Arriving here was really exciting, but kind of surreal too. Everyone was very welcoming, but it's very overwhelming to be welcomed by roughly 70 people you don't know and who all know each other. After I got settled, I met with my action group, which is basically a bible study made of my 3 other roommates and my discipler, who leads us. It was a good way to start, since I got to know them better and feel a little less overwhelmed by the sheer amount of people I was meeting.
Thursday night is large group meeting, where we worship and hear a talk on a theme of the week, which last week was the Holy Spirit. I continued to meet many people whose names and faces I promptly forgot after our conversations.
Friday is the staff day off, so I started my job hunt. As a part of the project, we are all expected to get jobs in order to really be a part of the community and to be able to spread our ministry into the workplace. Right now is kind of an awkward time to be looking for jobs, since most of the students have already been at project already have jobs, and employers are waiting to start hiring again until traffic picks up for the summer in the next couple of weeks. So as of now, no job yet, but I'm daily trusting that the Lord has a place picked out for me and He will lead me to it, but it's difficult not to get frustrated after continually getting rejected.
Saturday was our first outreach day. Outreaches are times when people will go out on the boardwalk or on the beach to get high school and college age kids to take our survey and engage them in a spiritual conversation. I was pretty nervous before going out, since I have done very little sharing before, but God is really teaching me to be bold and step out in faith, knowing that not through me, but through Him, I will be able to share the gospel. I also got to meet my impact group on Saturday, which consists of action group, another girl's action group, and a guy's action group.
Sunday was church and another outreach in the afternoon. Sunday's outreach still pretty nerve-wracking for me, but I got to have more conversations than I had had on Saturday, which was encouraging. I can tell that I am gradually getting more comfortable in initiating conversations. Sunday was also the first day of our week entitled "Killing the Giants", where we really focus on evangelism and overcoming our fears about sharing with certain people and relying on God, not our selves, in our sharing.
Yesterday was our first day of orientation as quarter students. It was nice to meet everyone else who doesn't know what's going on and bond over that, and also get more formal training in what's expected of us over the summer.
Today was continued orientation and job hunting. Later will be Date Night with Jesus, when we have dinner on our own and spend a solid couple of hours with the Lord. I feel like the past days have been pretty hectic, so it will be nice to have a quiet night and be able to get back on track with my quiet times.
That was a not-so-brief overview, but I just wanted to give you guys a picture of a semi-typical week in Ocean City. Internet here is spotty, but I'll do my best to keep posting about once a week. God is already doing amazing things in my life and in the lives of others here, and the community here is really encouraging. If you could pray that I continue to be bold in my evangelism and in my relationships with other believers here, I would really appreciate it!
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