when Codey laughs deeply, he sounds like Mickey Mouse. The laugh itself, combined with the fact that this sound is coming out of a pretty big guy, is absolutely hilarious, so once he started laughing, so did everyone else in the circle. Then Rachel laughed – her laugh also sounds super funny, so it set off a chain of laughter where Codey and Rachel would laugh at each other’s laughs and everyone else would join in. We laughed for a good seven or eight minutes, until it was sort of painful, but it was amazing and wonderful.

"This actually happened" face

Something else that happened this week: I ate meat for the first time in seven years. I’ve been thinking about it for a while, knowing that being vegetarian and doing missions work probably wouldn’t be possible, and just decided the other day that I’d do it then. My first meat was a corn dog from Sonic – this choice might not make sense, but hot dogs are actually one of the things I’ve craved the most out of all the meats. Surprisingly, it didn’t taste all that different from veggie dogs I’ve had recently, so it actually was pretty good. I haven’t had meat since, but it’ll be interesting slowly making the switch. I don’t have much interest in eating meat, but it’ll definitely be handy for those times when there are limited choices.

Sunny!

Other adventures: we went to a train bridge one night, which was pretty cool, and we had family dinner last night at a non-fast food restaurant, which was nice. We also went to some of the sessions for CIY Move which took place at Ozark last week. The worship music and the speakers were great, and there were lots of talented high schoolers who performed in the talent show. We also got to hang out at our boss Sarah’s house yesterday, where we met her pup, Baxter, her mom’s sweet new puppy Sunny and her turtle (!) Squirtle. So so many animal pals, and I love it. Last but not least, we went and swam in a creek and (attempted to) hammock, which was super fun.

Train bridge

So what has God been teaching me this past week? Doing devos and spending time in reflection, I’ve been coming to a lot of understandings about myself and the way I want to be and live, which is kind of crazy as it’s happening all at once. It’s all things I’ve thought and read about before, but God is really laying them down on my heart and reinforcing a lot of things for me. I’ve also been really blessed to get to spend time in conversation with the men and women around me on staff and on my team, gaining insights and encouragement from one another. I don't have a lot of very specific things to talk about that he's been teaching me - it's been a sort of sleepy week, and so I've been focusing much more on prayer and reflection than on learning a lot of new things. One of the speakers talked about how important it is to fear God, the same way you might fear your earthly father. This kind of speaks to what I've been thinking about a lot lately - just rediscovering an awe for how powerful God is, and grasping even a little bit of what it means to love the way he does.

I'm getting excited about leaving this Thursday - prayers for smooth travels and good cohesion for our team would be wonderful. Hope you're all having a happy summer so far!

Engage event staff family :)