Update #8 from Princeton Theological Seminary: "What a blessing!"

Dear family and friends,

Well, the time has come for a new school year, and with it, some wonderful additions to my update list. Before I get going here, as I've said before please feel free to let me know if you'd no longer like to receive my updates and I'll take you off...no love lost. =)

Now, to go further up and further in: there is too much to talk about already! Let's start with the end of the summer. I finished up at First Pres, Visalia at the end of August only after preaching my very first sermon ever! My text was the wedding at Cana...and amazingly enough I felt like it went very well and received a lot of great feedback. What a blessing! Leaving the kids was very difficult as I had become rather attached to them over the summer. We finished the summer off with a girl's spa night and several great weeks of youth group. Again, what a blessing they are.

Along those lines, as I spent some time reflecting on my time at home I found that while I had been apprehensive about returning to Visalia for the summer, and really had no intentions to do that, God knew what he was doing. It was great to spend some time at home with my mom. It was wonderful to reconnect to First Pres and the families there that I used to know better and to get to know some of the newer families and people in the church. It was indeed another example of God's great faithfulness!

After I finished up my job I loaded up my car, drove to Bakersfield and picked up two of my best friends from college to begin our 3,000-mile cross-country road trip! In just seven short days we arrived in Princeton, but not before seeing a friend of ours from college in Colorado, stopping at a glass marble factory and shop in the middle of Kansas, going up 637 feet in the St. Louis Arch, experiencing the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and getting cheesesteaks in Philly! We got my stuff unloaded and prepared for a very busy few days before Jules and Brian left: New York City, Princeton, and church and antiquing!

Now that we're on to present day, school has officially been in session for three weeks! I love my classes this semester, it has been good to reconnect with friends, and enjoy some of my favorite east coast places. And to answer the question I'm sure you're all asking, no, the fall colors are not here...not quite yet.

Well, I believe I'll wrap up for now....this has gone on long enough. I'll write again soon more about my classes and such. I hope you are all well. Please find my address below...I love to get little notes and stuff! ;-)

Many "what a blessing!" moments I wish for you today,
Megan

Fiascos, Felines, and Fresh Beginnings

Did that picture get you hooked or what?? =) Meet Chance. This is a very cute kitten my mom

found a week ago on the side of the road - we think he had been thrown out of a car - and brought home. We are working on bonding with him...not too hard, since he's very cute and likes to be held and cuddle. We're also trying to find him a good home, which I'm quite sad about.

Well, anyway, on to the real reason for a post. Any of you who have talked with me over the past 4 months or so will know that my summer plans have been kind of a fiasco from the beginning. I had hoped to work at Carp Community Church, but after 4 weeks of waiting finances ultimately derailed that plan. In the meantime, because I don't like to be without a plan, I had applied at a church in Fresno, CA (name witheld to protect the guilty) which would have been a great opportunity to grow in team ministry but turned out to have a very disappointing outlook on Princeton's theology and consequently felt the need to grill me for 2/3 of my interview to, what I presume was, "test my theology." At any rate, after agonizing about it (they offered me a position) for far too long I eventually told them no because I just had a feeling it wasn't where God was calling me. So, I put out some feelers...in May. After finals were over. A bit late to begin again in looking for a summer job.


But, when God provides, He really does. I contacted two churches, First Presbyterian Berkeley, and my home church, First Presbyterian, Visalia, hoping that one of them would have need of an intern, but not expecting too much. I suppose it's when you expect the least that God provides the most. Both churches responded with possibilities and I began pursuing an internship at my home church. I'll leave out all the nitty-gritty details, but I am proud and thankful to report I have a job for the summer!


So, what will I be doing? A little of this and a little of that...my main focus will be kick-starting the junior high group again and creating a program that will be sustainable into the fall as well as locating and training a junior high leader to pass the torch to after I leave. Youth group, a Bible study, "Coffee Hour with Megan," monthly events...so exciting!!! But I will also be...and this is the part I am most excited about...acting as the intern for the 210 center, a community center the church just opened a couple of months ago, helping with the college ministry, Elevate, which is 120 people strong, and helping run and coordinate the concert ministry at 210!


I'll definitely be picking up a second job, because you never do any ministry for the money...that's what Starbuck's is for! And I'll be taking a statistics class at the community college to cover one of my prereqs for my M.S.W. I think this is going to shape up to be a good summer! However, this post is getting a bit long, so I'll stop for now, but I'll be back in a couple of days to share about how 210 came into being!





"Gloria in excelsis Deo!"