Service Adventure - J O H N S T O W N

I usually don't like helping with music for church. In the past, I've pushed away offers to join worship groups, worship leading roles when offered on youth Sundays, and even hymn leading because there was always someone else who was able and willing. Anything up in the front was stressful. I wanted to do it right; I couldn't live with messing up in front of so many people. If someone else could do it, I was happy to let them. There was also the compounding Jared Stutzman attitude that worship should never be a performance, and being at the podium always felt like I was showing off. My eager pride could so easily begin to take precedent over any good intentions. I would much rather sit among the congregation and sing as part of the group forced into a place of knowing that though I am a choir nerd, my voice is no more important than anyone else's to God, and that though I could write down my own, unvoiced reflections, I have no more wisdom than anyone else, and I don...

Because I am asked, "So what do you actually do..?" so often by family and friends, I've decided to publish a rough schedule of what I do these days. I wanted it to be interesting though and decided to format it like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. If you haven't read these books (you're missing out), they're written to allow the reader to choose the direction of the plot. After every couple of pages you're offered a choice which directs you to a different section of the book. After I finish one adventure, I always go back and try to figure out how to get to all of the other endings. I've written my daily occupations sort of in the same way. You get some choice in what I do, you are me. I hope you enjoy your adventure in the life of this Service Adventurer! First off, what day is it? Mon, Tues, Thur, Fri (1) Wed (15) Sat (35) Sun (38) (1) Your alarm goes off at 6:40. It's not even light outside... Choose: Snooze for 5 mins (2)  or...

Our pastor was absent last Sunday so Service Adventure got volunteered to take over the sermon time. We took the two weeks prior discussing how to use the time. We all had ideas though as the weekend neared, the fragmentary plans broke down to just me speaking. I thought surely I would be able to compose something worth saying to the congregation, but put it off more and more until it came down to the final evening. I hadn't meditated on a scripture and was in no way confident enough to spend hours delving into commentaries on just anything. Any thoughts that I would consider blogging about seemed too selfish to speak about or too underdeveloped. It frustrated me so much that I couldn't think of something worthy to say, and in fact, often I feel like I have so little to say, I'm so young, so naive, why do people ask me what I think? Secretly I wanted God to fill my mouth with his words that would be profound, eloquent but simple. But he didn't. Maybe it was because I ha...

Last Sunday morning, I put on my Touring Choir dress for the last time. I sentimentally felt the slick black fabric that hugged my shoulders and arms. I clasped my pearls around my neck where they lay coldly until they warmed against my skin. I asked Erin Hostetler to tie the knot specific to EMHS Touring Choir in the back of my dress for the last time, something I still after two and a half years never bothered to learn. I walked into the choir room and saw Jared Stutzman's slanted, cramped scrawl on the board, Touring Choir Take a chair Sit in a circle This was the last time it would be for me. Even as our school year ended last spring, we still knew we would be together over the summer tour, and even when that ended, there was always the Homecoming concert when we could all come back and sing our songs together once more. There would be nothing left after this day. Reunited though missing a few After struggling a long time wondering how to reconcile reason with emoti...

It's been longer than I would have preferred since I last posted. Not that I'm holding myself to any schedule, but I just like the practice. In the past weeks, I haven't had much time, so much has happened - I traveled home to go to the Relief Sale along with the whole unit, painted my room (a process that lasted a whole week), had cooking duty for two weeks, invited over a lot of company, got behind on my journalling (no surprise there), worked the usual hours, and got just enough sleep to function. The unit in my backyard after the Relief Sale weekend, it was good to be home I enjoy the busyness, jumping from one good thing to another, getting all I can from every day. It makes this year in Johnstown feel worthwhile. Yet, I know also that I need the quiet, still times. Though I'm less convinced every week that I am the steadfast introvert that I often profess, calm remains essential. In these past weeks, I was impressed with this thought all the more. I hadn...

Here in this new community, as I'm confronted by new lifestyles and opinions, I'm realizing how I have grown up thinking. I see from the oldness of our house, that I was accustomed to new. Our late suppers show me that my family usually eats early. My tendency to wear shorts while everyone else wears jeans tells me how acclimated I've become to warm Virginian summers. On a more telling level, the deficit of musical heritage around me shows me how special my musical community at home is. My surprise at people's opinions shows my ignorance to other ideas. My abundance of stupid questions concerning German culture display my true lack of international knowledge. Difference, though not my preference, puts me in a place to learn, and I assume my graduated peers must also be learning this in college. However, though these differences in my surroundings and in the people around me can teach me a lot about myself and in the wide, wide world beyond me, they do not make relatio...