Leaping

I've had a couple of conversations with my mentor now about "leaping" and "holding onto something"...It's kind of hard to explain, but I think that sometimes I mistake my "holding on" or nervousness to let go and let God (to be cliche) for anticipation...or rather, vice versa. I think I'm super excited, but it's not quite time for me to head off to my new adventure (i.e. seminary, for example), so sitting in the unknown of "today" makes me nervous. It's all circular, and frightening, and fun, and peaceful...sometimes all at the same time.

Tomorrow's my last day with Big Brothers Big Sisters. After a second round of the "should we hire a girl who is very excited and visionary, but won't be around for very long?" game with Luverne UMC (Please don't hear me sounding negative in anyway...they made a sound decision), I'm entering hard-core temporary job search mode. There are a lot of things I'd like to do with the next few months, but at least one of them has to provide some sort of income. Today, I went with Tony, the youth director at my church, to a public housing neighborhood to help out with a "leadership/find your voice summit" that a local organization was hosting. Compassion 21 is hosting these summits/conversations at several public housing neighborhoods over the next two weeks. Today, I talked with two kids - a 2nd grade boy, Quandarius, and a 4th grade girl, Kejoco (the "j" is silent, she told me...but it really sounds like a "y"). Quandarius and Kejoco are very smart kids and have seen some things that I wouldn't have dreamed about when I was their age. We talked about violence and drugs and peer pressure in their neighborhood and why they thought it was bad and what they thought they could do to make things better. Quandarius shared a couple of stories about family members and drug use/abuse and violence that he'd seen, and Kejoco really chimed in when we started to talk about how to make things better. She shared a couple of simple ideas that, personally, I find brilliant. Here are her ideas:

1)"We could help clean up our neighborhood. Like if you see paper or trash on the ground, we can pick it up."
2) "We can help the old people in our neighborhood. We can check their mail or help them walk to get where they are going."

Kids say the darnedest things, or do they?

I'm hoping I can "help out" with a couple more of these summits next week.

I'd also like to check out an organization called Common Ground. I researched it a little bit several months ago, and amazingly enough, the new Mentoring Specialist that was hired for the Troy office knows a lot of people there and has been hanging around there for a little while. I am very thankful for my new friend, LaTonya. She is a faithful servant and true encouragement. I'm excited about possibly meeting some new friends here. I'm also going to continue to work in the Aldersgate Food Pantry. I'm super excited b/c one of the youth girls (well, college now, I guess) is going to work with me on Friday. :)

More to come on the youth Local Mission Week and VBS that I'll be helping with the next two weeks. Anyone know any places hiring in the Montgomery area??