Hello Everyone!
I've never had a blog before, so I have no idea what I'm doing, but I guess I have to learn sooner or later. I decided to start a blog to keep everyone who wants to know updated with what I will be doing over the summer without spamming everyone else on facebook with dozens of posts. :) I probably won't be posting for a while until the summer, but once the summer starts, I'm going to try to post once a week.
By now, you are probably wondering what I'm doing over the summer and why I think that it's so important that I wanted to blog about it. I'm so glad you asked; I've just been itching to tell you. :) I will be moving to Memphis, TN at the end of May and will be staying there through the end of July. I am going to be working for an organization that I heard about over spring break just a few weeks ago. I went on a missions trip through my college, and it changed the trajectory of my summer.
I had little expectation of what I was getting myself into when I signed up for the trip through my college, Cedarville University. Some of my friends had gone of the trip in previous years, and not really knowing what I was getting myself into, I signed up to go. The group from Cedarville was going to partner with an Christian outreach organization in Memphis called Service Over Self (SOS) which ministers to those in the inner city by building intentional relationships with the homeowners through home repair. They mainly work on roofing projects, and they have two target neighborhoods, Binghampton, and Orange Mound.
Our group of 22 students drove two 12 passenger vans from Cedarville, Ohio all the way down to Memphis on the first Sunday of our break. We started out the week with a brief tour of the neighborhoods. I was shocked with the sheer volume of abandoned homes that were boarded up and falling apart. I was even more surprised by the amount of houses that were falling apart that were actually occupied. The next day, our team split up into four smaller teams, and we went out into the neighborhood of Orange Mound to specific houses where we would be working for the rest of the week. It was cold and cloudy, but not raining, so we started to work on the roof. About the time that we had taken all of the shingles off one side of the roof, it started raining! We quickly covered it with a tarp and avoided a catastrophe, but it didn't stop raining until just before the end of the week....when it started snowing! We only got to spend that one morning working on the roof.
Needless to say, everyone was a little bit disappointed that the weather was ruining our grand plans to serve the people in Orange Mound. But the more we started talking, the more we all realized that God wasn't working despite the weather, He was working through the weather. We had so many more opportunities to serve. We got to help at a homeless shelter, and we got to help at a community center. Also, one of the teams' homeowner really opened up about what was going on in her life. I can't help but think that maybe that specific opportunity wouldn't have opened up if the weather would have been warm and sunny.
SOS really makes sure that they are pouring their hearts into the lives of everyone who walks through their doors, which meant that they had chapels and devotional times planned for us. It was amazing to see how I came with plans to serve, yet I walked away feeling like SOS had left a bigger impact on me than I had left on the community.
I went back to Cedarville, but I left my heart in Memphis. I was so amazed by the ways that God was and is working in those neighborhoods. The presence and work of God is almost tangible, and I wanted to be a part of that, even if it was in such a small way. Early in the week, I heard about their summer internship program. At first I dismissed it, thinking about how I needed to find a job that would be relevant to my degree in chemistry, but as the week went on, God starting working on my heart. I fell more deeply in love with God and with what He is doing in the inner city of Memphis, and by the end of the week, I couldn't think of any other way that I would want to spend my summer. Our team got back to campus late on Friday night, we watched a movie until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and then I stayed up to apply for the internship program. I can't say that I'd advise anyone to apply for anything at that time of the night, but despite my lack of common sense, God is still working. :) I went through the interview process, and today, I was offered a job at SOS for the summer. I am happy to say that I will be mailing them my acceptance letter in the morning and that I will be moving to Memphis at the end of May! I will be a team leader for the summer. This means that I will be paired with a specific homeowner for the summer and that every week, I will get a new group of high school and/or junior high students who come from all over the country to spend a week doing urban ministry.
I'm so excited to see how God is going to reveal Himself this summer to the residents of Binghampton, to the high school and junior high students who come to work at SOS, and to me. It's going to be a learning experience (I don't know the first thing about roofing or urban ministry), but I'm eager to learn, and I'm trusting that God will provide me with whatever I need for the summer.
I would really appreciate all of your prayers as I go into this summer! I'm so excited to see what God has to teach me! If you want to talk to me about the summer, my email is listed on my page! I'd love to hear your thoughts! :)
