Hello! Sorry I haven't written in ages, but I've been busy writing two exegesis papers, attending finals, and going to Clear Lake county with the Napa youth group to do Vacation Bible School in two churches--Clear Lake and Middletown. There was very little turnaround between school and leaving on this trip as a start of my internship at Napa for the summer. I finished finals on Wednesday (ending with Greek--which I'm sure I botched), spent all of Thursday cleaning, and had two days at home before leaving for Clear Lake on Sunday.
The Napa youth were immediately warm and friendly. I went into that trip only knowing Pastor Sherilyn O'Ffill, but it didn't take long for me to feel like I'd known the youth for months. We camped together at Hidden Valley Lake Campground, but spent very little time at camp because there were two VBS programs every single day. It was, in short, a lot of work but a lot of fun, too. The theme was Joseph: From Prison to Palace, and Susha and I were responsible for the opening and closing programs. However, we did take some time off on the afternoons to do a few fun things in order to decompress from the work at hand.
The first night, we all took communion together, to get ourselves focused--there would be no time to breathe the following day. On Tuesday, we actually had time to go swimming at the Hidden Valley Lake Community pool. About half the Middletown church lives there, so it should have been a cinch to get in--but we were wrong! Security there is so tight that you have to be on a guest list to have access to the gated community. Even Silverado's security isn't that tight! Eventually, one of the Middletown church members got us in and we all had fun swimming, but we all left laughing at how ridiculous it is to have that much security in the middle of nowhere.
On Wednesday, we visited a woman, Karen who has cancer. She is due to die in August, but I've seen cancer patients live well past their "expiration dates" with prayer and the love of a community--so by all means, pray for her. Sooner or later, everyone must die, but that doesn't mean that it has to be right away. She loved seeing us and asked us all what we were doing for VBS, making jokes about some of the kids. To decompress from this very heavy visit, I taught some of the kids how to play Egyptian war, and they enjoyed smacking each other's hands for the duration of the afternoon.
The following day, we were discouraged to start VBS with only two kids--but by the time we were through with the opening program, there were 10! It was such a relief. We celebrated by hunting for Clear Lake diamonds. These diamonds aren't worth much for jewelry, but they have the hardness of regular diamonds and gleam and glitter in the sun beautifully. I found quite a few of them, but not nearly as much as a little boy who was with us, who had been there before. These are only found in Clear Lake County, and the ones that are actually big enough to cut are worth something.
Friday afternoon, we celebrated our last day of VBS at Clear Lake by going on a boat on the lake, which was fun. Even though it's called Clear Lake, it's really green, but that didn't matter--it had water, and therefore the kids loved tubing and wake boarding on it. We all loved the extra hour or two of sleep we got that night before going to do the church program. That didn't go as well as I would have liked, but it was a joy to see my old friend Charlie there.
After potluck, we tried to leave camp in time to do a hike, but one of the cars blew a tire, so we had to skip it. Still, we got back safely, visiting the spring where Calistoga water is bottled. That is some of the sweetest, most wonderful water I have ever tasted.
I barely had time to settle in to my trailer in my aunt and uncle's backyard in Napa before we set out sailing around the San Francisco bay for Father's Day. It was nice to spend some quality time with the Piner family, and the views from the boat were absolutely spectacular. I admired Starr's ability to keep her balance while cooking in the hold, and my cousin-in-law, Andrew, as he managed to steer for so long without running us aground. I didn't realize how hard it was until Gary had me give the wheel a spin--it's harder than it looks! It was a great challenge, and I loved it. I will never watch Pirates of the Caribbean the same way again. After we came back ashore, we went out to Marin Joe's for dinner, which is always spectacular--if you're anywhere near Marin, it's worth a visit.
Ever since, I've been shadowing local pastors, mostly with an eye towards visitation. That's the area of pastoral ministry I have the least experience with, and I'm actually enjoying it. Meeting new people is fun for me.
Congratulations to everyone who graduated either from high school, college, or film school (Hillary) in the last month--I'm sorry I didn't get to it sooner! Also, happy belated Father's Day to all the fathers out there. You have a very important job! Thanks for everything you do. I hope everyone is having a great summer.
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