Wednesday was just another normal day, except it was the last day we had preview students in our room. Breakfast was the normal, exciting, cold continental complete with cereal, fruit and bagels. After breakfast, devotionals, the day went on as usual. The preview students went home right after lunch, while we were preparing for the book discussion.
At the beginning of lunch, we received word of having a family meeting, which has always been a bad thing. Our faces instantly dropped as the wonder of what we did wrong, but it was clearly a different situation when the meeting began and Alyssa Ayers made her way to the front of the classroom. It was quite like Alyssa to start off with a joke, telling the entire class that we ‘suck at chores and have 5 A.M.s again… just kidding’. The light air instantly left when she broke into a fit of tears, as Rachel comforted her and told her that she can do it. Without the knowledge of what was going on, everyone in the classroom was confused as to why a student was leading the ‘family meeting’. It wasn’t cleared up until after Alyssa read us a few verses and told her how much she loves us all and loved being at Joshua. The air shifted as we realized that she was saying goodbye, still unsure why. She informed us through her tears that she has to go live in Santa Maria to live closer to doctors. Her words stung as she told us she doesn’t want to leave the program, but due to a heath issue, she had to move down the hill to be closer to medical help. It was a really hard goodbye because the reason for leaving was in itself challenging. She handled it like a champion and we love her so much, even with the sadness of leaving Joshua, she quoted scripture after scripture with love for us and this program. With everyone very emotional, we got up and prayed over her for about five minutes before the lined formed for us to all say goodbye. Before we knew it, she was out the door going home for good. Although it was very difficult, we all understand why she had to go and that it was the best decision she could make for her health and we all support her in her tough decision.
The book discussion followed right after the sad news was quick and slightly different. Kelsey lead the discussion and we listened and talked about our opinions of the book, The Practice the Presence of God. Not many shared their opinions but many were similar. We didn’t chat about the book long before Kelsey told us that we can go and spend the next forty minutes with God and just practice his presence. That time was amazing, spending it alone with God, somehow different from devotionals and perfect.
We didn’t have anything until dinner after that, so most people hung out or did fun stuff. The day was for the most part back to normal, dinner was amazing as usual and before we knew it, it was time to listen to Fred Blackburn again. Since the topic was decided the day before in The Grill, we were all excited for the “Atheist Challenge”, where Fred pretends to be an atheist and we just talk and argue and ask questions. He showed us videos of atheist at the beginning where they were talking about how “ridiculous” Christians are. That enraged some people immediately, but others stayed completely cool, calm and collected. To say that Fred plays a good atheist is an understatement, sure some of the things he said were wrong, but none of us had the knowledge to correct him. Bryce realized that you can’t argue with them, it won’t help. So he told atheist Fred how much he loves him and was just asking questions, which we was learned was the best way to approach an angry atheist. Some things Fred talked about as an atheist was honestly pretty understandable but it was so hard to try and explain how things can’t happen without the Lord. Also to exaggerate the videos he played for us… they were so frustrating to the point of laughter, at least the first one. The guy who made it seemed naive to the Christian religion so the points he was making were slightly humorous. The night went on when most people either went to study Philippians some more for the Friday’s test of chapters one and two, went to hang out in common areas and the Catalyst room with an amazing couple, Gordon and Karen, while other people went straight to sleep.
Hey our names are Drew and Malachi and we are now writing the blog from our point of view, (it was previously written by Jessica and Kapri). On Thursday we woke up and went about our daily business, which consist of waking up at 6 A.M. (well this is me and Malachi’s daily business since we didn’t pass Philippians the first time). We now will probably continue to do this for the next couple months until we pass out of chapter 3. We will see how this works out for us now, after that we had our daily devotionals. We sadly had our final talk from Fred about what it actually meant “to be a Christian”. Fred talked about how he mixes all of the best kinds of things that he believes that consists mostly of existentialism and Aristotelian belief. Your Christian life should be one that reflects who you are. Something he challenged us to think about is when you strip everything away all the things on earth that we try to attach our identity too, who are we? That was a really good point because we often find so much value and worth from the things we accomplish or do. Realizing that all our works and all our failures aren’t actually going to get us anywhere is kind of crazy. The only thing that matters is if we have Jesus in our life and if we do then we can surrender anything.
After Fred’s wonderful talk, we went off for a little while, allowed to do our own thing for a small amount of time before we had to meet back for lunch. After lunch everyone dispersed to their designated S.W.E.E.P’s and came back to the building in time to get ready for Pause night with the amazing families that welcome us into their homes.
Now you guys get to hear about Thursday from the point of view of Kapri and Jessica (Jessica mostly though). The first half of the day is unnecessary to note because it was pretty much the same as Drew and Malachi’s day, up until SWEEPs. I had the pleasure of having the best SWEEP ever! In the Joshua kitchen. It was so much fun and brings me excitement to know that I will be in there for at least one month. In case everyone reading doesn’t know what a sweep is, it’s where the students go and do assigned volunteered work in the camp. Fun fact I learned at my sweep; it is an acronym for Student worker excellence in education program (more or less). Anyway, Kaitlynn and I got to do the first trash run we have even done and did a great job! Kaitlynn drove the trash truck and did great beside the fact that she doesn’t know how to back up between the two trash compactors. So we had to do a little maneuvering so I could back up for her. But it was quite the experience. Since it’s been raining up here, and there is still snow on the ground, it was all slush and so fun kicking and splashing at Kaitlynn. After the best trash run ever we met back up at the building with Kelsey, Russel and Grant and began prepping for the Pizookie fundraiser on Friday. Pizookies are big cookie pizza with ice cream and for winter camp we sell them and deliver them to campers and it’s supposed to be really fun. After that, we cleaned up and had a tea party, which was both fun and delicious because Kelsey’s tea is the best tea ever, in addition to the snacks we had, going from gluten free cookies for Russel to girl scout cookies. You can be sure that conversation with Kelsey will always be interesting and fun.
This week was really fun and different but nice, a little hectic because of the Philippians test and the preview, but all in all, it was a great time. I am excited for the first weekend of winter camp to come and be able to work and have fun with the people coming. Well, until next time. Have a great day!