Yesterday I went to volunteer at a children's Saturday program. The setting is that of a local YMCA or Big Brother Big Sister program. Each volunteer is paired with a child and allowed to hang out with them for a whole day. The idea is to create a safe environment for at risk children to play and also talk about God if they want to. The girl I was paired with was precious. She was 6, wore pink books, a purple coat, and had beautiful cornrows with white, pink, and purple beads hanging from the ends. Turns out she was really shy, but by the time I left she had no problem talking and hanging out with me or the other little girls in the program. Yet, my time there was disrupted when about 5 minutes before the children were scheduled to leave I had an allergy attack. I'm not talking throat closing, appendage swelling. It was more like uncontrollable sneezing along with eye puffing and eye watering. Therefore I had to leave. I said goodbye and walked/ran back to the apartment as quick as possible to throw a Benadryl, some soup, and some tea, into my system and sleep.
--Still not quite sure of what I'm allergic to out here in DC, I pray that the springtime will not be as horrible as I fear.
Today we walked to National Community Church at Eastern Market. A church that owns one of the US's best coffee houses. Its got an interesting story... the very first one is right next to my internship and it was renovated from being a crack-house..... While getting there too late to grab a free doughnut, I grabbed some coffee and entered the renovated theatre. It was a great service. I never realized until going to this church today how much I missed being in the house of God. Not that I had strayed away or anything, I just felt like something that was missing had been restored. I felt at home. I felt the presence of my Father descend upon me and I felt peaceful and at rest. The message was by Dick Foth, (the man we ate lunch with last week). It was an interesting mixture of discussion on the greatest commandment and how our culture looks at relationships through only the lens of the physical.
After the message my apartment-mates and I ended up doing some very cliché shopping in a beautiful 3 storied Forever 21. While in the store I reminisced on service this morning and my time volunteering. I thought back on how Mr. Foth discussed the importance for light in the universe. The song 'This Little Light of Mine' came back to me and I realized that no matter how much I get ticked off with people that I'm dealing with here, no matter how many allergy attacks I have, no matter how much I miss home, I'm here to shine my little light, hoping that people see the truth and love of Jesus radiate from my life, and that's all I can do.
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