5-29 Day One

 It may have been only 4 hours of travel time, but make no mistake, today was NOT a short day. 

3:00: Wake-up, finish packing

3:45: Drive to the airport, say goodbye to Nick at the drop off, move through security at record speeds

5:30: Flight 1/2

6:45: Meet up with one of the groupmates at the Midway airport to go meet the rest of the team in RI

7:15: Flight 2/2

10:30: Wait in RI for everyone to get there

-One of the guys on our team, a returner to Providence too, doesn't allow us to have silence. He was pretty consistent in asking us icebreaker questions, which got us talking whenever we started to get quiet.

-What started as just the three guys on our team quickly became all of us playing hacky sack while waiting for our mobilizer, Jordan, to pick us up.

1:00: Picked up, head to Sacred City Church, then off to lunch at Ocean State Sandwich

-Jordan got the chance to finally see our team dynamic in action, it's going to be a GOOD six weeks. 

2:00-4:00: Tour of Providence led by the one and only Jacob Van Sickle 

4:00-5:30: Downtime before dinner at the Andersons' 

-In the car ride to the evening events, some of us had talked about our upbringing, college ministry structure, and balancing/ navigating familial relationships with those who aren't saved, which gave me a really important reminder to be praying for these relationships in my life more. 

5:30-8:30: Fellowshipping, getting to meet all the DSM -> RI exports. 

-Following tonight, I'm going to experiment with serving on sound and live streams while in RI. I've wanted to experiment in this regard back at Walnut Creek, but haven't been brave enough to find my way in yet. The sound guy here knows the one back in DSM (I believe he taught him a lot as well) and offered to reach out to him when I am back. Get excited about that, I want to serve in the church beyond the occasional nursery.

Concluding thoughts: Providence is a cleanish city(minus the smell). I want to spend time in the bookstores and coffee shops. But seriously, I am so excited to get moving in the city, hearing about the heart and desire so many people in this church have for the city is SO encouraging and I know the Lord will use this summer for good. 

Once we get into a rhythm, I hope to have less of a literal play-by-play and stick to reporting on the big events/conversations of the day, but for now, I am running on two and a half hours of sleep and have been up for 19 hours so I'd say any report is better than no report.

1 Cor. 3:7, "So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes growth."