Titles are overrated

Wednesdays are long days at the church because we get done with camp and stay around until dinner at 6:00 with the 413's (to clarify this, the 413s are a group of men recovering from addiction, they make all our meals for us during the week) and then there is the Wednesday night believers service at 7:00. So really we are at the church the whole day.Last night's message was really inspiring though. Right now, Pastor Alfred is going through a series entitled "Out of the Box Thinking" or something to that effect. And last night he talked about the expectations we have because we are Christians. This includes the idea that we expect ourselves to not have to go through tribulations, but really, we should expect trials and learn from them and endure them.

After the Believers service, Pastor Alfred took all of us out to eat for a devotion type time. It is about 9:00 at night, we have already eaten, yet, we go to Applebee's and eat a three course meal, complete with appetizers, entrees and desserts. And really this is all because Pastor Alfred is edging us on and orders the appetizers and practically forces us to get the dessert. But it was all very delicious.

The conversation was also very enlightening. It was really neat to get Pastor Alfred's perspective on the whole camp thing and what he thinks about everything. Pastor Alfred can definitely be intimidating at times but he can also be a person that is really easy to talk to.

It has been a really long week with camp kids needing more love than I can give them and getting news from home in Riverside. On Saturday night, after a fun day at the swamp, I get a call that my sister Elly is going into labor three months early. But everything turns out as best as it can be. Elly is fine and baby Wyatt Dale is fine, just extremely tiny. It has just been hard being so far away when this happened. I remember complaining about not being there for Elly because I would be back at college, back when the baby was due in September. I definitely did not expect this to happen while I was here. But my team has been great. God has been great. And my family continues to be supportive of me staying here and being where God wants me.