here on the border of America Town, all of the dollies spin round and round and round

June 14: Last Day of Connection/First Day of YADness

Another busy day. First nonBlogging activity was drinking coffee and picking up my t-shirt, which is pretty cool looking. Here's the pickup station:


Then I did a recreation workshop which was interesting. Then I had lunch and said my goodbyes and headed on down to the Oxmoor. I didn't do much other than have a meeting the whole rest of the day. So my day was not that interesting. But hre are a lot of pictures of people I met:

Armando


Reed


Rachel


Shelley


Weird guy who commisioned us


Cassie


Awesome Girl


Blythe and Dana (they're the ones on the ends)

I miss all you guys and I promise to be more coerent tomorrow.

well you know November Has Come, when it's gooone away.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006: Second Day of Connection

It felt like about three days. I got up and took a shower and headed down to the comoderator hopeful table at breakfast. There were seven of us:

From Right to Left: Elizabeth, Casey, Abby, Nancy, Clair, Nana, Me

And all of us were qualified for the job and willing to serve so it's a good thing I only had to vote for myself because otherwise I would have had a hard time choosing. But back to the election later, that's the afternoon.

Then I headed to my first workshop which was about leadership by youth in the church and how as a youth you can get involved. It was very informative and I look forward to trying them out at home. Here's the workshop room/group:


Then the comod hopefuls went to lunch a bit early so that they could eat and then answer questions about how they viewed issues in the church. This did not go as well as planned as not many people showed up to talk to us and that replaced answering questions during the election, so most people only knew us through our speeches.

Then after lunch, I went to work on my speech when I realized I had no printer so I just outlined it on a sheet of paper and was done with it. I then went to my second workshop which was about different ways a group can do bible study; we went over one verse four or five different ways, concluding with us acting it out.

Then all of the comods went and practiced their introductions in the worship room and before you knew it, it was election time. We gave our speeches, Casey and Nancy did the best here. And then headed back into our sequestered area:


After three ballots, Chris came back with a winner. We prayed for each other and then he revealed the new comods: Casey and Nancy. No, I didn't win but I'm glad that I made the commitment to run.

As if that wasn't enough excitement for the day, we then headed to the civil rights park to eat dinner (which was roly poly so you know how that went for me, I'm starving! And if I ever have to drink tea again I might strangle someone) and then to the civil rights museum. I was already emotionally wonked out, but I got hit like a ton of bricks in that museum, I don't have pictures from inside but I recommend everyone going. It's a very powerful experience.

And if that wasn't enough we went to worship at the 16th Street Baptist Church. Yep, that 16th Street Baptist Church. And while I was kind of depressed, the service really cheered me up, especially our rendition of "Pour the Fresh on Me."


Elizabeth also helped me out by not letting me feel alone, and so did Abby and so did Carolyn, she gave me a cookie. I thought this shot was rather artsy:


So that was my day. Exhausting. Blog you guys tomorrow!

Alexander, older brother, went on A GREAT ADVENTURE!

June 12, 2006: First Day of Connection

I got up late, as usual, but I had done most of my packing the night before so this was not a problem, Mom drove me and Andrew to Kristin and Craig's house and dropped me off, we said our goodbyes and I loaded my three hundred bags into Craig's car. I went inside and waited for Craig to say it was time to leave.

Kristin's first day of work with the kids was today so I took a picture:





Then Craig and I headed up to Butler to pick up Carolyn, who was visiting a friend there (she's from Decatur, IL), and to head down to Birmingham. We got there around 8:20 and picked her up, I took pictures:






That is most of our day. Birmingham is 8 hours south on 65. We were convinced we were going to make a wrong turn but, we never had to make any. Carolyn was fun to talk to, ask me about Warrior, AL. Craig and I have kind of adopted her as a home group for the next few days.

Then we got to the hotel, and got settled in our rooms. Here's the hotel atrium, where Craig and I are staying:







And here's our room:



I met some cool people already, and I don't have all their pictures yet, and the ones I do have aren't great, especially of worship and the magician where people are moving, Andrew, you'll have to help me with your camera. So that was basically my first day. This is looking like it will be a lot of fun. I'm also running for Co-Moderator of the PYC. It's a big deal, and I hope I can serve the church in this way. Comments and such are welcome!