It's the end of another week here in Williamsburg. I've been here for almost two and a half weeks now and I'm getting into a rhythm. I know that the thunderstorm last night knocked out a lot of power and that damages are pretty bad so I hope everyone is ok who was affected by the storm.

On a more positive note, VBS was amazing! I definitely got a workout singing and dancing to VBS songs three hours a week for five days straight. Actually, I kinda lost my voice for a couple of days...not my brightest moment. I absolutely loved the kids and the kids really enjoyed music. I was so proud of them during the closing program. After the program, one of the boys came up to me with the most somber face and asked if I was going to be the music teacher next year. It broke my heart to tell him that I was going to be here for just the summer and I wouldn't be here next year.

Tomorrow is my second official Sunday. I will be leading the Call to Worship, the Opening Prayer, and I will also be helping to serve communion. Next week is sermon prep week and I also have a respite care session on Thursday. I'm really excited for next week because my family is coming to town to visit with me and hear me preach and also the Dean of Spiritual Life and his family are coming.

The month of July is filling up rather quickly with meetings, camps, retreats, sessions, and lots of other stuff. I'm looking forward to a busy and exciting month here in Williamsburg. Sorry this post isn't longer, I promise I'll be more interesting in the future.

Just curious, would anyone want me to post my sermon that I write for next week on my blog?

Annual Conference

Hola! It's been a little while since I posted but I wanted to get all of conference in one post. Annual conference definitely had its upsides and its downsides. The upsides included seeing my fellow interns once again, seeing a few of my friends from SU, and all around being in community with fellow United Methodists. The downsides included listening to all of the financial reports and stuff like that. However, even those had their learning moments. When I went to the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference when I was 13, I honestly did not understand the parliamentary procedure and what they were all talking about. Now that I'm older, it was really cool to be able to follow along and understand how the conference worked. The bishop did a fantastic job at keeping order and keeping things on schedule. If anyone wants to know more about more of the business side of conference, let me know. I didn't want to get into it here because it would be way long and not all that interesting :P

Saturday was fun for two different reasons. The first was that the president of SU, the lovely Tracy, took SU people out for lunch and that was just a blast. The second was at night we had a youth and young adult delegation tailgate party in the hotel where we were staying. We ended up having a dance party, which was so much fun. The same Tracy danced and sang to "I will Survive," which was fantastic. I love being a part of the Shenandoah community.

Today was our first day of VBS. We have four main age groups and there are a little over twenty in each group so we're reaching almost one hundred kids this week, which is awesome. I'm doing music, so each of the groups came to me. They are great kids. Everyone participated and at the end of the day a lot of them said that music was their favorite part of the day, which really meant a lot to me. I was exhausted though, definitely got a workout doing all of those motions and jumping around. When I got back to my host family's house, I took a three hour nap, it was glorious. We have four more days of VBS so let's hoping I don't collapse by the end of it.

On Sunday, I'm leading the Call to Worship, the Opening Prayer, and helping serve Communion. Then it's just one more week until I preach! I'll be sure to keep everyone posted on how the rest of VBS goes. Until then....

So it's been an interesting couple of days at the office. For one, I had a fantastic meeting with my support group yesterday. They were hand-picked from the congregation to love and support me through my time here at WUMC. We had dinner at one of the couple's homes and had a lovely dinner where everyone shared their stories with me so I knew them better and I shared my life and my call. One thing I love about the Calling 21 program and the church that I'm in is that they truly want to see me succeed and be a part of my faith development and my call to ministry. I hope beyond hope that my fellow interns are having the same experience because it is an unparallelled feeling.

After the meeting, I went back to the church to get my stuff before going back to my host family for the evening, I ran into this girl (I think she said she was in 4th grade) in the hallway. She looked at me with what looked like awe and said "are you the new girl?" I of course said yes and talked with her for a little bit. She's going to be in VBS so I'll see her next week during music. She was so excited when she heard she was going to see me again. I love being that kind of influence or role-model for kids. It was so cool to be so cool in her eyes. I hope to have that with other people I meet here and find some people who have that effect on me.

Finally, my last big thing that I've done in the past couple of days is do a music session down in the Respite Care Center. Respite is a day program for adults with disabilities that is run out of the church. Right now, most of the clients have some form of Dementia. I've already visited but this was the first time I brought all of my music stuff with me. It was so much fun. It was just like being back in my practicum and I was totally at home doing what I love to do. Since one of the clients brought in her doll collection to share with everyone who was there, I based my session around dolls and favorite things. I thought it went rather well and they participated really well. I'm really looking forward to doing more music down in Respite.

Tomorrow, at around 7am, I will be on my way to Roanoke for the Virginia United Methodist Annual Conference. I can't wait to see my fellow interns and friends and experience conference.

Up Next: Update from Conference :)

I've been slacking! I need to tell all of you faithful readers about my first Sunday here at WUMC. I went to both services at 8:15 and 11. During both services, they had a small commissioning for me. The congregation had a response saying that they would accept me this summer as their intern and help me to grow in faith and leadership and help me discern my call. It was so powerful because there were over 200 people at the 8:15 service and probably over 300 at the 11. Hearing that many voices affirm me and my call at the same time felt like God speaking in the midst of it. It's so hard to explain.... Anyway the rest of the services went really well as well and I sang in the choir during the second service.

Yesterday I wrote the call to worship and opening prayer for Sunday's service even though I'll be at Annual Conference this weekend. It's amazing how comfortable being here feels. I don't know whether my experience as a work study at the chapel or growing up in the church is the culprit, but it just feels right to be doing this kind of work. I am especially loving the Respite care folks, it's bringing my music background and combining it with my love for church. Next week is definitely going to be interesting because it's VBS so I'm going to be super busy.

Well that's the end of my rant for now...until next time

So before I go into how my first day went yesterday, I just want to say that I was totally freaked out today when I saw an ACTUAL ice cream truck come into my host family's neighborhood! I didn't think they existed anymore! Shows how much I know living in the middle of a cornfield in Carroll County MD...

Anyway, yesterday was my first official day at Williamsburg UMC. I have my own little office on the second floor and I even got my own set of keys. I feel so important :) Anyway, my main goal was getting VBS stuff sorted out because I'll be running music in a couple of weeks. After I got all of that sorted, Allie and I walked to lunch and got fantastic sandwiches at The Cheese Shop. I then wrote a little blurb for the newsletter so everyone will know who I am (although most of them do already, haha.) I think my favorite part of the day was visiting the Respite Care center that they have in the church. It was just like being back at my practicum and I felt totally comfortable in that setting. I helped the clients stuff pillows they were making and I'm going to go in on Thursday and do music! Afterwards, I went to a choir party where I met a lot of people and the coordinator of my support team!

Everyone has been super nice so far and everyone wants to know about me. It's like freshman year all over again telling my life story in like 10 minutes. I'm going to get a directory so I can match faces with names and families and such. I love the atmosphere of the office and of the town. The pastors take Fridays off so I'm off today and tomorrow so Sunday I will be going to both services and getting commissioned for my internship. My next post will probably be on how Sunday goes!

Hello! Well I have officially arrived in Williamsburg and right now I'm in my host family's living room writing this. Before I get into how awesome Williamsburg is, I wanted to tell you all about our training at SU.

We had a bunch of sessions that related to us and to our churches. During one, we took the DISC inventory, which describes how we relate to people. I am of the steadiness profile, which totally fits me. In another session we talked about how to write a sermon/prepare a Bible study, which was really useful. That one was probably my favorite. We also talked about boundary issues, how we deal with conflict, and stuff like that. To get to know each other, we were asked to draw a river that reflected our faith journey. On Tuesday, we went canoeing on the Shenandoah River. At first, the weather was really bad and we were worried that we weren't going to be able to go. By God's grace, the weather was pretty much perfect almost the entire time.

That's kind of a basic overview of the kinds of stuff we did for training, but what made it truly special were the people. My fellow Calling 21 interns already feel like family and we were only together for three days. Everyone is so passionate about following God and doing God's work and everyone got along really well. It was so cool to see people come together and already be kindred spirits. I hope that we are able to stay in touch not only throughout this summer but for a long time after that. We'll see each other next week for the Virginia Annual conference in Roanoke.

Tonight, my host mom drove me to the church and around Williamsburg. It's going to take me seven weeks just to figure out how to get around! There is so much to do and I can't wait to explore as much as I can. Tomorrow is my first day at the office where I will be put to work! After Annual Conference our VBS starts and I'm in charge of music so that's probably what I am going to be working on first. I'm preaching some time in July so that will be fun too.

Well, I think that was a nice long post, I really hope I can keep this up. If I slack, send me a facebook message or something to bug me about posting, k? k good. :)

Well, it has begun. I've left Maryland and training for Calling 21 starts tomorrow at good old Shenandoah University. At the moment I'm sitting in my new living room and already I feel like I am completely at home. I am so excited for this summer. I'm going to have so many great opportunities and experiences. I get to lead music at the church's VBS, go to the Virginia UM Annual Conference, and that's not all. This whole blogging thing is new to me so I'm hoping that this will be a space where I can share what I am experiencing with my friends and family-kind of like a public online journal. I really hope that this works! Until the next post...