BLOG: Day Eleven by Jocelyn K.

The heat was blinding, in a sense. We stepped out of our respective homes to find the sun scorching the earth and the humidity making our Project Burning Bush shirts stick to our backs. After a quick word from our leaders we headed to Watts Hall to sit in on a summer Hebrew class, a unique experience since we were in a class with a dozen or more seminary students. We left hastily for a final walk-through of a worship service we were leading at noon. The experience was so awe-inspiring, all of us working to bring God to the entire seminary community, and to ourselves. Kilpy, Becky, and I (Jocelyn) spoke briefly on the scripture Genesis 38: 1-12 – the story of Joseph and his dreams. We each took a character from the story – Joseph, Jacob, and an older brother – and wrote a Midrash: a story about a Biblical story that inflects the author’s personal story. Right after, the Burning Bush students sang, “Here I am, Lord,” and most of us felt the connection in our voices, the strength of our song, and the true message from the words. I looked up a few times to see our some of our leaders with tears in their eyes; the experience was full of God.

Our service ended and we went to lunch then split down the middle to go out into the community and serve. Half of us went and learned about the Fan Free Clinic, a clinic for those with HIV/AIDS; the other half went with a group of youth to clean up the backyard of a church building. The five of us, with help from Jason and Andy, worked relentlessly to weed, dig, and cut. We found a huge infestation of poison ivy and quickly sprayed Round-Up and stayed clear. While another group of five teens from that church did not fully connect with us, I got to reconnect with those from my group and we found out more things about each other. After some cold showers, we reconvened for dinner and then headed off as a group to watch a movie. While “The Incredibles” may be an animated film, Joy informed us that we would be using it for our lesson on Story Theology the next day. We laughed through the movie and then headed off to Examen, our last thing of the day where we do vocational discernment by talking about our high point and low point of the day. With the prospect of sleeping an hour later on our minds we all drifted off to sleep, excited about what the next day would bring.