Life

There's been this one high schooler that comes in and plays basketball a lot.  Since I'm still pretty new here, I don't get the e-mail and phone messages that I'm sure will come once people know me a little more; so I go down to the gym and hang out with him for a couple hours almost every day that I'm here at the church during the week.  He doesn't come to church on Sunday mornings, but he comes almost any time we have the gym open.  For awhile he was coming up here with a couple of his buddies, but they've stopped coming with him.  This could lives to play basketball.  I'm really trying to get to know him and today was a good day.  We didn't just play basketball the entire time he was here.  We sat down for a little while after we were both a little tired and just talked about school, basketball, and church a little bit.  I don't know if he'll ever come to church on a Sunday morning.  I don't think he's going to get up real early unless it's to play ball, but that isn't discouraging right now.  I know he hasn't grown up in the best home, and I want to be somebody that he can rely on.  That's what makes me want to do inner-city ministry.  I just never knew that I would have quite the same opportunity right here in a small town in Indiana.  But I'm loving it right now.  I've almost been here for a month now, and I feel like I'm really fitting in with the other ministers pretty well.

I was a little worried that I would be at the church too much during the day and not spend enough time at home and with Megan, especially since I'm playing in two summer softball leagues and a summer kickball league.  But Megan's on the kickball team, and one of Megan's friends from the Nursing Program at DACC is married to a guy who's on both softball teams, so Megan comes to all the games and get a chance to talk with her and watch me play a little bit.  On top of that, Megan and I have already went ahead and started making a scheduled night throughout the week to go on a date or at least make sure that we get to spend the entire evening together (without any sports things).  So, that has been really good too.  I want to make sure she understands that even though I have a new job that I could spend a lot of time working at, I am going to make spending time with her a priority, and she doesn't take a back seat to other things.