on the rollercoaster!

Up and down. All day long. I had a great meeting with Bob this morning: up. Planning meeting for the Costume Carnival: up. I went to an intern BBQ in Inglewood: down. I got sick from the food at the BBQ: way down. I went to book a flight home for Halloween-the price went up $330 overnight: down. 2.5 hours of Creative Art Team planning: way up.

Bob has a wealth of knowledge of ministry, life & relationships. I walked away from our meeting this morning feeling ultra refreshed and ready to take on the world.

One of the major outreach events at Good Shepherd is a Costume Carnival. This year it's happening on October 26. I am in charge of taking the professional photos of the kids. Mind you, there were over 300 kids last year! This could get interesting, but I'm up for the challenge.

I drove 30 minutes up to Inglewood, CA. The temp went from a beautiful 85 degrees in Torrance, to a blistering 100 degrees in Inglewood (only a few more miles in from the ocean). Some nearby interns decided to arrange a picnic as a chance for CA interns to get together and hang out. I saw a few familiar faces, and that was a nice treat. But, ultimately I was reminded of how much I don't want to go back to seminary. These last two years at Luther have turned me into a cynical wanna-be thinker, and it's no wonder why: I am a feeler in a sea of thinkers. My excitement and joy got no reciprocation from others today, and it sucked all the life out of me. I've heard that these meetings can turn into gripe-fests, and honestly, I am in love with my internship site and don't have anything to gripe about. I thank God everyday that I ended up at GS. Way too much to be thankful about...no room to gripe!

Ok, maybe a little griping: I did all I could to keep myself from crying this afternoon. Last night I had the chance to buy a ticket home for $200. I wanted to check with Bob to make sure it was ok, so when I went back to the site to buy it today, the price had gone up to $530 in less than 24 hours. I called Delta to see if there was anything they could do about it, and the lady assured me that I was shit out of luck. So, at this point, I'm not going home until Christmas.

Luckily, the day ended on a good note. We are starting a new financial series in November, and before each series starts, the creative arts team (cat) gets together to generate ideas, images, songs, quotes, experiential elements, etc. God has blessed GS with an abundance of artists and creative minds. I felt right at home as I was able to write down all the things that came to mind and share them with the group. You can see from the picture of Lisa and I that there was no shortage of ideas at this meeting! I can't wait to see how all the ideas get incorporated into the upcoming worship services.