This should wrap up my postings about Diakonos. I wanted to briefly post what I learned from the trip.

1. The students are pretty cool. This will cause much chagrin amongst
the students, who most assuredly do not want to be judged cool by a 35
year old computer nerd. But there you have it. They kids acted great
and there were almost no tensions that I saw. These kids amazed me for
serving others on their spring break. I do not think I would have done
so when I was 17 or 18. By contrast, I was 34, had been at CVCA 4
years, and had been a Christian for 10 years before I went on a
missions trip. It took 5 years at CVCA and being a Christian for 11
years before I put my money where my mouth is and went and served the
poor in this country. Many many kudos for the students for doing this.

2. Much to my surprise, God taught me that I needed to value people
over things. I did not think I had a problem with this – I am fairly
generous with things, but God had more in mind. On the first day on the
job, I went to a site where I did not need the new tools I had bought.
I was forced to give them to others who could use them, and I had not
labeled them yet. I had a momentary panic over that, but God let me
know I needed to value people over these tools, and so I had to let
them go (and I did get all but 2 small things back – God can be trusted
with these things). Over the entire trip, my car got more and more
dirty on the inside. I am not a neat freak, and I am not a car nut, but
again, this bothered me some for awhile. God again had to let me know
that the people I was serving were more important than my things (in
this case, my car). All week, I had to keep telling myself to value
people over things. This lesson still surprises me – on the list of
things I need to learn in order to become more like Jesus, this was not
at the top of my list. God does not ask for my list – he just teaches
me what he wants me to learn. I just hope I remember this one for
awhile.

3. I learned I am easily distracted from worship. I has suspected this
for some time, but it was brought to the fore by my having nightly
worship and having a couple of headaches that distracted me from that
worship. I’ll need to try to focus more on God when I worship, and less
on my whining to myself about things not being perfect.

4. I learned that part of serving is keeping your mouth shut and going
where you are needed. I was on a different job site almost everyday. I
think this was God’s gentle way of reminding me that he was running the
show and that I needed to go where He was going.

So, that’s it. I really liked this trip, and it was a privilege to
serve with Craig and the rest of the Diakonos crew. Lord willing (in
the fullest sense), I hope to serve again next year. Thanks to everyone
who helped me on this trip, and many thanks to God who never
gives up on me and never stops trying to make me more like his
son.

It was not just all work on the trip. We did have entertainment each night as well.

Sunday-Tuesday
This
does not really qualify as entertainment., but from Sunday through
Tuesday night, I was in charge of supervising the lunch-making for the
next work day. While the kids had the right attitude of service and had
fun making the sandwiches, I was more stressed than two pieces of bread
warrant. I just *knew* that the morale of the kids for the entire trip
hinged on getting the correct, well-made sandwich. You never know what
might happen if a smooth peanut butter
person…..MIGHT…..GET….CRUNCHY. Needless to say, I needed to
chill. Fortunately, lunches were taken care of for Thursday and Friday,
so I was let off the hook.

Sunday:
We
were given free time on Sunday to do what we liked. Since I was working
on a decent headache, I decided to stay in the room and read Hamlet. I
like to read what Meredith is teaching so we can talk about it, but I
also wanted to be able to talk intelligently about Hamlet if the
occasion arose on the trip (surprisingly, it did not). I did make it to
worship, and enjoyed that very much.

Food on Sunday was chicken patties and mac n’ cheese.

Monday:
Supper
was great – it was Italian night, so the dining area was lit by candle
light and Italian opera was playing softly (which is the best way to
hear opera for me). We had the introduction of the first of three days
of sausage making an appearance in the sausage lasagne. There was also
bruschetta and salad, all served by the food crew. I do have to say we
ate VERY well all week. Kudos to the cooks!

Monday was game
night in the common room. I am not the world’s most social person, so
my first taught was to flee. But, I forced myself to stay, and I had
great games of foosball, airhockey, and pool with a student. It was
fun. Then I fled…

Tuesday:
Supper was Mediterranean night with gyros (with beef and chicken, not lamb).

I
read some more of Hamlet, before heading down to the church gym to
teach ceili dancing (Irish social dancing). I was not sure how the kids
would react, but I was delighted. They really loved it (they are still
randomly dancing in the halls at CVCA, a week later). I taught two
dances – The Walls of Limerick, and The Four-Hand Reel. Not only did
the kids really seem to like it, but they were really GOOD at it too. I
was really amazed at how quickly they picked it up. We danced for over
an hour. What a great time.

Wednesday:
Wednesday,
we got to go to Cici’s pizza (a pizza buffet). I ate WAY too much (I
have this problem at buffets). The pizza was okay, but the bread sticks
were really good. Yum.
In a nod to my early years, I played a video
game in the arcade, and did well enough that everyone else was leaving
by the time I finished. That would have been a lame excuse for missing
going to Pittsburgh.

After
supper, we took the 40 minute trip to Pittsburgh. I drove my car, and
as one would expect, I got slightly lost. I could see the Incline train
(the place we were going), but it took me awhile to get there. I was on
my way there when Craig reached me by cell phone. The new-fangled
devices! Who would have thought you could get a call in your car?
Anyway, I did meet up with the group at Station Square (a nice shopping
area), which is within walking distance of the Incline. Craig gave us
about 40 minutes to shop at Station Square. Craig had gotten
instructions from Meredith to keep an eye on me and not let me spend
too much. He did give it a game try, but he had no chance when I saw
Station Square had an Irish Import store. I did quite well. Instead of
buying the four CD’s I wanted to get, I got Meredith a replica of the Tara Brooch.
Then, I saw Station Square had a chocolate and fudge shop, so I had to
get to good sized chocolates (remember, I had already eaten too much at
Cici’s). Craig took advantage of Station Square by getting cold sesame
noodles at his favorite Chinese restaurant.

We
then walked over to ride the incline up to the top of a VERY steep hill
that overlooks the downtown. The Incline train was great – I love
things like that. However, once we got outside of the station, I ran
headlong into my well-developed fear of heights. I had to walk on the
road-side of the sidewalk, as far away from that nasty drop as I could
without getting run over. Craig’s destination was this stupidly small
concrete island that JUTTED OUT OVER THE KILLER DROP. Fortunately, it
was closed for repair. There were others, however, so we trooped on,
passing two more of these monuments to folly that were also closed. So,
finally, Criag settled on some benches that overlooked the city, and
that is where we had worship that night.
Here,
I have to admit, I did not do so well. Several of my personality quirks
came to the surface here, so that I did not focus on worship as I would
have liked to.
1) The aforementioned fear of heights was not
lessened, even though I was sitting 20 feet from the railing (that some
fearless students WERE SITTING AGAINST).
2) I could not hear well
for the singing or for Craig’s talk. This made me slightly cranky. I
could have moved, but that would have required going near the edge
again.
3) I have an ENORMOUS aversion for inconveniencing people.
Our group was so large, we took up all the sidewalk space except for
one narrow lane. I felt bad for the people who had to walk through that
lane. It is not an easy thing to walk through a group of 20+ people
that are all singing. This anxiousness distracted me.
4) Even after
11 years of being a Christian, I do not do so well at public displays
of faith. To be fair, I don’t do well at public displays of almost
anything (that goes with being a good stoic Mainer). However, I do have
to face up that it is hard for me to be so public about my faith, even
after all that God has done for me. Sad.
5) I was anxious over
having the students “out in public.” This was not so much for the
students, all of whom were acting great, but for what nasty Pittsburgh
might do to them. Needless to say, Pittsburgh was great, and it was a
wonderful experience. It is hard for a control freak to relax when
things are out of his control.

So, these 5 things made worship
hard for me this night. I still loved going to Cici’s and Pittsburgh,
and will go again if I get to go back. I’ll probably just be worried
and scared again is all.

Thursday:
Supper was Mexican night
with hard and soft tacos. It was also Craig’s birthday! To celebrate,
Craig got to whack a pinata, which he managed to hit with such great
force that it broke loose and hit a student. (It is worth noting that
Craig was blind-folded at the time, so it was an accident). No serious
harm was done (except to the pinata).

We had free time again
this night, so I read more of Hamlet. Most of the kids stayed in the
common room and had a fashion night where they did each other’s hair.
The results (that I saw from pictures) we, um, interesting.

I
also got to sing some worship songs from my college days with a student.
That was a very nice time for me, and the student did not seem to mind
my playing or singing.

After worship, I got to call Meredith and
make sure she was okay (she was). Nate decided to go out and get a
barbeque and have a “guys night” where they cooked burgers and brots.
Since this all was taking place after 12:00, I went to bed.

Friday:

Friday was chili night in the common room.

Some of the kids used the extra down-time to try to catch up on school reading, which resulted in getting caught up on sleep.

The big event of the evening was the “talent” (oops – I mean talent) show. We had students whistling, skits
imitating
what had gone on during the week, some free-form song creation, some
poetry readings, and a dramatic skit from a student group acting out
the clean parts of a romance novel. I was able to be in a couple of
improv skits myself, which went pretty well. It was a really fun
evening.

In worship time, we had a time of sharing about what people had
learned on the trip. That was very nice. The only slight problems I had
was that I was working on the start of a headache, I was tired from the
week’s work, and I was really hot (it was about 85 degrees in the
room). This meant that by the time we got to the worship songs, I was
having trouble staying focused. It was request night, so the songs went
on for about an hour. I did have to get up and leave for awhile in
order to splash some water on my face. Craig’s talk was good, but I was
still having trouble focusing. Funny how many things can distract me
from worship.

Anyway, that is the entertainment of the week. I’ll probably post one more post on the trip to summarize what I learned.

Craig (aka Ombudsman) gave exhortations from the Bible each night. Here is the summary of what he said over the week:

Sunday: Craig talked about the feeding of the 5000. He pointed out that
Jesus asked Philip where they were going to get enough bread to feed
the 5000+ people that were assembled to hear Jesus. Philip’s
(paraphrased) reply was, “Impossible!”
    Andrew then spoke up and told Jesus that they had 5
loaves and 2 fish, but he did not see how that was going to help.
    So, Craig pointed out that there are two was to
react to Jesus when he calls you to do something. You can write it off
as impossible, or you can offer what you have, even knowing that it is
insufficient. Craig pointed out how silly (in the eyes of the world)
that it is to bring 23 unskilled teenagers to help build homes for the
poor. One reaction would be to say it is impossible, but the fact that
we were there was out willing to give Jesus what we had, even if it was
insufficient for the task. Jesus takes it from there and multiplies it
mightily. We just need to be willing to give what we have.

Monday:
Craig shared about Jesus walking on the water, and calling Peter to
him. Peter goes, but “sees the wind” and begins to sink, and Jesus must
save him. From this, Craig gave Peter mixed reviews. On the positive
side, Peter got out of the boat, while the rest of the disciples stayed
where they were. Peter was willing to risk to heed Jesus’ voice. On the
down side, Peter “saw the wind” – he “saw” what he could not see, and
he took his eyes off of Jesus. Craig pointed out how well we function
in community, and how great it would have been for Peter if one or two
others had gotten out of the boat with him. Craig warned that you
should not take your eyes off of Jesus, but this is especially true if
no one is going with you or going to help you. Craig pointed out that
the students had “gotten out of the boat” – that they were risking to
hear Jesus’ voice. He reminded us not to take our eyes off of Jesus.

Tuesday:
Craig covered where James and John get their mom to ask Jesus to allow
James and John to sit on Jesus’ right and left, when Jesus came into
his kingdom. James and John reply that they are able to sit on Jesus’
right and left. They do not understand what Jesus’ kingdom is going to
look like. Anyway, this maneuvering by James and John gets the other ten
disciples angry. Jesus has to step in to calm things down by turning
greatness on its head. Jesus tells the disciples that if they want to
be great in his kingdom, they need to server each other. Jesus has to
repeat this lesson to the disciples several times (he has to do that
with me sometimes as well). Craig pointed out that Jesus does not want
acts of service (although it is a fine place to start); Jesus wants
servants – people who are ready to serve whenever Jesus calls them, not
just when they feel like it.

Wednesday:

This was the night in Pittsburgh, where I was fighting my fear of
heights and my fear of blocking the sidewalk and inconveniencing others
(more on this in a later post – Wednesday was an interesting experience
for me). So, I hope I have this one mostly right. Criag spoke on the
three temptations of Jesus, and what would have been wrong with them.
The first temptation was turning stones into bread, and bread is not
sinful. What was wrong with this is that Jesus came to use his power to
serve others, not himself. So, using his power to turn stones into
bread would have been outside his purpose and mission. The second
temptation was foe Jesus to throw himself off of the temple and be
caught by angels. Again, being saved from harm by God is not sinful,
but in this case, the event would have been a glorifying of Jesus and a
making of spectacle that would not have served anyone else. Lastly,
Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world if he will bow and
worship Satan. Jesus refuses this very blatant sin. Craig focused on
the last temptation, and pointed out that Jesus resisted the temptation
to rule all the kingdoms of the world. If Jesus can resist all of that,
we would do well to resist our far lesser temptations. Craig pointed
out that many people sell out for far less than all the kingdoms of the
world. Craig also pointed out that if Jesus did not use his power and
talents to serve himself, then we should not use our talents to serve
just ourselves, but we should use them to serve others. Finally, Craig
urged the seniors to start making good decisions now about where they
were going to be in year. Where they going to be closer to Jesus, or
farther away?

Thursday:
Criag spoke on the metaphor of Jesus being the vine and we being the
branches. He pointed out that Jesus only allows two options for the
vines – you are either dead and will be burned as useless, or you will
be pruned by the gardener. Craig pointed out that we are, in effect,
bushes with legs, and we have the option to run from the gardener, even
though the gardener wants to remove the dead branches from us and help
us to thrive. He pointed out that it was like having a doctor tell you
that you needed a tumor removed, but you wanted to keep the tumor
because you loved the tumor and were afraid of what would happen if it
were gone. God prunes us to make us better and more alive, even if the
actual pruning can hurt. Craig again challenged the seniors to make
good decisions now about where they were going to be spiritually next
year – he challenged them not to run from God, but to endure any
pruning that God was doing. God loves us and does it for our own good.

Friday:
I had some trouble focusing on Friday – I had a mild headache, was
tired, and was in an 85 degree room. But here is what I remember:
Craig reviewed the lessons he had taught all week (what a great
teacher!), and then he finished the metaphor of the vine and branches,
where Jesus tells us to abide in his love and to love each other. We
show love by doing what Jesus tells us to do, and by serving each other.

Worship times usually began and ended with singing. I learned many songs this week that I had not known before.

I’ll post later on the entertainment we had each evening, and what things I learned on the trip.

I
just finished my first spring break trip going to work with Habitat for
Humanity, and the quick and dirty is that I really liked it. I liked
the work, I liked the cause, and I enjoyed getting to know some of
CVCA’s students better. Keep an eye on Ombusdman‘s
Xanga site for his thoughts of the trip, but here are some of my
incoherent thoughts. I’ll try to spare you an exhaustive account, but I
will try to mention what I did on the trip. We were a big enough group
that we were split up each day, so I can not speak to what everyone
experienced.

Getting There
Washington, PA is only about 2 to 2 1/2 hours away, but we did manage
to make a sight-seeing detour that cost us about 45 minutes to an hour.
That turned out okay – the country around us was pretty, and we still
waited about 10-15 minutes to get let into the church we were staying
at, even though Nate’s van had been there some time (Nate did not get
lost – he kept going when the rest of us stopped for a bathroom stop).

The Actual Work
Oddly enough, we did very little work on Habitat houses. We, as a
group, spent most of our time working on projects that would help
Habitat, but in a background sort of way. It was still work that needed
to be done, and the Habitat director was very grateful, and
complimented us on the amount of work we got done. He claimed we had
exceeded what he thought we would do by Wednesday, and we still did two
more days of work.

Monday:
I
started Monday’s work off by being sent with two students to dig pipe
(drainage) ditches. (As an aside, I will refrain from using the names
of students, just to be safe about internet privacy and all.) We had
to lay some drainage pipe to tie into the downspouts so that the
rainwater would get carried to the street, away from the foundation. I
got to spend some time getting familiar with a pick – the ground was
full of clay, so our spades did not work well. I was reminded how
much work is involved in using a pick – I was sore from this for two
days. The two students I was working with did great, and we did get all
the pipe laid down. We spent most of the day at this site, although we
did join some of the other students for lunch at another job site. This
site (where we trenched), was one of the rare times we were able to
work on a house that Habitat was building for a family. The family was
going to move into the house in just a few days from when we were there.

Tuesday:
Tuesday
was the hardest day for me. I was sore from my pick-axe fun from the
day before, and we were on three different job sites this day. It felt
hard to get into a groove with so much moving around, so this was the
only day that dragged for me. We started the day off by going to
another Habitat home to do some landscaping. The original topsoil had
been put on too thick, so we needed to rake it out and spread it
around. Then we needed to seed the soil, and spread hay over it. This
crew consisted of me and four students (we were later joined by a
fifth who had finshed up a quick job at another site). Once we got the soil spread around and seeded, we switched to
moving the extra building materials out of the home’s existing garage
and onto a trailer. It started to rain just as we finished loading the
trailer, so we covered it with a tarp and had lunch on the porch of
the home. This home was actually occupied, so we did get to meet the
owners briefly. Two of the students were able to spend some time
talking with one of the owners and looking at wedding photos. I was
proud of them for taking the time to interact with the owner- it was a
great way to show the love of Jesus to another person.

We then moved to the main headquarters of Habitat in town, where they
were trying to organize a store to sell construction items (like a
thrift store, but for windows and doors and the like). It is called a
“restore” by Habitat. We went to the restore and moved some long and
heavy planking around to clear up some space for other things. I was
not too helpful here – the students did most of the work. I guess I
supervised…

We then finished the day at the Franklin Street house. This is a duplex
that Habitat is restoring for their own use. Half of the duplex will
be used for cheap housing for Americore volunteers that work with
Habitat, and the other half will be used to house volunteers that come
in to help Habitat. Our crews were working here mostly on mudding and
sanding drywall, but we did hang some drywall as well. I spent some
time taking pictures, until I was finally given a job tearing down some
old plaster in what will be the kitchen.

Wednesday:
Wednesday
was a great day. I was not as sore, and we were sent to one jobsite for
the entire day (the Franklin Street duplex). I was put in the kitchen to
put up some custom pieces of drywall, which sounds more impressive than
it is. It was basically patching the places where I had torn down the
plaster the day before. It was careful,
slow work, and it suited me very well. It was like custom fitting a
giant puzzle. Although I worked in the kitchen mostly by myself, I was
at the house with 7 students and Mr. Thomas (a parent chaperone). We,
as a crew, continued to work on mudding and sanding, but did more
drywall hanging on this day. I did get the kitchen done, and the crew
as a whole did a lot of work on the house. It was a great day. It was
topped off by my coming out of the house at the end of the day to see
four students practicing the 4-hand reel, an Irish dance that I had
taught to the students on Tuesday night. That made me smile.

Thursday:
Thursday
I got to join the group that had spent much of the week moving
furniture. Habitat had been given a lot of furniture by a man who used
to own a store, but had retired and just had all of this furniture in
his warehouse for 20 years. He wanted the space, so he donated the
furniture to Habitat. The moving crew had worked
hard at moving the furniture from the warehouse to a garage that the
director of Habitat owned. I went to the garage and helped unload the
truck with a group of about 9 students and Nate (another chaperone).
The amount of stuff the moving crew had gotten into the garage was
impressive. Once we got the truck unloaded, we went back to the
furniture warehouse and loaded the truck with another load of furniture
that was going to go to the restore. Once that was loaded we started
tearing down the warehouse mezzanine. The owner wanted the warehouse
empty, including the old wooden storage racks and the mezzanine. So, we
had some working on unscrewing the racks, and others of us worked on
taking the particle board and the plywood up from the mezzanine. The
particle board was taken up by hitting it really hard with an iron bar
from below, then the nails were removed once the board was up. This
method did not work for the plywood – the bar just bounced off the
plywood, so we got some cat’s paws (tools used to remove nails) after
lunch, and set to removing all the nails from the plywood. By the end
of the day, we had all the flooring up from the mezzanine.

Friday:
Friday we went back to the warehouse with about 10 students and Craig
(another chaperone and the organizer of the whole trip). I worked
mostly by myself at the back of the warehouse, working on tearing apart
several 15 foot platforms – they were high enough that I did not want
students on them. The students worked on removing nails from boards,
tearing the support boards of the mezzanine down, and tearing apart
more of the storage racks. We called it quits early this day (about
2:30) so we could go meet two Habitat families, which we were reluctant
to do at first (we wanted to keep working), but was a huge blessing to
see the people we were indirectly helping. It helped put the trip in
perspective.

I’ll post more over the next couple of days – I’d like to mention what
we did in the evenings and the lessons Craig taught from the Bible at
evening worship. Stay tuned!