Good Samaritan

Well preaching again is slowly approaching. July 15th is the day! I picked it randomly and ended up with the Good Samaritan as my text. I was pretty shocked when I read it. Everyone loves this story and it's pretty easy to preach about. Which means that I want to preach about something new and different. But how far can we really go with this text? I don't want to go so far that I've come up with something silly but I do want to stretch it.
After talking with a friend about it we came to the conclusion that there are very few "Samaritans" today. There aren't too many people who we consider outcasts.
I think this is very true but at the same time "we" as a society might not like to outcast people but we as individuals do it all the time. It's sad really how much hate or dislike a lot of us have in our hearts. These are just the thoughts I'll be pondering as I dig my way through my text for the next couple weeks!

Montreat how I love thee...

I was so excited to get to spend the last few days in Montreat. The weather was beautiful and so were the mountains. I love Montreat I am so lucky to have gone there for youth conferences when I was in High School.

In other news I preached last weekend. It went really well and I'm happy with how my sermon turned out. I will be preaching again on July 15th which is sooner then I thought. I got some great compliments on my last sermon but I haven't met with my committee yet so I don't know what they really think just yet. This weekend I'm doing the children's sermon which is an actual sermon here. It's more like the children's message then anything else but I'm still pretty nervous. I hope I make a point and I hope what I say can relate to the scripture as well as the Baptism that we'll be doing. I'm also excited to be helping with a Baptism. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing just yet but we'll see!
I really like the congregation and the area where I'm working. However the other day I went to a meeting for VBS with Jeff and it didn't go so well. Here several churches of all denominations do it together so I went to one of the planning meetings. Apparently before this meeting they were all told that I would be there every single night and willing to help out with anything and everything which is not what Jeff and I discussed. In fact we agreed that I wouldn't be working with kids at all. When I clarified that to them they took it as me not liking kids and not wanting to work with them. I feel so bad for what I said and horrible that anyone would think I didn't like kids. The worst part is not only did they take it that way but they told other people that too. So now there is like this giant rumor going around other churches that I don't like kids! Of course my congregation knows that's not true and Jeff of course knows it's not true. He even said if it gets back to him he's going to shut it down immediately and is really sorry that it got taken the wrong way. I still feel bad and tomorrow I have to go help them set up for VBS which means the whole time they're all going to be thinking the wrong thing about me!
It's hard when people don't understand my job or the goals of my job. They think that I'm a minister and should be willing to do everything all the time and while I like the fact that I am considered a minister already I'm not and I'm really not ready to assume all that responsibility. I'm still learning and that above and beyond anything else it what I want them to know and understand.
Other then my misunderstanding things are going great and I'm really happy. I hope to have some more pictures of Pulaski. I have a day off coming up and I want to go to and overlook and take some great shots. Miss all my friends!

This morning I went to Jeff's house to do some laundry. While taking a side road back to the church I passed by this school on a hill and behind it were the mountains. This is something I don't see everyday and it amazes me that this is how I'm spending my summer. It's a really foggy and overcast day which makes the mountains look especially blue today! I love it!!

Pulpit Time!

So the church bought me a robe which totally rocks!! I'm so excited every time I put it on....which by the way is more then once haha. I love it! I'm so excited that things are going well. Jeff is really cool and he pretty much lets me figure out what I need and what I want to do. He's always offering to take me places and show me things but at the same time he's really laid back. I read scripture this past Sunday in church and Jeff marked it for me in the big Bible up front but he totally marked it wrong. So I got up there, first time in front of this church to read and the scripture is marked wrong!! Good thing I had read it a couple times before I got up there so I could flip to it quickly. It was funny and everyone laughed it off. I'm preaching this week and I'll admit the lectionary text is driving me crazy!! More later I'll let you all know how it went!

Jessi

Day Off

I have the day off today! I'm pretty excited because I've been working my butt off and I really do want some time to myself to just chill out and watch TV. I decided to take a walk downtown and find some fun places to hang out. I started out on my little walk and took some pictures as I went. I was really looking for this place called "Coffee By the Book." I didn't know if it was a coffee shop or a book store. Turns out it's a book store that has internet (yay!) and drip coffee which I can live with because it's very cheap. I signed up for a membership so I can drop in and drink coffee and use internet whenever I want! Woohoo.

So here's how my week has been going. I spent Monday and Wednesday at the hospital visiting congregation members. Wow. This is my first experience with Pastoral Care and it's been very eye opening. I know that when I actually have to do my CPE I won't be visiting people that I know or know their whole back story before I want into the room so that makes a little bit of a difference. I'm happy to be meeting and helping people and I have walked out of a few rooms holding back tears but I keep thinking something that a very wise friend said to me, my grief takes away from their grief and it's really about them. She was very right. So I've held myself together and pushed on.

I'm preaching on June 17th and I'm very excited!! I sat down with my committee for my SM210 yesterday and talked with him about how they can help me and how they can pay attention to my sermons and what to be looking for. I have such a wonderful group of people working with me! I know I'm going to learn a lot.

So far, so good. I don't have any SM210 griefs so I consider myself lucky! I hope everyone is doing well.

Above are some pictures of the church, my apartment and the town.

Adventures in Pulaski...the journey begins

So here I am in Pulaski, Va. I've been here since Saturday afternoon. The first thing I did was meet up with my supervisor at his house and have dinner with his family. He has three kids: 9, 5 & 4. A boy and two girls. They are crazy!! They're so energetic and not in the least bit shy. They immediately introduced me to their cat "Sugar" whom they sort of adopted. We had a "kid friendly" dinner complete with macaroni and cheese (YUM). Jeff (supervisor) then took me to my apartment and I got settled in.



My APT: I love it! I have cable and it's the PERFECT size for just little old me. I have a couch (which I don't have at seminary so I'm excited about that) and a kitchen table and a great size kitchen. The apartment has not been used by the church even though it's owned by a member of the church so all the appliances are new. Never been used. New fridge, stove and microwave. The coffee maker is probably older then I am but it works and they even bought me Starbucks coffee to brew (how sweet!). So I'm very happy. The apartment is probably as old as the one I lived in in Jacksonville so it's great and works out really well. The only real downside is that the bed is super mushy which I'm not used to but I sleep well and hard!

Church: I could throw a rock and hit it! It's so close! I walk there every morning and yesterday I forgot my coffee so I walked back home, grabbed it and made it back in under 5 minutes. My office is in the manse upstairs and I have a really nice view. My committee for my internship is great Jeff even made sure there is a youth on the committee which I totally appreciate.

Town: Pulaski is small. No really, it's like, 10 major blocks, and 2 major roads. I walked here to the library today. I'm really excited that I found some internet and it's only a walking distance away. I LOVE that I can walk everywhere. To tell you the truth it's about 50 times safer then walking everywhere in Jacksonville and there's no telling how much safer it is then Atlanta!!

So far: I did some hospital visits yesterday which was my first experience with pastoral care. It was ok. I'm actually really proud of myself and how I handled it and how well it went. I was a little nervous but I really like Jeff a lot and he was there with me the whole time. I was happy just to get the experience and exposure. I actually plan on dropping by to visit the people we saw again soon.

There's actually a lot to tell but I'm going to wait until I have some pictures to put up. I didn't know if there would be wireless internet at the library when I walked over here so I didn't bring any. The town is beautiful and I'm having a great time. I miss everyone a lot but I especially miss how spoiled I am in Atlanta with the shopping and the internet! Haha! Oh well a summer without internet won't kill me :)

<3 Jessi

Ah No Internet!!

Ok so tragedy! I have no internet here at the church or in my apartment! But do not worry, updates will be happening I just have to figure out when and where. I went and plugged in to the internet router in the office next door which is not ours. I do hear that there is a great coffee house with internet here in town but I have yet to have some free time. So updates are coming!

Love you all and miss you much!

Jessi