Blog 10: Week of 01/16/22
Bye Waco! That was it, my final week in Waco for at least 4 months (maybe). It is Monday now that I am writing this, so I will not write much about New York, but more about the final week in Waco. The biggest thing was Chi Alpha, a weekend where First Woodway brings together a lot of host homes who host a small group of students in their houses. There’s usually 10-14 students, 2 college leaders, and a teacher in each house. Each grade studies different aspects of their faith and have lots of conversations.
Before Chi Alpha most of my time was spent packing and doing some last minute things to prep for NY. I shipped up a couple of boxes so I could have them here (board games, desk stuff, and whatnot), I did laundry and figured out suitcases, I watched two episodes of Hawkeye, I played Roller Coaster Tycoon 2, the normal stuff. Thursday night was the kick off for Chi Alpha where everyone finds out which home they are going to stay in, we have worship, get a basic rundown of the schedule, and have a fun skit. The skit was an older one, slightly re-worked, based off of the SNL skits with Andy Sandberg in jail getting yelled at. It was myself, Jamie West (the next skit guy), Clayton, Jude, and Hadlee. Jamie screamed, kids laughed, good skit.
On Friday the leaders met a couple hours early to get a better understanding of the weekend and meet with each other to plan and pray for the weekend. Afterwards we headed off to the host homes. Due to it being my last weekend, they let me be a floater between the two homes that had my 7:37 group in them. I started at the Castle’s. Rob was the leader there so I was pretty excited about hearing him teach again. Our groups went over Spiritual Gifts, which truthfully is the first lesson I actually remember from my time in the ministry. We played some ping pong and a version called gnip gnop before getting together for the sessions. After the sessions, which ended around 11:00 at night | everything from here on out is after my first class and a two hour conversation with the professor | we started making the video. I think I’m going to upload them to the videos section as well as the rest of the Chi Alpha videos from across the years. This year was a sequel to Detective Castle, which I personally believe is a masterpiece. The filming was real fun with everyone running around trying their hand at helping out; boys with flashlights, costume designers, the whole shebang. Is that how you spell “shebang” because it looks like “she bangs” which is rather different. I then went to my dad’s house and edited the video until about 3:00 AM and went to bed.
Saturday morning my mom woke me up and off I went, but this time to the Nesmith house. I sat through two sessions with them before it was time for their video; The Good, The Bad, and the Airbender. Objectively a funnier film, but in no ways a cinematic masterpiece. Everyone got pretty into it again with costumes and ideas of their own. After we filmed I ran to my dad’s to edit it as well. I finished editing pretty early so I was able to go to X-games and watch them have their fun. Of course, the Nesmith house, and all of their athletes, won the dodgeball tournament, which meant we got to eat at a table while all the peasants sat on the dirty ground. It ended up being that I sat at the head of the table which was actually 8 folding tables in a row. Enough to comfortably sit 65 people. I started a wave sort of hand holding to eventually lead to a family prayer at the table, pretty fun. We then went back home, I to the Castle’s, where we watched Baylor lose to whoever it was that we lost to, pretty pathetic. Afterwards we started our final session which was about affirming others of what we viewed their spiritual gift as. It was a really beautiful thing, watching two groups of people talk highly and encouragingly about one another without fear of being judged. As the night continued I believe barriers that had been built over years began to fall. They then began to talk about what they wanted their group to become, and where they could be better. It was great. I then rushed over to the Nesmith house to try and get a part of their conversation. I got there for the part where they started discussing how to improve our 7:37 group which was powerful to see both groups come to the same realization; it’s time to dive in.
That night we had the worship session. This is an hour of worship all together up at the church. We all got some warm clothes and some blankets and headed that way. The worship started with the song I Love You Lord, which is the same song my senior year that one night Case led us in as just a group of guys. That song has had a huge impact in me, I once used it as a devo when I was a teen camp counselor at FC. As we sang my eyes swelled with the thought that I won’t be there for my guys their senior year to get to be a part of that memory for them. We continued singing and worshipping until the final song; I Thank God. This is my new favorite song. The energy was palpable and everyone was jumping around as they SHOUTED the song. I stood back and watched my group of guys shout “Hell lost another one, I am free, I am free, I am free” and I burst into tears. Tears that I have not cried in a long time, tears that flowed. I fell to my knees due to the beauty of what was happening before me. I did not get to witness any of their salvations, but I WAS there for a lot of their growth, I got to see them become who they are with the Lord and seeing and hearing their shouts of victory over the devil made me see that all was worth it. All the emotions of the past four years came out and I wept. As I gathered myself I ran up to where they were and sang I Ran Out of That Grave with them, it was powerful. God was powerful and showed Himself to me, and I pray that I do not forget that moment, not ever. After worship we went outside to a spot we used to sit a lot and as one collective discussed where we are as a group and how to get to where we want to be. It was good conversation, but it was SO cold. There was wind and everyone was shivering, but they kept bringing in insight, so it was worth it. We then all hung out at the Nesmith house where the guys went kinda crazy, multiple of which took shots of pre-workout. Harrison also had an integral piece of his car fall apart so everything was weird. I took a couple of guys, including Harrison, home so they could go to bed, then followed their example.
I woke up slowly on Sunday and rolled up to the church for the end of Chi Alpha. We got to see the video competition which had some pretty funny videos, the 10th grade girls won with us coming in second place. My boys refused to accept which was pretty disappointing. Bob called me up on stage and had a goodbye send-off for me. It was pretty special to be on that side of it. He called my guys up on stage to pray over me then gave me a gift. It’s a journal with handwritten notes from each of my guys as well as the staff. I have not had the opportunity to read it yet, but I know a day that I am feeling alone it will be there for me. I got to say my goodbyes, give my hugs, and then I was on my way. On my way to my mom’s house to pack. My dad was there, so I got to hug him and say goodbye. I teared up at this point too. This is more crying that I have done, likely in my whole life. I then raced inside to finish throwing everything into my bags, said goodbye to Carson, and then drove to DFW with my Mom. We talked about the weekend. When I tried to explain about the worship I cried again. I promise I am not a baby or anything, but I was very very emotional. On usual I cry like maybe once a year, maybe, so this was very out of the ordinary. I then said goodbye and met Andy at the airport. We waited for our flight that got delayed a bit due to a winter storm, but before long we were off. After flying Frontier the past four flights, I felt like a king on JetBlue.
We landed safely in NY and went in search of a taxi and food. The food was easy to find, a $12 burger, but in our search for a taxi a man tried to abduct both of us. The dialog is as follows;
Man “you need taxi?”
Peyton “yes.”
M “come”
P “are you a taxi?”
M “no. Taxi’s far away and Uber’s are slow.”
P “no, we want an uber or a taxi.”
M “Taxi runs your tab.”
P “… are you an Uber?”
M “yes.”
P *does not see Uber/Lyft anywhere on his unmarked car* “are you an Uber?”
M “no”
Andy “bye”
We then found where the Taxi pick-up station was and went home for a pretty modest cost and the taxi driver did not run our tab. We got to the apartment and met Jenny, our RA. She was super helpful and really kind. Andy and I hung out in our new place a bit then finally went to bed.
Monday, day 1 in NY. I woke up around 10:00. Andy and I explored the apartment and all it’s amenities including the roof, the roof garden, a pool table, a very nice gym, the courtyard, and the laundromat. We then took the Subway to Trader Joe’s for groceries. For lunch I had coffee and a peanut butter and honey sandwich. I then started working on this blog post before deciding to go watch Licorice Pizza. We barely had time afterwards to make and eat dinner before we had to head to class. Class was good. Andy and I hung out with the professor and talked film and theatre for about two hours before finally going to our apartment. I am now staying up later than I wanted to finishing the Blog finally. I’m tired and in just one day beat my previous exercise goals on my watch.
Tomorrow I have to wake up early, so I believe it to be time for bed. So with that I bid you ado and farewell. Goodnight.