Month: March 2008

Huevos de Pascua

We had an Easter Egg hunt today at La Casa. (For those of you who don’t know, La Casa is an after-school ministry for Spanish-speaking school kids, held at Christ Episcopal Church two days of the week). Miranda and I went out to the side yard/playground and hid (roughly) 130 eggs1 for the kids to find. I doubt we even knew where they all were by the time we went back inside and upstairs.2

Once all the kids were finished with homework, coloring, and snack, it was egg hunting time. They bunny-hopped from the parish house to the playground with makeshift Easter baskets (plastic Food Lion bags) swish-swishing around. I even noticed one particularly adorable second-grader actually skipping through the yard, bag in hand, waving in the air as the egg-collecting began.

You just really can’t hide 130+ brightly colored eggs very well in a maybe 20×50 meter fenced-in yard. But even with half the eggs scattered around the ground or along the brick wall or other painfully obvious places, the kids had a blast. I don’t even remember the last time I skipped around doing anything. I think the joy of watching them actually dwarfed the feeling of them actually (for once) listening to me give directions before we went outside. I love kids.

1We didn’t know until later that we were supposed to count the eggs. This resulted in guesstimating how many eggs we had to limit each kid to finding. (Although several went over the alloted six by bagfuls, which itself resulted in the re-hiding of some eggs).
2As I told Miranda, I thought you had to be a lot older before you could hide your own Easter Eggs. I was mistaken.

A Bushel of Pecks

This weekend we’ve been in Atlanta. I missed the last two family trips, so I was pretty stoked to get to go this time. And for Grandpa Bill’s 90th birthday at that. I’ve been pretty sick and just wiped out (and I haven’t eaten hardly anything) but it’s been an excellent time anyway.

I think my Grandpa was especially pleased because all 4 of his sons were home. So between them and their families and Grandpa and my two Great Aunts and my dad’s cousin, we had a pile of Pecks (and Joyces and Brocks) at dinner tonight. Pretty awesome to see everyone and to give Grandpa Bill all the attention that he would probably normally just as soon hide out from.

It’s always fun to see your family. The people who you know and who know you and remember all the embarrassing stuff you did when you were little, but also who you can drive around with for five hours unsuccessfully1 looking for an Atlanta Braves store and still have a fantastic time with.

1I think Miley Cyrus was in town. We couldn’t get to the one Braves store we actually located at the CNN center. Darn you, throngs of twelve-year-old girls.

Favorite People

Today was the Elizabeth City District United Methodist Lay Rally. Basically its the anual conference of all the non-clergy district leaders and anyone else, lay or clergy that wants to attend. The district youth praise band played before the service (most of it anyway, which only included two actual youth). So I got to jam with Toni and that was cool. After the service we went upstairs to the youth room and I got to play a little more music with Marlowe and Elanit. Also always a pleasure.

When I finally left and dragged myself to First Baptist (exhausted after having preached there this morning, played guitar all afternoon, and being sick) I just sat in the congregation. I did stand up and play bass so David could sing “That Where I Am There You,” but otherwise I was just a regular guy at the service, which was a nice change. No preaching, no praying out loud, no singing or playing, just a chance to be a part of the worship service, which I needed. And I just generally had some good conversations with Becca and later David and Steve and the Winslows and the Saunders.

Overall, the thing that stuck out to me all day was just getting to see a lot of random and very special people that I don’t usually have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with. And that’s a blessing in and of itself.

International Teams

So I’ve gotten all my forms off to International Teams and received my login to keep an eye on my support raising account. Not that that’s extremely exciting, but for me, sitting around wishing it was May 29 for the next 90 Days, it’s just a little step closer to Quito. Everyone just pray for me and Jerry(and the other six Interns from Tennessee to California) as we go through this whole support-raising process preparing our hearts and minds and bank accounts to be the leaders that God and Youth World need us to be this summer.