Well, again I have not updated my blog in a while, so this
may be a pretty lengthy blog. We have had quite a bit happen since I last
updated, so I'll start where I left off.
On Friday, we had our 2nd real work shift of PAC, and it
sure was interesting. It was raining most of Friday, so we were not sure if
there was going to be a parade, but it finally did slow down enough that it was
only delayed about 10 minutes. In situations like this, they have tuggers
parked along the parade rout in case the floats were to get stuck, which is
going to happen when the pavement is wet. I was working a position on one of
the corners where I needed to keep it clear for an emergency walkway and I also
had to lay down space for where one of the tuggers would be and keep it clear
until the tugger arrived. Once the parade started, I had to constantly be
telling people that they could not stand on the corner or the walkway since it
is our emergency path. People see an open spot and even though every single
possible space anywhere near there is full, they think that there is some empty
space right up front just left for them... It doesn't make sense to me as to
why people would think that everywhere else would be packed and there would be
empty space for them to stand, but I guess I am no psychologist... Haha!
Anyway, there were several floats that did end up getting stuck going up the
hill right by my tugger, so we had to get him out there and pull it up the
hill. By the end of the parade, it had finally stopped raining, and my cleanup
position was to take the stanchions out in the West part of the parade rout, so
I follow along right behind the float and pull them out of the ground as
quickly as I can to stay in pace with the parade. I enjoy doing this part, and
I get to work with different people than who I was working with on the parade
rout earlier. It apparently can also be dangerous, because my counterpart
taking the stanchions from the opposite side of the parade fell down and hit
his head pretty good and probably got a concussion from it, so he could
probably use some prayer... After we had done this for the 9pm parade, we do it
all over again for the 11pm one, but it is not nearly as busy. It was an
interesting day of work, and hopefully I get to see some of the people I was
working with again.
The next few days we had off of work, so I just spent the
time we had off from project activities working on stuff for project, resting,
and hanging out with other project people.
For some reason, my carpool group was having problems with
our schedule and not getting very many hours, and if we don't have very many
hours, it is hard to develop relationships with our coworkers, so it is kind of
imperative. As of today, we have finally gotten that straightened out, so now
it will be more consistent and we will have better opportunities.
Monday was a very weird day overall, but there were good and
bad things that happened. Unfortunately we lost one of our guys from project
because he had some issues that he needed to take care of at home, so that was
sad. Some other weird things happened as well, but then that evening, since I
had not really gotten to know any of my coworkers too well yet, I went with one
the other carpool groups to hang out with them and one of their coworkers, who
also brought along her roommate. We went to go see a really weird movie, which
just added to the weirdness of the day, we grabbed some dinner, and just hung
around downtown Disney. It was really a good time and I hope that they can
continue to build a relationship with her.
Tuesday was another interesting day because since the staff
will be leaving here in a week or so, they are choosing leaders to take over
positions that need to be filled and they announced them before we went off for
evangelism Tuesday morning. We have a few new project leaders and new people
who will be leading the men's and women's times, discipleship and bible study
leaders, and ministry team leaders. In talking to the staff, they choose people
who they thought could handle the position, while also being able to learn a
lot from the experience, so just because you are already good at something
doesn't mean you would be put into that place, you might actually not be put
there since you wouldn't get as much out of it. It is an excellent way to have
people learn by the experience of taking on a position like this. I was chosen
to take over for my discipler and bible study leader, since I told him that I
wanted to start an all guys bible study/community group next year at UNO. Even
though it would have been easier to take more of an administration role because
I already have experience and am good at that, this role does give me more room
to grow and improve since I don't have as much experience at doing this, so it
will be a good thing for this project and for when I go back to UNO next fall.
I am excited to see how I can learn from leading these dudes in discipleship
and in our bible study.
One exciting story from our time evangelizing on Tuesday
morning: one of the other guys on project, Kevin Spradlin and I went out
together at a mall to go try to start some spiritual conversations with people,
and we decided to start talking to this one guy who was originally from
Germany. We just started by talking to him about the weather and random stuff,
and of course Disney, because almost everyone has an opinion on it. After a
while the guy said that he had to go back to work in a few minutes, because he
worked in one of the stores in the mall, so I quickly transitioned into asking
if he was interested in spiritual and Christian things, and he was surprisingly
excited about it. He really did want to talk about it, but since he had to
leave, I gave him my phone number on the back of one of our Knowing God
Personally booklets and he said that he would call me on this Friday, so I am
really hoping that he does. We'll see what God has in store for him.
The rest of Tuesday was work time, and this was the craziest
time that I have had at work so far. I got a position where they just had made
a change to it, so they did not know how it would go, and I would say that it
wasn't great. For the parade, it was absolutely packed. I don't think I have
seen it that full yet, and apparently it will only get worse this next week
since it is the 4th of July week. The parade didn't actually go too bad, but
when we had everyone move into the street for the fireworks viewing, it was a
mess because people would not move into the middle of the circle area in front
of the castle unless I was beckoning them right in front of them, and if I
tried to do that, then people would fill in along the edge bleeding into what
was supposed to be our emergency walkway. It was a mess until we finally got a
few extra people to come help clear it out a little bit, but even then, there
were so many people and they were so stubborn that it was difficult. After this
adventure, I was pretty worn out, so it was a good that the next parade was
much less packed and it was extremely easy to help people out. During work on
Tuesday, I actually met a couple of people from Nebraska, so that was pretty
cool. Another thing that is cool at work is that there is one girl name Mikey,
who seems to really like all of us in our carpool group, so hopefully we will
get a chance to get to know her better.
This post is getting ridiculously long, so I will just make
a new one for our Men's time that was on Wednesday, so stay tuned, there will
be more to come! Please keep me and our project in your prayers as we are
making this transition soon and are trying to spread the love of God to Disney
World.
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