City Firsts!

Well gang, I’ve been here for a week, and it’s crazy.  I am so grateful for all your prayers.  I left a day and a half after my brother’s wedding.  It was a little sad to say good bye to everyone so soon, but I was ready to start the adventure.  Now, as many of you know (especially the girls on my floor), I sometimes have big plans, and then realize that no one in their right mind could ever accomplish all the things I had on my “to do” list.  For instance, after a week of busyness and super late nights, naturally, I planned to write over a hundred prayer letters while flying all night.  I’m not going to lie, by the end of my flight, there were several pages that had little “sleep scribbles” on them; but I definitely didn’t get them done!

Anyway, when I arrived in Georgia, some great family friends, Donnie and his girls, picked me up from the airport and we headed to meet my bosses and hosts for the summer, Bennett and Idong. I had heard about the Family Heritage Foundation through a friend of a friend. You know how those God things work. I spoke to one of the Emmaus custodial workers about inner-city ministry, and she put me in contact with the Campus Crusade S.A.Y. Yes Inner City Atlanta Coordinator. Since Campus Crusade didn’t have anything for me in Atlanta, they put me in contact with Bennett because he needed an intern.

After meeting Bennett and his family, I am even more pumped about the summer. Adjusting to city life has been way less intense then I originally thought. When Mr. Bennett heard that my brothers and my dad are expert marksman, he decided that doing anything on my own was out of the question. He said, “if anything happens to you; they’re going to come find me. So you’re just going to have to stick with me.”  I’ll be surprised if I manage to get a paper cut with how protective he is.

Even with Bennett’s protective nature, I still managed to get in a few “city firsts.”  However, the list is far shorter than I originally intended. First, I got to drive in Atlanta for the first time a few days ago. Now, some of you may be thinking, “whoop-de-do.” But when 90% of one’s experience is on gravel roads, it’s a big accomplishment.

Secondly, I have seen more cockroaches here than in my Mexico and North Africa ministries combined. Now, normally, bugs don’t scare me… In fact, more than once, upon hearing screams at school, I would terminate a spider innocently trying to go about its business. Since there are so many cockroaches here, I have decided to keep a count of the number I see.  So far, the biggest one was nearly two inches long. These things are nasty!

Thirdly, I have never officially lived in a city before! This summer, I will be living in an African-American community about three miles from FHF. I am living with a Nigerian family, whom I will share more about in my upcoming prayer letter.

As far as ministry goes, my first week was mostly spent in the office: organizing, going through donations, cleaning the school, and coordinating volunteers for an outreach coming up in July.

Things that I have learned so far: 1) When working with refugees, I will meet many people.  Many of the people have names that are very hard for me to pronounce.  In the case that I don’t recall there name… insert “man” where their name was supposed to be, and throw in an accent… i.e. Hey man, how you doin?

Up Next: Who Knew I’d See 22 Countries in Just One Summer?

P.S. This was written June 8th.