I'm coming home
soon, and no doubt you will want some sort of account of what I've been doing
for the last year. What exactly do you
do as a youth and families church intern?
I should probably start practicing the spiel now because these sorts of
adventures don't happen every day, and people feel obliged to ask about
them.
Answering that
question is kind of like trying to cram a year of life into the family
Christmas letter. How can you make
people understand that you graduated from university, went on a family
vacation, started 2nd grade, bought a puppy that ate the house? - or whatever
happened to your family this year.
What's the most important thing?
Usually Christmas letters can be condensed to the following: we did fun
things, got older, may or may not have gone through hell and come out
alive, went places, and Merry Christmas
to you too.
What does a year in
Australia boil down to? We learned
stuff, met people, went places, and helped out.
That'll be my three second version, just in case anyone is silly enough
to ask me as we're passing on the sidewalk.
The more detailed-without-being-drawn-out version is that we taught
Bible to 1st and 2nd graders once a week, led a high school girls Bible study,
assisted with church pre-k playgroups, spoke at community/church events, led a
youth group study at a neighboring church, staffed two camps, organized
family/community church events, helped on Sunday mornings and sang in the
choir. Those are the programs we helped
out with. It sounds kind of shiny and
nice, hey?
But those programs
just form the backbone of our schedule.
That list of stuff in our planners doesn't convey the salty ocean smell
you get when you have coffee at the yacht club in the afternoon. It doesn't say anything about Miss Margaret's
hugs on Sunday morning or Ted's Liverpudlian humo(u)r. Listing things we did would take a long time
and wouldn't capture the magic of Uluru or the startling moment when you
realize you're swimming with a stingray.
We did a lot of
stuff. We baked scones, changed the soap
in the soap dispenser in the ladies bathroom, learned how to be waitresses,
realized God was in control, cleaned up after kids, babysat, prayed our knees
off, cried, set up toys and swings, ate lamb, ate TimTams, watched Australian
movies, played cricket, went to the footy, got sunburned, shook hands, hosted
dinner parties, celebrated Thanksgiving 3 times, watched God provide for our
every need, learned about culture, went to meetings, made phone calls, wrote
thank you notes, sang about kangaroos, bush danced, swam in the ocean, stressed
out about details, drank tea, got homesick, fell in love with Australia.
How can I even begin
to talk about the people we met? To not
talk about them seems a dishono(u)r, but to talk about them without doing them
justice seems almost as bad. Ian and his
love for Mercedes. Dick and his
storytelling. Nancy and her attention to
details. Ian the giant farmer. Allistair and Mae, the gentle Scots. The crazy twins. Oscar and his Spiderman suit. George the old detective with the gentle
smile. Zophia the librarian from Poland
who calls us "the writers".
Perhaps it is enough
to smile a far off smile and say it was wonderful.
Little Miss Sunshine
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