Traffic, Proxy Weddings, and Heat, Oh My!

Hello from West Texas, my friends! I know that it's been forever since I posted, but my life has been unbelievably FULL for the past week (hard to believe it's only been one week!)

 So much has happened in the past few days that I would love to write a post about every day, but I'll just give y'all (that's right, I said it ;-)) a quick run-down so as not to bore you!

 6/8 Friday: Mom and I left mid-morning (due to my last-minute packing!) and set off on our cross country drive. I am so thankful that my wonderful mother made this trip with me--those hours of chatting and laughing in the car were a great way to make this transition. We did get stuck in traffic in downtown St.Louis at rush hour for about 2 hours, then missed an exit which caused us to waste an hour getting back on track...but oh well. We spent the night just north of Springfield, Missouri.

A is Home, B is Crowley, and C is where I'm living for the summer

6/9 Saturday: We got back on the road bright and early in the morning, and arrived late afternoon in Crowley, Texas, to visit my Aunt Tam and Uncle Tom! They've lived in Texas for about 7 years now, and while we see Aunt Tam about once a year when she visits Wisconsin, we've never visited them in Texas before. They made us a delicious dinner and we spent the night catching up, and talking over the "dangers" of West Texas (I was warned about tarantulas and snakes, both of which I have yet to see, but hey, I've only been here a few days!)

 6/10 Sunday: After church and breakfast, Aunt Tam took Mom and me to downtown Fort Worth. We saw some historic sites, a sweet Barnes and Noble, and then visited a gorgeous Botanical Garden. That evening, Uncle Tom, Aunt Tam, and I dropped Mom off at the airport and she returned to Chicago. Saying goodbye to her was probably the first moment that it really hit me that I am actually doing this--I am actually living in Texas by myself all summer. Saying goodbye to her hurt and I definitely had to hold back plenty of tears. I am truly learning what it means to give up everything--even my family--to follow Christ's call on my life.

I drove down to Waco (about an hour and a half south of Crowley) to be ready for training that started the next day!

 6/11 Monday: I arrived at the Baylor School of Social Work to meet with the 8 other Texas Hunger Initiative Americorps VISTAs (when reading, you can just skip all those words and insert "interns"), only to learn that I am the only one who is not from Texas (or attending school in Texas), and I am the youngest. Seriously intimidating. Luckily, as we were introducing ourselves and playing the much hated "two truths and a lie" game, I was able to show everyone just how young I am/how I don't take myself too seriously at all by accidentally saying two lies and only one truth...no one thought it was as funny as I had been hoping.

Anyway, we had a super serious conference call with the head of the NY Americorps Hunger Initiative and an employee of the White House (I'm not sure exactly who that guy was, because there were about 50 new interns on the conference call, including one particular individual who seemed to think that everything was directed to him specifically and felt the need to respond to everything that was said, causing me to miss a lot of what we all actually needed to hear). We took the same oath that the president does, swearing to protect the country if a threat should arise, and agreed to abstain from posting political messages on twitter and facebook (and I suppose blogs too!) for the next 8 weeks.
While training was kind of a boring but necessary process, meeting everyone else was amazing...I love knowing that there are 8 others with similar passions to mine fighting hunger around the state.


6/12 Tuesday: Training continued, with representatives from the Texas Department of Agriculture coming to talk to us about how the program works statewide. The area that I'm working in is unique in that we are not funded by TDA, so a lot of this didn't apply to my forthcoming work, but I sat through it anyway.

Training ended around 3 p.m., I packed up my tiny little car, and hit the road for West Texas! Aside from a ridiculous rain storm that I had to pull over and wait out for about half an hour, the FIVE HOUR DRIVE was uneventful. I took a highway directly west from Waco, and hit nothing but tiny little towns for over four hours. The community that I'm living/serving in, while having a population of about 100,000, is really the only major area of civilization over here--definitely not something that I'm used to at all, coming from the Chicago suburbs!
I arrived at about 8:30 p.m., and met the very sweet couple, James and Cindy, who have generously offered me their guest house to stay in while I'm here. Carol, one of the directors of the Hunger Initiative here, and her husband were also there to meet me. I chatted with them all for a while and then pretty much fell into bed, absolutely exhausted!


{Ok, this post is getting seriously LONG. I’m just going to give y’all some short fragments now and not much explanation!}

6/13 Wednesday: My first day of work! Met the other two interns, Wayne and Lucy (fantastic people, and thankfully, exactly my age!), and had a long meeting about what we’re doing all summer (lots!). Didn’t have much work to do yet, so went to a wonderful organization called the House of Faith to help with their summer sports camps until the early evening. Worked on some stuff for the Hunger Initiative until 7 pm, went to a college Bible study with Wayne and Lucy, which turned out to actually be a proxy wedding that particular night. Believe it or not, I have actually never attended a proxy wedding before, so this was certainly a great way to spend my first full night in my new community. I was told by many “we don’t usually do this in Texas”, but I’m not sure I believe anyone—that is usually exactly what I say when I don’t want people to think our Chicagoan habits are weird ;-). Got home after 11 pm and fell into bed.

6/14 Thursday: Food Planning Association meeting all morning, which included anyone who has anything to do with hunger anything in the county. Super awesome, super great people, super excited to get to work! Worked on some maps in the afternoon (an interesting task for me, as I have no sense of direction), and finally went shopping for food that evening. I did commit a southern faux pas at the store, and forgot to “ma’am/sir” the checkout person/bagger, but I’m working on it!

6/15: Friday: Plastered the town with KIDS EAT FREE posters all morning and had a meeting in the afternoon. Thought I was going to die on my drive home from work of heat/thirst, arrived home around 4 pm, and collapsed into bed for a nap (I wonder if I will ever have any energy after I’m done working in the afternoon/evening?). Talked to my mom on the phone FOREVER, which I loved, and fell asleep to local news around 10:30 (I’m trying to fit into the culture at least a bit!)

Today I’m chilling at the local public library, which is beautiful, just catching up on emails and the like. (Wifi in my guest house works, on occasion, if I’m situated in the correct corner with my computer held at a certain angle, and only for about 5 minutes, so I’m thankful for anywhere that I can get internet!)


Basically, life is a fast-moving blur at the moment. I only have 7 weeks left here to make a difference, and I am beyond excited about what I get to do this summer. Life is sweet (and hot!), God is good, and I’m sitting at a library in West Texas. Who would have thought!