Snow, Football, and Vacation

These are the three things that have been on my mind for most of this week. It has been a beautiful snowy week here in Blacksburg. We've had three or four snow showers that have left about an inch of accumulation on the ground, and it has seemed like gentle flurries have been in the air continuously. What we love is that this is more snow than we saw all last winter in Philadelphia. It seems like all we ever got there was cold rain, sleet, and ice - never any real snow. There's something about the snow that puts April in a giddy mood, makes me in awe of the beautiful creation around me, and makes Mabel a bit hyperactive as she sprints around scooping up mouthfuls of it.

I've been playing on an intramural flag football team with some guys from BCM - we played three playoff games in the evenings this week. We made it to the sweet 16 of the tournament, but unfortunately lost in overtime last night, ending our season. The fellowship and camaraderie with the guys has been great, and I love the opportunity to get out and engage in a competitive activity, even if it's in very cold weather. Monday night was probably the most fun game of football I've ever played - it was our first playoff game, and the snow was falling hard throughout most of the game. It looked amazing with the rec field lights illuminating every snowflake blowing across the field and the football gliding through all of them.

Today is also the beginning of Thanksgiving vacation for all of us here at Virginia Tech. The students (except for the crowd staying for our football game against Duke tomorrow) have mostly left to spend the week with their families. April and I are heading out to Cincinnati for the week after church on Sunday. We are really looking forward to this break and time to spend with family and friends. I've felt pretty drained and unmotivated in my daily tasks recently, and am looking forward to some time to rest my mind and my spirit, reconnect with God, and reflect on these past months.

Time Flies

It feels like there shouldn't have been as much time between this post and our last one but the truth is-it's been a while. Time flies doesn't it? For us the semester is almost over which means pretty soon the students will be packing up and heading home for the Christmas holiday. I certainly can't believe the semester is almost over but then again I can't believe I'm turning 24 on Friday either.

We attended a statewide youth and collegiate minister conference today in Roanoke & during one of the afternoon sessions the speaker spoke about text messaging and how things are changing daily in our culture. He gave an example of how one youth minister conducted a research project to find out just how many text messages his students were sending. He asked the parents to bring in their phone bills after one month and they tallied up the texts. The winner-12,500 text messages in one month that's an average of 400 text messages/day. All I could think was "How in the world?"

Since we've been back here I've noticed that even though I'm not that much older than some of the students, I am an old lady when it comes to certain things. Texting is one of those things. At the beginning of the semester I had to get a couple of the students to teach me how to use the ITAP feature on my phone so I could become a more efficient texter. Nic & I had to increase our texting plan b/c now we get/send text messages almost daily. Before we moved here I averaged maybe two texts per week. Do you catch my drift yet?

So what do you think a/b all this next technology? Are you with the times or lagging behind like me :) ?

Off to the Eyrie

This weekend is the fall statewide BCM retreat at Eagle Eyrie! Eagle Eyrie is a Baptist retreat center located in the mountains outside of Lynchburg, VA. There is a state BCM conference there each fall and spring where students from BCMs at all the colleges in Virginia gather for a weekend to worship, hang out, and stay up too late playing games and talking. I can't remember for sure, but I'm pretty confident that I went to all 8 Eagle Eyries that occured during my time as a student. I have to confess though that during all that time I never knew what the heck "Eagle Eyrie" meant. Apparently, an eyrie is a nest or a house that is built on a high place or a cliff. The property got its name from one of the original owners whose nickname was "The Eagle" - sounds like a pretty intense guy.

We're all getting ready to hop in 15-passenger vans and start the 2-hour trip to Lynchburg for the weekend, and I'm getting quite excited. Eagle Eyrie was one of my favorite events as a student. I remember so many fun times hanging out and having significant spiritual experiences there. I even met a few people from other Virginia schools that have been good friends ever since then. They've fixed up the hotel that we stay in and added a few modern conveniences (like cell phone service and wireless internet!) since the last time I've been there, but I am looking forward to the familiar place to retreat from life here in Blacksburg. I know it will be a little bit different now that I am no longer a student, but I'm excited to see what will happen in the VT BCM community and what God will teach us this weekend!

A Place Called Home

You know those things that make a place feel like home? Familiarity, Routines, Friends. Lately I'm starting to feel that way about Blacksburg. Last week poor Mabel was feeling a little under the weather (see picture below) & I had to call around to find a vet that would see her. Then I proceeded to call several dentists in the area to make an appointment for Nic & myself to get our teeth cleaned.

To me there's something about scheduling an appointment with a certified professional that makes it feel like you're putting down roots somewhere. It's been amazing to be back in Blacksburg (not to mention the Commonwealth of Virginia) but I must admit it's been harder than I expected to just pick up our lives in Philadelphia and move away. We miss friends, VCC West Philly, and I will admit sometimes even the hustle and bustle of the city life. But God is faithful & we are starting to catch a glimpse of what he has for us here.

We've been able to attend a small group at our church on a regular basis now and it has just been wonderful. It's so comforting to show up to church & recognize at least a couple faces & even better have them remember your name! We always joke about how Mabel is such a "routine dog" but when all things familar are taken away I've realized I start to long for those routines too. So for now I'll keep singing that cheesy song from "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" -it feels like home to me.

Fresh Air

This weekend I had the chance to get away and do a little bit of light backpacking with some BCM guys. We left Friday afternoon and drove about an hour to a place where we could get on the Appalachian Trail. We hiked up to a shelter along the trail, spent the night there, then hiked the rest of the way up to McAfee's Knob in the morning. There is a beautiful view of the mountains and valleys from up there, so we took it in for a while, then hiked back down and made it back to Blacksburg in time to shower, brush our teeth, and watch the VT/UNC football game.

The trip wore me out - I'm getting old enough where sleeping in a tent without any good camping gear isn't easy for me, and we did a good amount of hiking up the mountain. It was enough that I pretty much crashed the rest of the day Saturday. It was a very refreshing time for me despite that. I'm not a huge outdoors kind of guy - I can't remember the last time I camped prior to this - but I really enjoyed getting away from everything, having a bit of solitude, and getting to hang out with the other guys. One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to sit around the fire and talk about what God is doing in our lives and pray for each other Friday night.

Saturday morning, I woke up before most of the others, and I took the chance to be by myself for a while and reflect on the past month. I thought and prayed about what were the best and worst parts of the month, how I had seen God work, and in what ways I had failed or felt distant from God. There's something about being alone in the woods that enables those kind of meditation and prayer times to be so much more powerful than they would be in my living room.







Me sitting on the knob and looking out on the beautiful view.














Our group at the top, except Phil who was taking the picture.

Preaching

Over the past two weeks at 6:33 (The BCM's weekly large group worship service - it meets at 6:33 on Tuesday nights), April and I have both had the chance to speak and share our thoughts with the group. April has done this before - she is a good speaker and knows how to share her passion and understanding of an issue with the audience. As for me, this was really the first time (outside of maybe a few short stories or testimonies) that I've ever been asked to say anything in front of a large group. We've been talking about making the most of what God has given us; April talked about making the most of our relationships and I talked about making the most of our finances.

I'm not sure what to call what I did. I shared ideas and stories from the Bible and my personal experience dealing with finances to somewhere around 100 students for about 25 minutes. Did I preach? Was it a sermon? Perhaps a homily? I feel very unqualified to use those sorts of words about anything I've done. Regardless of what I call it, it was a surprising experience for me. I'm not nervous to speak in front of a group, but I was nervous that I wouldn't have anything worthwhile to say, and I had a hard time sleeping the night before. I don't know if this is something I'm gifted at or not - I guess I would have to give it a few more tries and get some feedback from trusted people who know what they're doing. It made the worship experience of the night more vivid for me - there was a sense of desperation as I sang before getting up in front of everybody that I needed God's presence and help or everything I was doing would have been in vain.

If you're interested in hearing what I had to say, here's the website where you can download the audio. Unfortunately, April did not get recorded due to technical difficulties.

Back to Church

One exciting development of the past week has been the feeling that we are starting to connect and become a part of the church we have been going to here in Blacksburg. The church (called [nlcf] - and no, I don't know what the brackets are about, but they always use them) has existed as a church on campus for students for a long time, but recently planted a "Downtown" congregation consisting mostly of grad students and older people (like us) living in the area. I went there a bit as a student, so it's neat for me to see how the church has grown and developed a new focus.

Getting connected to a new church is always difficult and awkward. I'm not really a very good social person in big groups, and I feel out of place in a room where I know nobody. We came in at a difficult time too, when the church was gearing up for the start of the semester and return of 90% of their congregation, so there was a bit of the feeling that we had somehow fallen between the cracks and nobody really noticed we were there.

Thankfully, we had two great opportunities to get connected with the congregation this week that have encouraged us. First, I signed up to try out to play drums in the band this past weekend, and we ended up having our first practice on Monday night. I haven't had the opportunity to play drums since we left Philly, so it was great to get to meet the others in the band and to play again.

Also, last night April and I went to one of the "homegroups" - which is [nlcf]'s term for small group Bible studies - for the first time. We had to leave a little early because we had to be back here for the BCM Bible study time, but it was still great to get to meet and hang out with a bunch of other people from the church. This is something that we've really missed since we were had to leave our fantastic small group in Philly, and we are really excited to get back into a group like this.