First, let me apologize for the delay in posting this, I went back to Indiana this weekend for a wedding, so this is the first time I have had to write.
Project day this past week was long & fantastic! We met at 8:30am at the 'grassy knoll' to find out what we would be doing for the day. We all went to a local church in Virgina Beach and helped them clean out some old rooms; they are working on turning some of their old buildings into school rooms. We worked at the church till about 11:30 and then spent some time praying for the church as a group. Once we left the church we went back to our houses to eat lunch before we met back up at 1:30. We met back up at the grassy knoll to talk about what was coming next, extended quiet time with the Lord. Carl and Ryan, both staff members at Ball State, shared about the importance of spending time with the Lord, and how it doesn't always have to be this mind blowing time, but that it is important to just spend time seeking the Lord. Once they explained what we were doing we were sent off to find a quiet place for the next 2 hours. I spent a lot of time praying and writing in my journal as well as praying over some of the psalms. I really enjoyed the chance to spend an extended time with God, and to pray for a lot of my friends.
At 4pm each of the school, Ball State and Virginia Tech, met up separately to talk. We spent a few minutes talking about how our quiet time went before we began talking about what was coming up next. Our final activity for project day was to go out onto the boardwalk with the hopes of sharing our stories with different people. We asked them the same questions we did at our last project day, but added an extra question at the end: "If I could share my story with you in 2 to 3 minutes would that be ok?" So to practice we spent the next hour going around the room and sharing out stories with different students. It was a great way to practice telling my story in a short amount of time, but I mostly enjoyed getting to hear all the different stories for other students at Ball State. After we finished practicing we separated for dinner before we met back up at 6:30 to head out to the boardwalk.
Once we split up into groups of 3 and decided where we would be going on the boardwalk we headed off. My group had the first part of the boardwalk, streets 1-4, so it took us a few extra minutes to drive there. We didn't waste anytime getting to know people, we started talking to our parking attendant, Lisa. When we asked her if we could interview her a few cars pulled up, so we told her we would stop back on our way home when she wasn't so busy. This was the first time I was genuinely excited about sharing my faith on the boardwalk. Before I was either annoyed or nervous about going out, but this time I was just so excited for the chance to talk to people and share with them the most important part of my life. We met some awesome people, in 2 hours we only talked to 4 couples because we had such awesome conversations with them!
My favorite person that my group talked to was a young woman named Andrea and her son. She was one that I got to share my story with, we all took turns sharing our story. First, when we were talking with her and asking her our questions I assumed she was a Christian by her answers, when we asked her to name a time she had experienced God she replied '5 minutes ago on the beach'. When I asked her if I could share my story she got excited and said of course I could. I got about halfway through my story before she started crying! When I finished my story she said that she was a Christian poet and that she had been praying to God at the beach a few minutes ago about how she wasn't inspired to write anything. She told me that she loved my story so much that she was going to write about it! I got so excited, it was one of the first times I have shared my story with a stranger, and I felt so blessed to see how it positively affected her. :-)
Needless to say I left the boardwalk feeling so excited about the day, but it wasn't finished yet. We still planned to see our parking assistant Lisa before we left. I really enjoyed talking with her and listening to her story. She worked several dead end jobs for a few years, was involved in drugs, and involved in an abusive relationship, and one day decided that she wanted a better life. She is now working 3 different jobs and going to school to be a nurse! She is 6 months away from graduating - I was so inspired to hear her story! Once she finished telling us her story Joel had an opportunity to share his story with her, which he was really nervous about. But he did an awesome job, and I'm sure she was blessed by it. She told us we could come back and visit her anytime, which we plan on doing :-)
At the end of the day I was so excited by everything I had seen God do throughout the day, and although it was exhausting, it was my favorite project day thus far :-)
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