Northwest

Today is bittersweet. I hesitate in using that word because I feel it is greatly overused. Whenever a season of life ends in a person's life, they talk about how bittersweet it is. It's becoming cliche. Surely there is another word that we can use. However, I just typed in "bittersweet" in thesaurus.com, but it didn't give me anything. It seems like I'm forced to conform in my word choice. But I digress.

The reason that today is bittersweet is that this is my last day in Oregon. For the past twelve weeks, I have been in Corvallis while doing a youth ministry internship with Suburban Christian Church. It has been a fantastic summer, and while I am excited to spend a day at home in Topeka and then to head back to Ozark on Saturday, I am going to miss Oregon a lot. All of which got me thinking: What are some things that I have missed about home while I have been in Oregon, and what are going to be some things I'll miss about Oregon after I leave? I now present those lists for your enjoyment and personal betterment.

What I Have Missed Most About Topeka and Ozark

• NOT having to cook for myself. I can only handle so much Hamburger Helper and ham sandwiches. I never thought I would say this, but I miss the Ozark dining hall. This only makes the need for me to rapidly find a wife who can cook that much more urgent.
• Going bowling every Monday. I'll advertise it again: I need new bowling friends for this year. You need to be good, but not good enough to beat me. Caitlyn Lippitt, you will be sorely missed.
• Driving a car with an automatic transmission. I'm an unsafe driver as it is. I don't need to be worrying about making the car run.
• Playing basketball in a gym. I'm awful on the rim at the park that I've gone to here. As surprising as it may sound, I'm not much of a streetballer in Topeka.
• Chick-fil-A, Sonic, Spangle's, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Cheddar's.
• The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery. Not only does the library have a few copies, but I've got my own!
• Watching ESPN. Here the Reds are having an awesome season for the first time since I can remember, and I haven't been able to watch the magic.

 What I Will Miss Most About Oregon

• Mountains. Sorry Topeka, but Burnett's Mound isn't quite the same.
• Being outside in weather that is NOT 98 degrees and 80% humidity. I only want to get nasty and sweaty when I'm actually active. Not when I'm just sitting on a bench.
• Jeff's awesome projector and giant screen. It's way better than the projector in my dorm room, which was made around 1949.
• Wilderness expeditions to Smith Rock or the river near Sweet Home. Anything that helps me feel a little bit less like a wimp is a good thing. I'll be on my own survival show in no time.
• Reading at the riverfront park near downtown Corvallis. (See bullet point #2).
• Being able to say "Yeah, I live in Oregon," and feeling like I am somehow hipper and more culturally aware than other people.
• All of the incredible people I have gotten to rub shoulders with at Suburban. I can't wait until they do their next youth retreat in Missouri.

I feel like after a summer like this one, I should at least include something meaningful in order to redeem this post. So here are a few lessons I've learned and some things that I have been thinking about through this experience:

God comes through.
After my first day of working at Suburban, I went back to the house I was staying at, sat in a chair, and wondered if I had made a mistake. Just a few days previously, I had been in Joplin saying good-bye to many of my closest friends. Now I was on the other side of the country in a new situation, and I knew next to nobody in the entire state. Honestly, at the moment I wanted nothing more than to be back at school, where I was comfortable and knew what I was doing. At the same time, I knew that if I had made a mistake in coming to Corvallis, it was too late to go back. I was stuck, and I started counting down the time until August 19th when I would head back to my haven in the midwest.


But when God wants you somewhere, and when he has a specific work for you to do, he makes sure it works out. I really believe that, if I were going to come to the northwest for a summer, God placed me in an ideal situation. So many people at Suburban did so much to make sure that I had what I needed and that I felt welcome. I know that there are a ton of great churches in the area, but Suburban was the right fit for me. It was definitely difficult at first, and I felt very distant from everything and everyone that I care about, but over time I came to realize that I was where God wanted me and that I hadn't made a mistake. He does a pretty good job of making things work out.

There are great people everywhere.
Sometimes I think that people at Ozark are better than the rest of humanity. That sounds terrible when I put words to that idea, but it is a thought that lies hidden in my mind, I think. I tend to believe that we are somehow a step ahead of everyone else. Only we know how ministry should really work. Only we know how to interpret the Bible correctly. Only we know what God is really like. We're an elite crew, and people who aren't directly connected with us are somehow disadvantaged. They're to be pitied, really, and it's our job to go out their and save them.



This summer, however, I was constantly around phenomenal people of God. The quality of the people Suburban has working with youth is out of control. These are people who serve faithfully and give sacrificially for God and for the students. I look up to all of our youth staff. Not just in the sense that I sort of respect them and think that they are pretty decent folks. I wish that I were more like them, and I think that just about all of them are better at working with youth than I am. (I let you decide which of them I don't think that about!) This summer was another reminder about how big and beautiful the church really is and that there are an insane number of people all over the country and all over the world who are being used by God in incredible ways for his kingdom. And a few of them have never even visited Ozark.

I'm sure (or at least I hope) that there are many other things I've learned this summer, but I think I need a few weeks to process some of those, so maybe I'll share them with you when they are at least half-grown. I have been greatly privileged this summer to work with such amazing people and such awesome students, and I hope that it isn't too long before I get to come back. I'm especially grateful to Jamey for teaching me and putting up with me, to Jeff for putting a roof over my head and a mattress under my sleeping self, and to Angie for getting me hooked up with the internship and with a set of wheels. I am anxious to head home though. I don't know if I can say that I'm happy or sad about going back. But I am ready, and I'm excited to see what the new semester has for me. Let's hope it's a future wife that likes to cook and has a nice movie projector.

Here's some of my favorite pictures from the summer. For all of you who, when you were a kid, skipped over all the words in the books just to look at the pictures. And I'm sorry for the weird spacing in this post. Blogger is throwing a fit.