What am I like 3

So I am stuck in my apartment for the next few days. I am contagious with a double ear infection and a throat infection (not strep though). I had to go sit in urgent care because my doctor is on vacation, how wrong is that. The nurse practitioner said she never sees infections like this in adults and usually not in children above the preschool age. Then she asks where I work and if I am around children. Hahaha. The church I work at has a preschool and she told me I must have the lowest immune system like ever. I did not think this was funny. Now I am on two antibiotics (one mouth, one ear drops). I am so frustrated. Then I was told not to go to work until Friday because I am so contagious. Which is just about impossible for me since I have coronation dinner for my princess/queen class tomorrow night, Wednesday nigh Bible Study, and a youth having surgery tomorrow. I am going to go nuts!!!!

Parent Visit

This weekend has been wonderful. I got the chance on Thursday night to go to the Radio Music Theater. It was amazing and funny. The show playing was called Grandpa has not moved in 5 days. The scene with the pastor was my favorite. The guy playing the pastor spoke so fast and crazy that you could not understand a word he said. I had to wonder if that is what my youth group hears sometime when I talk.

On Friday night a band (A Dying Bread) that has two of my youth in it played at Hot Topic in the mall. They are a Christian metal band. They were amazing. The music had such a great message and they even took time to talk about how they are Christian. It amazed me how many of the people listening to the band were high. They were just totally stoned, yet the band still made an impact. The raised $115 for a local girl who was in a bad skiing accident over spring break. After the concert they asked me to join them at Chili's for dinner. I had already eaten, but I went and hung out with them.

Saturday was my reunion with my Emmaus walk. It was so good to see those women again. When I got home my parents were waiting for me. They flew in from NC for the weekend. We went to my favorite restaurant The Local for lunch. Then headed to the apartment for an hour or two before heading to our first Astros game. It was Methodist night and my Bishop was sitting three rows in front of me. I was so excited. She is an amazing women. The Astros won 7-0.

Today my parents and I had a late Easter dinner. We had a good time talking and just hanging out. I took them to the beach after lunch. Tonight they came with me to youth group and we had a question and answer night. It was so funny. The youth were asking nice questions and I was trying to get them to ask some interesting ones. However, I think we all had a good time.

Easter Weekend as a Youth Leader

On Thursday I joined a group called Events and Adventures. It is a Singles group that goes to sporting events, dinners, camping trips, vacations, and many other things together. This is going to be a huge outlet for me since none of the churches in my area have a singles group or younger aged adults. Friday was my first events. First was a meet and greet with other new members, then a bunch of us headed out for Bowl 300. It was so much fun and amazing. This place has huge screen TV's on which we watched sports and music videos. It is also totally non-smoking!!! I am so going to take my youth there. The picture above is of me the people I hung out with.

So now for the church related things. I am realizing how much I really am missing being in the type of ministry positions I was able to have at Candler. The time cannot go by quick enough for me until I am a licensed local pastor at least.

Thursday was wonderful. Our service was beautiful and exciting (for me). This was the first time since I have been serving as Youth Leader that I have been allowed to even serve communion. Communion has always been a special celebration for me. I enjoy being able to serve others in the way that Christ last served his disciples.

Good Friday was a working day for me for the first time. I was not expected to be at service, but I had to be in the office and answer the phones. Thus I went out with the Events and Adventures group.

Saturday was interesting as the youth sell Easter Lilies as a mission trip fund raiser. Only three out of about 50 youth that are signed up to go showed up. This really bothers me, but I have been told that is more youth than have shown up in the past few years. As we waited we made Luminaries to put out for Sunrise Service. We had a good time getting everything ready.

Easter started for me today at 1:45 AM as I got up and headed off to the church for the prayer vigil that lasted from Friday night -Easter Sunrise Service. I spent much of my hour in prayer and thinking about how beautiful life is. I wondered if the smell of the lilies was anywhere close to the smell of the incense that Mary took with her to the grave. When I got home this annoying dog barked until 5:00AM and then I had to be up and moving to get ready for Sunrise Service. I knew I had to show up early since there was reports of thunder storms and we needed to decide if we were having the service at the creek or in the sanctuary. It ended up being in the sanctuary :(. I volunteered a few weeks ago to sing a solo at the Sunrise Service for Pastor Bonnie. I sang In The Garden/None Like You. Everyone was in total shock when I was singing. It was commented that I have a voice like an angel. This cracked me up a bit since I have been at this church for over three months and no one has really heard me sing before. At the same time I was sad. A solo in one service was the only part I had in any Easter Service. I don't help plan worship, and I miss it so much. Thus the reason why I cannot wait to be a licensed local pastor.

Honeymoon is Over

So in life I find that many things have a honeymoon period. Jobs being one of them. Yes at first we may love them. everything is happy, simple, and you feel like this is the best thing in the world to ever happen to you. Up until this week I have felt this way about my job. Yes I have had some struggles with things so far, but they have passed. However, now I am so overwhelmed with a bad situation that I know the honeymoon is over. I know the problem is not my fault it was there before I came to the church. Everyone at some point in their youth goes through a rough patch of time and well teens can be horrible to each other. I knew that youth ministry was hard, but I love youth. I had been a youth minister for a year before and never encountered these problems. Yet here I am miles, hours, and flights away from any of my friends and family when I really just need to be around them. Yeah Yeah I know kind of depressing, but the past few days have just sucked the life out of me. I also know that God is going to get me and the youth through this. I know God sent me here for a reason and well maybe helping these youth and their parents get over themselves is it.

Emmaus, Youth Retreat, and Confirmation

I have been so very busy that I have not taken time to journal my thoughts here on my blog in a while.

Last weekend I went on my Walk to Emmaus. As I was going on the walk not only for myself, but also for the youth at my church (I have been asked to work a Chrysalus this summer) everything felt a bit strange. I am just hitting my three month mark here in Texas. Have been taking life at full stride and have been on a planing mission since I came to Lake Jackson. So taking a weekend off to myself felt strange. I know as a ministry I need to take time to make sure my walk with God is going well, but I just did not know if I really needed it. Luckily I had the best sponsor ever, Margaret. Margaret and Her husband Oren drove me two hours to the camp. We had a wonderful dinner at a Mexican restaurant and saw two rainbows. I could not have asked for a better arrival. Yet, I was still scared when I realized they were leaving me with a group of women I did not know.

The Pictures above are what I came home to after Emmaus. My apartment was decorated by my youth and the office was decorated as well. The office windows had shaving cream on them and writing about 4th day.

As the weekend went on I found that I was doing my walk more for me than the youth. I needed that time to take a look a who I am becoming. I realized things like I am worrying too much, planing too much, and not taking care of myself enough. Yes the planing part is a good thing, but I need to take my days off just for me. I also found that having a weekend free of planing was amazing. I could hardly remember what having a weekend free felt like. By the end of the weekend I was devoted to making sure I am taking care of my own spiritual life.

Ok so high lights of the Walk to Emmaus. Seeing two dolphins in the water outside the camp close up, the dinner with Jesus, the candle light, no cell phones, and lastly meeting another woman my age who live the next town over.

So now that I had a great weekend I had to recover from because I was so tired the Spring youth retreat (7th-9th grade) had to come. Yes two weekends in a row of retreats. I know I am nuts. We went to Camp Cho Yeh. It is this amazing Presbyterian Camp about two hours north of Lake Jackson. We did low ropes, high ropes, and paintball yesterday. Yes I played paintball and now have a sprained wrist to prove it. Hahaha. One of my youth shot my wrist right after I surrendered. I was really mad and yes it was the same wrist that I broke in October. We did so much team building and even the youth agreed that they are in a different place now. Last night we had a huge camp fire with smores and all. Sadly the weekend had to end early because the youth and I had to be back for confirmation.

The church I am working at has an amazing program called hidden angels. This person is a youth who sees the confirmand through confirmation and, thanks to me, through the first year of youth group. The youth started by buying small gifts and making crosses for the cross wall for the confirmation class. Today they stood up with the class and got to lay their hands of them when they were confirmed. This was awesome for them. It was a spiritual time.

OK now for my part in confirmation. I knew I had to fill in for any of the girl's whose mentors could not show up. However, they all did show. The confirmation class decided to ask the head pastor Wesley if I could be up at the kneeling station and lay hands on them all as they were confirmed. He agreed that this would be good. So I got to hand them inscribed rocks with the Methodist cross and flame and their name. I got to do this only after I laied hands on them and blessed them as they enter into the church. The act of blessing the confirmands was very spiritual for me. It reminded me of what all God has in store for me in the, hopefully near, future.

Finally I have accepted a position as district delegate to Annual Conference. My DS wants me to be known in the conference as I begin to work through the candidacy process again. I could not agree with him more. He has been such a help to me since moving into the Texas Conference.