Hey Y'all...

Greetings from Oklahoma!

As y'all might have been wondering, I actually did make it to Tulsa since my last blog post. And yes, I am saying the word "y'all" now... I don't know how long I'll stick with it, but I have to admit, it is SO much more convenient than the equivalent "you guys" that I've been encumbered with my whole life. I'd like to blame my lack of blogging on a LOT of jet lag or something, but I really only suffered jet lag for a day or two, maybe its easy when you gain hours?

So... you might be wondering, "Nate, WHAT are you doing in Oklahoma?" For basically all of June and July and a bit of August I'm interning at Springs of Grace Bible Church. The church is about 80 people and I'm one of 11 interns. That's right, 11! I've been rather blown away by the great vision that Springs of Grace has to reach their community for Christ, despite their relatively small size. Although we have multiple ministries that we are doing, we have especially been focusing on kids. Three days a week, Miriam has been heading up a tutoring program called "Get Ahead" through which we teach about 30-35 kids from the local neighborhood and low-income housing projects. We teach them basic math and reading skills, life skills (such as table manners or how to address an envelope), break up and try to tutor them as close to one-on-one as possible, and then have a closing "floor time" through which we try to share something from the Bible with them. Learning how to read or having good manners at the table is not going to save these kids from the pain of growing up in shattered homes, but hopefully it will equip them to read the Bible and show Christ's love to them through our actions.

We are keeping pretty busy with many other ministries here as well, such as block ministry through which we are going door to door in the local neighborhood meeting, getting to know, and praying for the neighbors. Among other things, I got to be "Treasure Tom", an Australian treasure hunter searching for the "Greatest treasure in the World!" (God is the Treasure) for VBS a few weeks ago, where we had upwards of 70 kids. We recently finished youth camp down in Louisiana, and are busy preparing to run a camp in Tennesse for another church next week, as well as our own "Project 61", a sports camp for inner city kids which we get the high schoolers from our church and several others to help run in the mornings, and then camp focused on the high schoolers in the evening. I'm also helping play piano for worship on Sunday mornings.

I'm writing this blog from the church, using the neighbor's intermittant wireless network. I'm living here at their church building with two other awesome guys, Jared Tabor and Chris Smith in our freezing little room we call the "Bachelor Pad". Its a bit tight, but we're bonding.

I feel pretty busy, but I'm loving it. The Blankenship family (for those of you not tracking: Mr. Blankenship is the pastor at Springs of Grace, daughters Miriam and Hannah go to TMC) is overly generous in opening their home to me and other random starving interns; I'm doubting they've had any nights this summer so far when they haven't had company over. Several weeks ago, we also had a ton of the kids from Get Ahead over at the Blankenship's pool for a reward "swim" party (although several of them seemed to sink more than swim). It has been a growing experience to sit under Mr. Blankenship's teaching.

What a blessing this summer has been so far. I don't deserve it.