Work to be done

It is my turn to post to the blog, so I have been told. The difficulty with this is that we have been so busy the past few weeks that it is hard for either one of us to find time. Since time has been the issue, let me catch you up with what is going on with internship.

After our trip to Texas (see On the Road Again), we came back to a funeral and a site visit from our seminary. Site visits are normal, expected, and so on, but they can also be intimidating, time consuming, and exhausting. Ours went well, but over the course of a week, it took several hours and phone calls to pick a date, set an agenda, notify everyone of the agenda, and then modify the agenda when someone was not going to be available. This happened a couple of weeks before. We returned from Texas Monday night, late, and then dealt with the funeral on Tuesday, then picked up our contextual education professor on Wednesday morning. Wednesday and Thursday were pretty much one meeting after another, with some driving in-between. By Friday, we were both exhausted, and still had sermons to write for Sunday. We also had 41 volunteers sleeping at the church and working for LDR. Friday afternoon sermon writing was interrupted to open the travel agency office as several people were trying to arrange (or re-arrange) their travel home.

By Monday, our normal day off, we might have rested, except that we had not really had a day at home for almost three weeks, and the apartment really needed cleaning and the cupboards were bare. That means that our day off was really as much or more work than a normal day! Much of the week was spent catching up on some things from the previous week, plus some planning based on suggestions made by our professor during the site visit.

For some reason, by the time we got to Friday again, we were heavily involved in doing some repairs around the church. With the number of volunteers we have staying with us, and the remodeling project that is almost finished, there always seems to be something that needs to be fixed or modified or replaced. Since we had no volunteers in this weekend, it seemed like a good time to get some of these items finished. Saturday (and some of Sunday afternoon) was spent going up and down a step ladder, installing new smoke alarms in the areas that the volunteers sleep, repairing a light fixture, finishing the battery replacement project for our emergency lighting and exit signs, and fixing a couple of door stops. All of this was followed by a couple of hours of cleaning (cleaning up after ourselves, and after volunteers, and after the sexton as well)

I suppose it is appropriate to follow up a post titled The House of God with one about the work done in and on the house of God. In small congregations, with a mostly older population, there are always things to fix and work to be done. One project begets another. There is always something to do. Lest we become bogged down in these projects, though, we must also remember that we (even lowly interns) are called to care for each other. This weekend is past; tonight a new group of volunteers arrive; tomorrow we travel upstate to learn how to handle facility closings in a pandemic. Chores need to be done, but life cannot be spent on them. The world calls; the people call; there is work to be done out there as well.