Me and Majia (aka the cutest kid on the planet)
Once my kids left California, I had a couple more days to hang out in LA before I had to get on a plane back to Camden. After dropping the kids off at the airport I drove to Brett's apartment in Long Beach and we went to a bar on second street. When we got to the bar, I immediately became aware of how tired I was and, after about an hour, I decided to head home and get some sleep.
The next day, I woke up and met Brett and Jason and a couple other people at the waterfall that we sometimes go to in Mt. Baldy. Being at the waterfall really reminded me of how much I miss living in California. After the waterfall, we went back to Joey's and went in the pool. I then went back to my parents house, showered and got ready to go out for Cory's (college roommate's) birthday. I met Jake at his apartment in Azusa and then we headed to a liqueur store to do some birthday shopping for Cory. We then met Cory and his girlfriend and Chris Sevier (another college roommate) and his wife Lindsey for dinner at a Mongolian BBQ. It was so much fun to have everyone back together and reminisce about our ridiculous college days at "The San Dimas House". After dinner, we went to T. Phillips which is a bar we frequented when we were students at APU. I had a blast catching up and hanging out with the guys. Sunday I went to a movie with my parents and then my dad and my uncles bought me dinner at Island's because I kicked their butts in our NCAA Tournament bracket.
Me going down the waterfall
On Monday I got on a plane back to Philadelphia. I arrived around midnight and went to bed. We had a pretty good week of camp and it was nice to be back in the normal routine after spending some really quality time with some of my kids in California. The weather was nice so we took the kids to the park for baseball or kickball most days.
Camp night at Chick-Fil-A
On Friday of my first week back, one of my co-workers convinced me to go salsa dancing in Philadelphia. There was a class at the beginning of the night and we learned enough to pretend like we knew what we were doing. There were a few guys there that were really terrible at it which I was thankful for because it made me feel a bit better about not really knowing what I was doing. I was at least able to fake it when dancing with other beginners.
I don't recall what I did the rest of the weekend (other than playing basketball on Sunday) because that was too long ago. Last week we had another really good week at camp. The weather was nice once again so we spent alot of time with the kids at the park. We had a work group of high school aged kids helping out at our camp which isn't always as helpful as you might think but it is nice that they take the time to come out for a week. At one point a kid was talking to Jeffrey (Riblet not Plankton) and Jeffrey asked him what video games he played. The kid said Call of Duty and Gears of War. Jeffrey laughed and then the kid said, "Why? What do you play? NBA?". Jeffrey kind of tilted his head to the side and then looked at me and said "Was that racist?". I responded, "Ya. That was a little racist". I knew the kid didn't mean it to be racist but I also knew that Jeffrey realized that it just came out wrong and wouldn't be offended. Jeffrey then proceeded to make fun of the kid for the rest of the week. He even brought NBA Live to camp the next day and started chanting "What do you play? N.. B.. A.!". At one point Jeffrey gave the kid so much crap that I thought the kid was goiung to cry. It was hilarious. At the end of the week the kid couldn't help but love Riblet and even got his contact info when he left.
Phillip (orange shorts) is back at camp playing basketball after having been shot.
On Friday night a group of us went camping at the Delaware Water Gap. We got there around 10pm, set up camp and then went for a 3 mile night hike to a waterfall. The moon was huge and lit up the sky pretty well. It was beautiful. We woke up on Saturday and went for a 10 mile hike to some lake on the Appalachian Trail. When we got back at like 9pm we went to a Bar in Philly that had the best burger in Pennsylvania (according to the food network). We got some truly delicious beers, some fabulous calamari and the angus burger with smoked Gouda, bacon and chili's. It was definitely one of the top 5 burgers I've ever had in my life and we are absolutely going to have to go back there before our time here in Camden is over.
On Sunday, we visited a church in Morristown that supports Urban Promise. Three other interns and I got to talk to an adult Bible study group about Camden and Urban Promise. One other intern and I sort of dominated the conversation and spent the whole hour and a half answering questions, rambling about stories we had from Camden and giving our personal opinions about things relating to Camden (dangerous territory considering both Mike and I tend to be very liberal compared to most church folk). Luckily for us, this group of about 20 people ate it up. They all said they were very moved bymuch of what we had to say and they are even now planning on organizing a day in the next couple of weeks to come visit our after school programs. I actually enjoyed it quite a bit and wish we could have done more Q&A's for small groups at church's throughout the year. It seemed to be a very effective way to promote the ministry.
On Sunday night I played basketball with a bunch of men from the neighborhood (like I do every Sunday), watched a movie and then went to bed.
I am beginning to get a little stressed about what I am going to do in a month when my time here is over. I am incredibly excited to be going back to California but at the same time I am extremely sad to be leaving some of my kids. I do not know exactly what the next step for me is, whether I will be back in Camden or who knows where. It's exciting to have such freedom to decide what I will be doing next but I also have bill's to pay so it is a little nerve racking. Please pray for me.
P.S. The spring break video is finished and can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/chad.otoski?ref=search&sid=56900826.304958250..1#!/video/video.php?v=563432435211&ref=mf
I spent alot of time last night helping chad pick music and edit it. Enjoy!
Your blog sucks.
ReplyDeleteI love you.