Tuesday, December 13, 2005

College Memory #3

Since Kenli and Jenny were so disappointed with only two college memories, I've decided to post a few more. I really just think Kenli and Jenny were upset that my first two memories didn't involve them...so sorry. Here's a memory that involves both of them...and its one I was going to write about anyway. Hope you guys are happy...

My sophomore year at ACU I couldn't really find a spring break campaign that I wanted to go on so Kenli and I basically decided to start our own. We partnered with Clay Rich and we were headed to Rhode Island. We were excited about leading and had a great group going with us. Moriah, Jenny, Ashley, Melinda, and Linds King were the girls, and we had a great group of guys consisting of Zach Garza, Brent Couchman, Jared Aston, Tye Phillips among others. We were pretty excited about going...until the church called about three weeks before spring break and told us we couldn't come anymore.

We got on the phone trying to call other churches and finally found one in Boston. This all happened at the time that Kenli got knocked by the bike so she couldn't remember a thing. The best part of it all was that Kenli would get so excited about every hour that I told her we were going to Boston now...she forgot the minute I told her, and it was so great how excited she would get each time.

Once we arrived to Boston, it wasn't what we expected. We were the minority group in an African American Church and we were quite different. The first night we were there, me, Kenli, Jenny, Linds and Melin all stayed in the same house. Me, Linds and Melin were put up in the attic though with a small space heater to keep us warm...yeah right. We were terrified of Sister Spriggs, the lady who we were staying with, and lets just say we had more than enough reasons to be scared of her. For our evening snack that night we ate chicken and dumplins with the bones still in the chicken...sick.

Well that night me and Melin were blow drying our hair in our attic when all of a sudden we burnt the fuse and the whole electricity in the house went out. Kenli and I tried to find our way down the basement, but we were afraid of what we would find down there. So, Melin, Linds and I were stuck in the freezing attic with no heat.(Notice Jenny and Kenli didn't offer to squeeze us into their beds...thanks) All I can really remember is Linds and Melin sleeping together, or rather crying together, in a small twin sized bed while I couldn't believe that all this was actually happening.

The next day at church was quite amusing as Kenli and Melin got all sorts of looks for wearing pants to church. Luckily one of our guys, Justin Tuggle, wore a tie to church so he could actually say a prayer in the services. After looking over the pamplets that the church wanted us to pass out, we decided that it would be better for us just to door knock without the pamplets...boy did this go over wrong. After a series of meetings with the elders about doctrine, we were asked to go home, thats right they ex-communicated us. We along with the entire ACU community was now ex-communicated from their church and we even signed an agreement knowing that we weren't welcome there anymore. I think that's exactly what Jesus would have done in that situation...yeah right.

Well anyway, after some phone calls we were picked up by a great church just a few cities away and we had a fabulous time. That trip turned out to be one of my most faith building experiences of my college career and I couldn't have been blessed with better people to accompany me on this great journey.

3 comments:

ewall said...

oh my goodness that is a whole lot of memories wrapped in to one! kenli losing her memory, wow, that was seriously unbelievable--she still wanted to go to sing song practice every night, we were like, why?? you won't remember what you learned! and you remember the shout out email she sent out in that state? oh my goodness--funny now, but definitely not then!

and y'all's boston fiasco. Lord have mercy on my soul. remember how we also went to boston and almost sent our campaign to a church part of the boston movement? i don't think spring break campaigns go there anymore.

changing the world, aren't we? :) love you kat and all your stories

Kenli Shea said...

That is better. You know that is the best story ever.

JENNY said...

I love that memory. I don't think I have ever cried or laughed so much in one week. Man, that brings back a lot of good memories!

Love you.

Do you remember Melin farting the entire trip?